Teaching Musical Theatre: The Essential Handbook
Original price was: CAD $155.CAD $68Current price is: CAD $68.
Need a little help taking your musical theatre classes to the next level?
Introducing Teaching Musical Theatre: The Essential Handbook, a 70-page eBook (PDF Download) packed with 16 ready-to-go lesson plans that will turn your young performers into musical theatre triple-threats!
This book is the highly anticipated follow-up to Teaching Drama: The Essential Handbook which has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide.
Whether you’re a new or experienced teacher, this resource will give you the tools you need to build your kids into incredible musical theatre actors…guaranteed!
With this eBook you’ll receive:
- A semester’s worth of cumulative lessons perfect for students age 7-14.
- Notes on how to introduce musical theatre concepts in a way kids will instantly absorb.
- Tips and tools on easy ways to transition between activities and lessons.
- A guide on how to plan a performance at the end of the semester.
- Downloadable Music Cues to bring the material to life.
- Useful reflection and journaling exercises after every lesson.
A note from author Denver Casado:
The goal of this book is to provide you with specific tools and lesson plans to help you build a solid foundation and effectively train and develop the actors in your musical theatre program.
It can be easy to get lost in the fun and games of musical theatre because, let’s face it, musicals are fun! But it’s important to make sure that when teaching musical theatre, every activity is working towards building necessary skills that will help your actors be successful onstage. It’s incredible what young performers can accomplish when they are given the right goals and guidance.
Similar to Teaching Drama: The Essential Handbook, the layout of this resource is meant to recreate the experience of being “in the classroom” observing an expert teacher introduce these concepts to a beginning class of students.
The first 11 lessons are focused on the exploration and discovery of the skills necessary to be a great musical theatre actor (singing, dancing, acting). The last 5 lessons are focused on helping students integrate those skills into a fun and effective performance.
These lessons can be used in parallel with specific songs and scenes you are rehearsing (for a musical or cabaret), or they can be used as the backbone of a general musical theatre class.
I hope you enjoy what I think are the best activities for introducing your students to the world of musical theatre!
Below are just a few of the topics covered:
- What is musical theatre?. Students will explore the origin of musical theatre and the shows that have defined the genre.
- Storytelling in Musicals. Students will learn about the “emotional staircase” and how it’s the basis of storytelling in musical theatre.
- Music in Musicals. Students will develop an understanding of how music is used to convey character and emotion, and how that understanding can help strengthen and inform their acting choices.
- Singing Musical Theatre. Students will develop an understanding of proper singing technique and how to use their voice to captivate an audience.
- Dance and Movement. Students will learn how dance and movement contribute to musical storytelling and become familiar with basic choreography.
- Acting the Song. Students will understand the importance of “acting a song” as opposed to just “performing a song”, and learn how to give nuanced, compelling performances.
- And much more!
Get even more!
When you purchase this eBook, you get much more than just lesson plans.
The following bonus material comes with every download:
BONUS #1: Music Cues ($20 Value)
Since these are musical theatre lessons, we thought it would be helpful to include some music! That’s why we’re giving you 23 downloadable MP3s that will help you bring the musical activities to life. It’s like having a virtual accompanist! Throughout the book you’ll see notes about when to play each track. Some of the tracks are fully orchestrated examples from our catalogue of musicals, and others are piano-only created specifically for this book (including 8 vocal warm-ups). You can download the cues separately, or simply click the embedded links within the lessons to play from your smartphone…easy! (You can preview a track here.)
BONUS #2: “My Treehouse” Sheet Music & Backing Track ($15 Value)
Also included is a musical theatre song that students can use to practice the skills they’re developing. This song, from the musical The Most Epic Birthday Party Ever, is a perfect solo number to help kids develop their skill of “acting a song”. The lessons will guide you through how to best introduce the song and ways to get your students to connect with it. We’ve included the lead sheet, lyric sheet, piano-vocal sheet music, vocal track, and accompaniment (backing) track. For your convenience, these files are integrated into the Handbook and Music Cues.
BONUS #3: Drama Games for Kids eBook ($30 Value)
And finally, as an added bonus you’ll receive our popular Drama Games for Kids eBook for FREE ($20 value)! It’s our gift to you. The Drama Games for Kids eBook contains every drama game and article on our popular drama games blog (over 111 games) in a printable PDF document (118-pages). You’ll never run out of things to do in the classroom.
A Resource You Can Trust
For nearly a decade author DENVER CASADO has worked as an arts educator with New York City’s leading theatre organizations including Disney Theatricals, New York City Center and Young Audiences New York. Denver’s innovative approach to exploring theatre with kids has earned him invitations to speak at the national conferences of the American Association of Community Theatre and the American Alliance for Theatre Education. In 2011 he was honored with the All Stars Projects’ Phyllis Hyman award, in recognition of his important contribution to the creative growth and development of young people in the NYC community. Denver is a graduate of New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.
Get your copy today.
It shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg to get the tools you need to plan an incredible semester of theatre. Professional development workshops with Beat by Beat educators can cost up to $1,000 a day. Other drama teaching resources on the internet charge $37/month subscription fees that total over $440 a year.
Teaching Musical Theatre: The Essential Handbook, an entire semester of theatre activities planned for you, can be downloaded instantly for a fraction of that price.
Click the link below to download your copy today!
At Beat by Beat, we’re passionate about raising the bar on the quality of resources that are available for young actors…and you’ll find this book to be no exception. Over 30,000 people a month visit the Beat by Beat website, discovering tools and resources which have brought joy to teachers and creativity to young actors around the world.
You have our personal guarantee that if you aren’t completely satisfied, if you don’t love this monologue book and use it all the time, call or email us within 30 days and we’ll refund every penny immediately.
Teaching Musical Theatre: The Essential Handbook:
✓ 70-page eBook with 16 Lesson Plans ($50 Value)
✓ BONUS #1: 23 Professional Music Cues ($20 Value)
✓ BONUS #2: “My Treehouse” Sheet Music & Tracks ($15 Value)
✓ BONUS #3: Drama Games for Kids eBook ($30 Value)
✓ Instant download
✓ A lifetime license to print/copy for personal classroom use
Total Value: $115.00
L.T.C. –
Excellent resource.
I run a performing arts school and am using this book for my beginning and intermediate musical theatre classes. The kids are LOVING the activities! They are so clearly written and each one has a purpose. And the best part is I can see the students starting to think deeper about acting in a musical. This has saved me so many hours of planning!
Cory –
Quality.
The first few chapters are pretty good and I can definitely see these as usable in a classroom. I tried this book based on the Contemporary scenes book from the same publisher. They’re both quality resources for a music teacher turned theatre and music teacher. The book is sequential and goes through what musical theatre is to how to act a song. I recommend it for those interested in teaching musical theatre as a unit or as a club. I’m going to try to use it while I direct the school musical.
Kayla King –
Saved me!
This book was so helpful when I found out last minute that I was teaching a musical theatre elective! Granted, it’s all geared toward a big performance and I’m not doing that. I wish there were more show cards (brief history/synopsis of signifant broadway shows).
Sally C. –
I started teaching 2 years ago after being an actress here in the UK for 20 years and I have to say that you guys have been invaluable to me. I was able to purchase your Teaching Drama to Little Ones book and the Teaching Drama Handbook and they were like a safety net that gave me the confidence to begin.
I am now 2 weeks into teaching Musical Theatre and I will give you one guess which publication is seeing me through my first term.
I want to say thank you so very much and bloody well done!