Is The Art Of Acting Different In Musicals Or Plays?

I am a firm believer any student of acting needs to be as versatile in as many performance techniques as possible. I believe all actors would say they have preferences when it comes to styles or genres of scripts, nevertheless, when starting out or possibly even deep into an actor’s career they must be flexible to perform as cast: Not only to pay the bills, but to grow as a performer. In Acting in Musicals, Mr. Jory attempts to answer an often debated question “Is the art of acting different in musicals and plays?” This is a very important subject for acting teachers; should we as professionals leave out a large lucrative portion of the professional acting roles simply because we prefer straight plays over musicals or worse don’t have
the confidence or lack the skills to teach/direct it? Mr. Jory uses his normal humorous way of discussing, what could be the topic of many a heated discussion, and bluntly answers the question in the second paragraph: “Obviously, musical actors need more skills, and more skills are harder than fewer skills right?”, if only it was so simple. He continues to argue both sides of the thought, giving equal treatment to both sides, pointing out the advantages and disadvantages. I particularly like his equating the songs of musicals to the poetic speeches of the classics of Shakespeare, however, he takes the singing portion off the table quickly, I would assume to level the argument playing field. Jory is quick to point out when looking at the book of the musical and the script of a play both actors need to focus on the same three things: “Belief in the circumstances and situation, the playing of objectives, clearly telling the scenes story.” As acting teachers, we need our students to focus on the actions of the characters they are portraying, either performing in a musical or straight play we have to instill these good habits to propel our student’s performances.
The author is quick to give a “However” paragraph, explaining how musicals are often performed in larger houses. As a rule, I would say yes, but I have performed musicals in smaller than 100 seats, and non-musicals in over 1500 seat venues. I would say his point for needing to act larger in larger venues is a wash. I do agree though that we are too eager to mic our student performers, it really is a disservice to mic them rather than teach them to
project. The author digresses into an interesting aside in the middle of the article which in my opinion could have led to an article in itself: How people leave a musical humming the music, not the dialogue. As Officer Lockstock from Urine Town states: “You're too young to understand it now, but nothing can kill a show like too much exposition.” even spoken with a musical accompaniment. Whereas I would wager no one remembers the songs from Othello, if they are not cut outright. When speaking of a musical Jory describes: “Dialogue is an important connective tissue and moves story forward, but it is neither heart nor soul.” Dialogue is used to push the story forward. Near the end of the Article, Jory lists two attributes which I cover here together, distinctiveness and size.
In a musical everything has to be, as he states it “bigger than life” if you are a comedic character you have to be funnier faster, whatever “type” you are, choices you make toward character has to be gotten across much faster. An actor does not have hours of dialogue to create a connection with an audience, the connection has to be made quickly; some main roles might have a tiny number of lines and one song to create the mood of the role. The Governor from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas comes to mind. One scene, one song and maybe fifteen lines, that isn’t a lot of time for character development, but if you have seen the show and the part was played well you get a strong indication of the character and remember the song, it is a catchy tune after all. In closing; as a theatre teacher, I feel it our job to give our students as large a foundation as possible to continue a career. The bricks of storytelling are the same between a straight play and a musical, however as Mr. Jory puts it the actor that will flourish in this larger than life environment has a personality that is hard to teach in school, they will be able to occupy the larger scale of everything musical easier than
most.