What’s in the Rhymes Over Beats’ Pipeline?
But we have more in development that we want to tell you about. This week we’re sharing about our working with an established hip hop artist from the ground up to create a musical. It’s his first time writing a musical, and we’re so excited to be a part of it.
The artist is Masta Ace. At our benefit last year he spoke about the process of writing a new musical from his point of view.
Our point of view is that we provide all the support necessary for each of our artists to create good work, and to be successful going forward.
And good work starts with a good script.
The first step that happens at Rhymes Over Beats Theater Collective is to review the script with our Associate Artistic Director Cate Cammarata. Because she is hands-on and in the trenches working with each of our projects, I thought I would invite Cate to guest post this week.
Working on New Play Development at Rhymes Over Beats: Cate Cammarata
As the Associate Artistic Director of Rhymes Over Beats and as a producer/director/dramaturg, I talk a lot about theater. And write about theater. And work with writers who write plays for theater.
I’ve never worked with a hip hop artist before, however. And what I’ve come to understand is that every good rap artist is a writer, a poet, a wordsmith. Especially Masta Ace.
What a talented writer! One of the very first things he told me is that he had been wanting to write a musical for a few years, but didn’t know how to start or where to begin.
Then he was introduced to Rhymes Over Beats – and as they say, the rest is history….
Now it’s one thing to want to write a musical, but it’s a whole different thing to actually sit down and WRITE one, especially if you’ve never written one before.
Although Masta Ace is an innate storyteller with a story line that runs through his albums somewhat similar to a play with music, in musicals the lyrics push the story forward as part of the action instead of putting the listener into a certain mood, or telling a story, as is done in popular music. Also, there is a traditional musical theater structure that almost all successful musicals, even Hamilton, follow. This one needed to follow it too.
That’s where I come in.
Enter the Dramaturg
A dramaturg is a person on the creative team who works with the writer to develop the script, and then sometimes moves on to help develop the production as well. Ace and I set to work last year to loosely adapt some ideas from his album A Long Hot Summer into a musical.
After a year of intense work, we are getting close to finishing. Writing a musical is a lot harder than it sounds, but more fun than you could ever imagine.
I admire Masta Ace immensely. Like many good writers he is disciplined and writes a little every day. He has a sense of the dramatic arc of a story that were easily adapted into a tightly constructed plot. He creates the world he knows on the stage – Brooklyn in the 1980’s – and populates it with real characters that are driven by real desires, with unexpected plot twists.
And the music! We’re now creating the music, and it is so exciting to see this come to life. We can’t wait to share this with you and the world.
Are You Interested in Writing a Play or Musical?
I love what I do. Rhymes Over Beats has also created a developmental program called RAP (Resident Artist Program) where we are looking for new voices in theater.
Are you a writer? Do you have an idea for a script?
Next week, we’ll share about another piece we’re working on that is somewhere between a revival and a total new creation. Stay tuned!