Words by Artistic Director- 2023 NTT Summer Fun Time
The Growth Curves of a Musical
Once the reading sessions yield a mature script, the production team proceeds to the tryout phase, incorporating simple sets and blocking. At that point, potential producers and investors join in. Discussions centering on the production’s direction gradually evolve; questions surface regarding how to balance artistic quality with commercial potential, or whether the show should appeal to mature audiences or to all ages. Slowly but surely, marketing strategies emerge. In the United States, tryouts normally take place outside New York City, in urban settings like Chicago or Boston. If they are successful and producers secure financial support, then a full production follows, along with another large-scale tryout. By this time, critics and the media as well as marketing teams are involved, and tickets are offered to the public as the show is poised to move to Broadway.
The National Taichung Theater launched its Musical Orchard: Research & Exchange program in 2019. Through the import of large-scale international productions, our audience have since become familiar with musicals that are both commercially viable and artistically compelling. The program goes further in nurturing Taiwanese artists' creativity, so the public comes face to face with diverse subject matter on the musical stage. This year, NTT Summer Fun Time offers a total of nine productions, of which seven belong to the genre of musical theater. What makes the lineup so interesting is that they are manifestations of different phases in professional musical theater's production process.
The Corner Salon offers Meet, in a "stage reading" that naturally extends from initial reading sessions. Musical numbers are added in this presentation, expanding the reader's theater into a full-evening event. The complete scripts of Chopped and Chinese Cupid of Hok Khi Temple presented at the Black Box have already been vetted during readers' theater sessions and will be unveiled as studio theater productions. Tropical Angels: A Taiwanese Musical, follows the Broadway development process, having gone through three public reading sessions, one concert and an online English reader's theater and most recently presented at our Playhouse to the ticket-buying public (holding the record of all three shows selling out last year). This summer, Tropical Angels returns to the NTT, gracing the stage of our Grand Theater.
The Playhouse also presents NEXT TO NORMAL—Broadway Rock Musical. This production began its life at a small theater Off-Broadway, later transferring to a mid-size theater on Broadway having garnered numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the eighth time a musical ever to win. This time, Taiwan's own Activa Productions licenses the rights to produce this Broadway musical in Taiwan with the original English book and music, directed and performed by Taiwan's own artists. i WEiRDO The Musical is licensed from a film property, retaining the story and characters but adding new music, book and staging.
The Korean musical The Three Musketeers premiered in 2009, originally licensed from the Czech musical of the same name but with a newly adapted book and staging, transforming this serious drama into an audience-specific crowd-pleaser. This musical's success has since become a stepping stone for many Korean musical theater stars.
We present to you seven musicals based on seven different topics in six different phases during the production process. The NTT not only offers diverse themes in musical theater, but has high hopes that fans of the genre come not only as laymen "watching shows" but also as connoisseurs "appreciating artistry."
In addition, we offer two "theater therapy" works: Half, developed through our Emerging Artists Project, chronicles how a puppeteer—after losing the love of his life—hones his craft in the process of healing; Barrowland Ballet from the United Kingdom introduces a family-fun Tiger Tale as witnessed from a child's eyes, while Playful Tiger is designed especially for autistic children, generating a naturally intimate interactive production that engages with strangers.
All along, NTT Summer Fun Time has been a series devised for audiences of all ages. No matter which phase of life we are in, or what problems we face, we can always enter the theater to heal our souls. Last year, when we set out to plan our forthcoming program, we had no idea when we could resume normal life. Somehow we've prepared a feast for all in this post-pandemic era as we embrace the warmth of the summer sun.
—Joyce Chiou, General and Artistic Director