Acting the Song: Performance Skills for the Musical Theatre

By Tracey Moore and Allison Bergman

Acting the Song offers a contemporary, integrated approach to singing in musicals that results in better-trained, smarter performers everyone wants to work with. In this new, thoroughly updated edition of the paperback, directors and teachers of musical theater will find guidance in developing and leading musical theater elements, classroom workshops, and the world of professional auditions and performances. A companion ebook specifically for studentsincluding actors, singers, or dancerscontains time-tested advice, exercises, and worksheets for all skill levels, with links to additional resources online. Subjects for both versions cover:

Singing and acting terminology
Use of microphones, recording devices, and other technology
Vocal and physical warm-ups, movements, and gestures
Creating a character
Finding subtext, interpreting music and lyrics, and song structure
Collaborating with other actors
Keeping a performance fresh and new
Using social media and online audition sites

Teachers and students alike will appreciate the sections for beginning, intermediate, and advanced performers. Covering all changes to the industry, education, music styles, and audition protocols, everyone involved in musical theater, from new students to working professionals, will benefit from this rich resource.

Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allworth
• Release date: Aug 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781621535232

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Relatively speaking, musical theatre education is a new concept. But more and more college musical theatre programs are starting up every day and now aspiring singers, dancers, and actors can hone their craft in children’s programs, high school classes, summer camps, and intensives. The BFA in music theatre is a popular degree and universities are flooded with applications. Lots of people want to be in the musical theatre, and that’s great: This is a fascinating craft, and it’s wonderful that people want to learn about it, talk about it, practice it, and get better at it.

But there are some misconceptions out there, and many misguided performances. This book was initially written to remedy a particular approach to singing musical theatre songs that seemed old-fashioned and out-of-step with advances that had been made in regular actor training. Better training, it was hoped, would groom smarter actors—the kind that everyone wants to work with. So, these pages speak to those who teach others about musical theater. But in the last ten years since the book was published, the industry changed: Electronics and the ease of digital recording altered how we audition and how we study, and ten more years of shows opened on Broadway that needed to be discussed. Hence, this second edition.

This book is designed to help those who teach music theatre, and we are an assorted bunch: voice teachers, dance instructors, acting faculty, English teachers, communications professors, and pianists. We are coaches, music directors, directors, and choreographers trying to put on a show. We are actors, singers, and dancers ourselves. So whatever your approach—wherever you come from—this book was designed to help you come to a deeper understanding about what’s involved in singing a musical theatre song and to guide you in passing that knowledge along to your students.

To make things easier for both teachers and students, we have created a supplemental Student Companion Ebook. It contains the Worksheets found in these pages as well as sample completed Worksheets (from actual students of this method) to serve as guides. It offers common-sense advice for the students about what to expect as they work their way through this method, and some additional checklists and advice, whether they are auditioning for college or professional theatre. If you are a self-learner using this book outside of a classroom situation, the Student Companion Ebook will give you some extra help.

This book has three parts.

• The Elements: The first section looks separately at the voice, the body, and acting principles.

• The Classroom: The second section integrates these elements on three levels—once for beginning students, once for intermediate students, and once for advanced students. Taken all together, this section provides a curriculum for two or three semesters of in-depth musical theatre workshop classes. The last chapter in this section is dedicated to diagnosing and coaching specific problems.

• Practical Use: The third section moves from the classroom setting to the real world and addresses auditioning, rehearsing, and performing.

This book is full of exercises, teaching suggestions, and Worksheets. (Full-sized, downloadable copies of the Worksheets are a part of the Student Companion Ebook, and are also available on the website SkyhorseSupplements.com. It is suggested that students keep completed Worksheets in a binder for future reference, or with their scripts if they are preparing for a specific role.)

If you’re a performer, you can read the book and do the Worksheets on your own, referencing the Student Companion Ebook for help. If you’re a professional coach, accompanist, music director, or director, this book will offer you some ideas for new things to try in rehearsal. If you’re a teacher, the information in these chapters will help you guide your students toward an authentic, truthful, personal performance that is based in the theatrical traditions of Stanislavski and grounded in the notions of conflict and want, stakes and tactics. The singing adds an extra element to the acting work, but in the same way that Shakespeare’s verse or Mamet’s language or Pinter’s pauses are a part of a character’s reality, the reality of a musical is that the characters will, at some point, break into song. When we act the song, singing is just another given circumstance.

TRACEY’S THANKS

I am indebted to several people in the writing of this book. The last point of the previous paragraph was something that my late acting teacher Charlie Kakatsakis used to say. To him, I owe a debt of gratitude that I am trying to pay forward forever in my own work. It was during his musical theatre workshops, co-taught with Jack Lee, that I first saw how one might become a singing actor.

I am grateful to the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop in New York for letting me eavesdrop while a performer for many several years. Much love goes to the creative composers and lyricists I met there, whose passion for this craft continues to be an inspiration to me. To Ben Krywosz, Roger Ames, Todd London, John Steber, and New Dramatists: The seeds that were sown at the Composer/Librettist Studios bear fruit to this day. Thanks to the staff and students at the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program for many joyous experiences. And finally, a deep debt of gratitude goes to the late Rob Jaffee and to Michael Fields for wonderful summers spent at CSSSA.

I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Allison Bergman, and the many musical theatre professionals and friends who lent their thoughts to the beginning of each chapter. To my beloved students from Western Kentucky University, who donated their completed Worksheets to the ebook: Y’all are a generous bunch. Thanks to Larry Silverberg for his support, and to Mike Hanes, the first person who ever told me to just go out there and tell the story.

Andrea Weinreb and Clay Zambo, I love you, dear friends. Love and thanks to Doug Hall, Thom Goff, Carl Danielsen, Sam Sakarian, Cal Pritner, and Judylee Vivier, and to all my students, from whom I learn something every time they get up to sing.

ALLISON’S THANKS

My theatre training began when I was five and still continues today. It is a lifelong journey for me, and it has taken many twists, each one guided by generous mentors and masters of their craft. As a performer, a director, a writer, and an educator, mastering the principles of theatrically viable storytelling remains at the core of it all.

I am in gratitude to many teachers and institutions. In particular, to Dorothy Barrett at the American National Academy of Performing Arts, to Kate Fitzmaurice, Al Rossi, and Fred Fate at Los Angeles Theatre Academy, to Tim Nicholson, Don Beaman, and Susan Tsu at Boston University, and Greg Lehane, Mladen Kiselov, and Milan Stitt at Carnegie Mellon.

The artists I have had the fortune to collaborate with professionally continue to teach me so much of this craft and my role in it. Thank you to Kevin Kaufman, at Broadway on Sunset, Holly Addy, Charles Bloom, Sharleen Cooper Cohen, Iris Dart, and, in memoriam, Shirley Hillard: All writers and composers who continue to reinvent musical theatre. Much applause for the many actors and singers who have walked along with me, and to my students for challenging me to become a better teacher every day. And a standing ovation to Tracey Moore for inviting me to walk with her on this road.

Finally, I would like to share with you the inspiring words spoken to me by my very first acting teacher, Francis Lederer. On his 100th birthday, he grabbed my arm with so much strength that I found myself drawn to my knees beside his chair. He drew me close and whispered, Learn something new everyday. I can’t think of a better way to put it.

1

THE ELEMENTS

M

usical theatre performance technique is the synthesis of acting, singing, and dancing. Many performers are able to execute each of those skills independently with great expertise, however, the integration of the craft is what makes the song sing and what connects the audience to the performance. I have great respect for performers in our field. The required skills are constantly being expanded. Performing musical theatre is akin to Shakespeare, ballet, or opera. An incredible amount of focus, energy, and passion go into the preparation and performance of this unique musical art.

—PAULA KALUSTIAN

THE ELEMENTS: OVERVIEW

The three main elements that make up musical theatre—singing, dancing, acting—subdivide into things like kinesthetic awareness, emotional connection, resonance, action, and so on. Each of those fundamentals divides further into the essentials of vibration, breath, balance, alignment, imagination, sensitivity, impulse, and more. Ultimately, musical theatre performers are responsible for integrating the voice, the body, and acting technique (with all the sublevels of detail) into a complete performance. But integration—about which there is much to say!—comes later. First, let’s examine each element separately.

This section’s chapters are entitled Voice, Body, and Acting, but they are by no means comprehensive. Because musical theatre teachers come from widely different backgrounds, the intention is to provide an overview and a common vocabulary for those reading this book. So, even if you’re an accomplished acting teacher, you might want to check out the Acting chapter to be sure that the definition of action used in this book is the same as the one you use.

Of course you will bring your talents and strengths to what is offered here. Perhaps you already have ways of working that are effective and time-tested. Our goal is to give you some new ideas to enhance your teaching, not to overrule it. If, after reading, you find that you’d like to investigate an area further, Suggested Reading lists are provided at the end of each chapter.

A Word about Language

Throughout this book, the terms actor, singer, performer, he, she, they, and student will be used interchangeably. In the Audition Chapter, students may also be referred to as auditionees, and in the Rehearsal and Performance Chapters, they’ll be cast members.

Musical Theatre Hierarchy

Tradition holds that there is a hierarchy of events in musical theatre: speak, sing, dance. These are like rungs on a ladder, lifting the performer and the audience higher and higher. To begin, the actors speak to each other. Those are the dialogue scenes. Then, as emotions are heightened, the stakes are raised, conflict and the dramatic moment are intensified, the characters move to a higher plane. They can’t stop themselves. They can hold it in no longer: They have to break into song! Finally, when words aren’t enough, the characters throw their whole bodies into the moment, using dance to communicate to each other and to the audience what they want, need, and feel.

The second level, singing, is the level to which this book is dedicated. The hierarchy demands that whenever a character is singing, something is going on that is too big for the spoken word. That is one reason why singing in the musical theatre requires a high level of energy and a deep, personal investment in the situation: What’s going on is big. So don’t allow your students to bring things down to the level of everyday life. What’s happening can’t be casual: Someone is singing.

CHAPTER 1

VOICE

The voice is an extension of the self, so in that respect, trying to train it is a very personal and emotional endeavor. Finding the right teacher to help you can be a daunting task—like finding a psychiatrist, or looking for a perfect life partner. But it’s an important search. The most important thing is to find someone whose opinion you trust and with whom you have a good rapport. The best teachers are not necessarily the best singers, and vice versa. I was lucky to find a teacher who helped me train for singing opera as well as musical theatre. His credo was that singing is an extension of speaking; it’s all about communicating and not only pleasant sounds.

—STEVEN SKYBELL

INTRODUCTION

This section is intended to provide a common vocabulary about singing that will be helpful for future chapters.

It might be necessary to begin with a disclaimer: This is not intended to be a chapter on singing technique. There are already lots of books on this subject, several of which are referenced at the end of this chapter in the Suggested Reading list. Showbiz history is full of stories like the one about George Gershwin telling Ethel Merman never to take a voice lesson because it might change her natural instincts. But for most of us, if you want to sing in the musical theatre, you should be taking private voice lessons. If a teacher isn’t readily available, then ask your choir director or the local music store if they know of a teacher. If you live near a college or university with a music department, they can be good resources to find someone. You can also contact NATS, the National Association for Teachers of Singing, or VASTA, the Voice and Speech Teachers Association, or MTEA, the Music Theatre Educators Alliance for help. CDs, online tutorials, and DVDs should be your last resort since they don’t provide the immediate feedback that a human voice teacher can and singers may develop some bad habits as a result.

Having made this disclaimer and recommendation, it is important to add that sometimes traditional singing teachers (those whose technique comes out of the bel canto tradition¹) may not be aware of, or may be cautious about exploring, the additional vocal requirements for musical theatre singing. Certain techniques like straight tone, belting, speak-singing, and miscellaneous noises are found with great regularity in the musical theatre but less often in classical singing. The best situation is to find someone whose pedagogy is grounded in classical technique but who has an understanding of and appreciation for musical theatre style.

Ideally, the goal for musical theatre performers is to have a voice that is responsive to the song, to the scene partner, to the accompanist, to the circumstances of the show, to the conflict, to the character’s need, and so on. This book is dedicated to helping students learn and practice to be this kind of expressive singer.

EXPRESSIVE SINGING

One challenge for the student is to find a balance between expressive singing and healthy singing. A misconception about musical theatre is that those terms are mutually exclusive. They need not be. The folks who run the Wesley Balk Institute in Minneapolis speak of a continuum that looks like this:

They refer to OOPS as the One and Only Perfect Sound. This is the traditional, pear-shaped, pure-voweled, bel canto sound. It is a beautiful sound, and students should use it often in musical theatre singing.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is UBU. UBU stands for Unusual But Useful. This refers to sounds that are expressive but not necessarily sung. There is a place for these sounds (anything from a grunt to a shout to a Bronx cheer) in the musical theatre, as well. For someone playing the Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music, the student may wish to spend more time near the OOPS end of the continuum. For a song from Into the Woods, a student playing the Witch may want to explore sounds that are more UBU.

The OOPS/UBU philosophy is a way of talking about different sounds without labeling them good or bad for the voice. The continuum suggests that healthy vocal production can exist all the time, no matter what the sound. This model also engages the singer’s imagination: After the funny or unusual sounds have been discovered, they can consider how those might be usable. Finally, the continuum invites flexibility and variety: Students can begin anywhere, stop, go in reverse, or whatever is needed.

Experimentation is a good way to discover how to use these techniques in a healthy way, and that can be encouraged in the musical theatre classroom. In fact, UBU sounds are often discovered while playing.

To utilize the OOPS/UBU paradigm, designate one spot in midair downstage right of the student as OOPS and another on downstage left of the student as UBU. Use your hand like a conductor to indicate various points along the continuum. You can direct students to slide along the continuum, or jump around from place to place. Once you have moved your hand, the student should immediately enact some vocal behavior for each point indicated. In our experience, singers often misunderstand and think that they are supposed to physically move to the spot where you are pointing, while continuing to sing. That is not correct. The goal is for them to move/change vocally, not physically, and they must do so immediately. If you observe that students are stopping to think, push them to do something—anything—rather than getting stuck in their heads.

A word of advice: The UBU end of the spectrum is scary and sometimes embarrassing for the students to embrace. You may need to model it, in order to break the ice. Demonstrate moving between a yodel, cackle, swoop, laugh, cry, squeak, whisper, or monotone, then model pear-shaped tones and perfect vibrato. Or slide gradually from bel canto into plain speech and back again.

This technique will reveal to singers how expressive they can be while using (sort of) the structure of notes and rhythms that are given. Perfect pitches and rhythms are not the main concern here, so let go of that—and your accompanist will need to be flexible. An additional benefit to this exercise is that it will keep students so cognitively busy that certain bad habits will disappear on their own.

This continuum model can be used to delineate all kinds of spectrums: Very light tones can gradually give way to very dark ones, or you can traverse the delicate emotional journey from unsettled to grieving. Subtle acting information and brilliant vocal colors can come from exploring a continuum that seems to be outside a song’s realm or that offers opposition. For example, having the student sing a very sad song while traveling along a continuum from joyful to devastated will reveal a complexity of emotions and vocal qualities—particularly at the midpoint, where joy and devastation are present in equal parts. What an eye-opening exploration for a young artist (and for the students who might be watching in class).

Experimentation and practice will help students learn where their vocal limits are and give them options for healthy and expressive vocalization. Not every sound will be a keeper, but it opens students up to a world of vocal possibilities they may not have thought permissible.

MUSICAL THEATRE STYLE

One of the wonderful things about the musical theatre is that it embraces so many different styles. This year’s Broadway season (2016) includes everything from Gershwin (American in Paris), to Rodgers and Hammerstein (The King and I), to contemporary music theatre (Fun Home), to rap (Hamilton), and Phantom of the Opera continues its unprecedented run. Each of these shows requires a slightly different style of singing.

For singers in the eighties and nineties the question was, To belt or to mix? Now, the question for singers is whether to sing rock/pop or not. But even rock/pop contains multitudes: There are a variety of rock vocal sounds, whether it’s in the style of Janis Joplin, Michael Jackson, Carole King, or Sting, or the folk-rock of Violet or the edgy punk of American Idiot.

As in the case of the belt/mix question of decades past, the answer here may be an individual one. Clearly, the more conversant singers are in these different styles, the more marketable they will be. (These days, performers may also need to play the violin and perform aerial stunts!) But each person has their own strengths, and while not everyone needs to be able to do everything, your students should be aware of the stylistic differences.

Until the early 1960s, musical theatre songs were also our nation’s popular music, performed on the radio, on TV, and at public events. Then that changed, and the divide between pop music and theatre music widened so that there was virtually no crossover: Broadway was seen as old fashioned, and rock ’n’ roll was new. Today, it is inevitable that your students will be more familiar with pop music and pop music style than with Broadway repertoire, although thanks to television shows like Glee and the rebirth of movie musicals (Dreamgirls, Chicago, Into the Woods, Les Misérables, Last Five Years) as well as live-televised versions of The Sound of Music, Peter Pan, and Grease, Broadway may have regained some ground.

Broadway producers are working hard to close the pop music gap, so there are more and more jukebox musicals² like Motown; Rock of Ages; Love, Janis; Ring of Fire; and Jersey Boys on the boards. There has also been support for pop music composers who want to write Broadway shows: Cyndi Lauper’s Kinky Boots (which won a Tony Award in 2014 for best score), David Bowie’s Lazarus, Sting’s The Last Ship, Tori Amos’ The Light Princess, David Byrne and Fat Boy Slim’s Here Lies Love, and, of course, Elton John, who has written several shows. Each of these musicals requires singers to understand and be able to produce different varieties of pop vocals.

To make songs feel newer and more relevant for modern listeners, singers have added riffs,³ similar to what you would hear on the radio: A recent national tour of Les Misérables differed significantly from the original Broadway production in terms of vocal liberties taken by the singers. And vocal styles are not the only way in which Broadway is trying to modernize: Composers have used pop music as a new vocabulary in shows such as In the Heights or Hands on a Hardbody. The Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella script got a rewrite for its most recent Broadway incarnation. Older, classic musicals are being reworked to eliminate some of their cultural stereotypes, and there has been a push for more ethnic diversity (and accuracy) in casting.

The bottom line is this: Even though musical styles have changed (there is a big difference between the vocal styles used in Carousel and Next to Normal, for example), there will always be less embellishment of the musical line in musical theatre than in pop music. So, while students can continue to sing pop music in the way they are accustomed, they may need to learn some new ways of singing in order to handle most Broadway material. Singers don’t need to have operatically trained voices to handle Broadway material, but they do need to be able to produce a clear, supported tone that lands on a pitch with accuracy and can be sustained.

Students may complain that it feels boring to sing without riffing. For some, it may feel as though they are not really participating in the song, or that they are failing to make an artistic statement. Eventually, if you persist in asking for simple, unaffected vocal production, the student’s feeling of But I’m not doing anything! will give way to a discussion about what it means to simply stand there and sing, unprotected and unadorned. Embrace this conversation, because it is an important step toward authentic and personal musical theatre performance.

MICROPHONES

Often, students believe that pop and musical theatre singing are similar because both use microphones. However, there are some substantial differences between the audio engineering for musicals and what happens in the recording studio or at a live pop music performance.

In musicals, microphones are primarily used to enhance volume. Broadway sound engineers simply take the onstage performance and amplify it so that singers can be heard over the orchestra or by those sitting in far-away balconies. The musical theatre voice might be enhanced with a little bit of reverb or some equalization (a method of boosting the high or low frequencies to make a voice sound brighter or darker), but in the main, musical theatre sound engineering expects that the singer’s performance is a finished product ready for audience consumption.

On the other hand, pop singers recording in the studio use all kinds of effects processors that can, depending on how they’re used, greatly alter the quality, timbre, and general sound of the voice. In pop music, these recording and producing techniques become a part of the performance itself. An example would be effects like the aural exciter, or the pitch-shifting function of computerized mixing programs like Pro Tools.

SINGING TERMINOLOGY

While the classical world separates singers into categories such as soprano, mezzo soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, bass, and so on (with further descriptors such as coloratura or dramatic soprano, lyric baritone, helden-tenor, etc.), the Broadway world mostly relies on the simple classifications of soprano, alto/mezzo, tenor, and bass (SATB). You may hear the term baritenor, which refers to a baritone who can sing some higher/tenor notes. In a musical theatre ensemble, there might be harmonic divisions into first or second soprano, or first or second tenor (the first generally has a higher range).

Range

Generally, range refers to the span of notes for each voice type from the lowest to the highest. If you are teaching younger students, be aware that male voices mature a little more slowly than female voices, and that singers’ ranges can change—sometimes significantly—several times during a lifespan.

The following ranges are meant to be a general guideline. Most Broadway songs fall in the middle of these ranges, although you will find that occasionally notes are used outside these ranges—such as the high tenor notes found in Sweeney Todd or the low notes used for Jud in Oklahoma!—for dramatic effect. In general, ensemble/chorus members are required to sing a little higher than musical theatre soloists. In the below examples, the ensemble top note is indicated with parentheses.

A soprano in a chorus might be expected to reach a high B or C, whereas a soprano singing the lead in a musical will probably not sing that high. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, such as Amalia in She Loves Me or Ella/Passionella in The Apple Tree.

Generally, the term alto is used for the ensemble part or singer, and mezzo is used for the lead, or soloist. Mezzos have undergone a lot of change in the last fifty years. In older shows like Annie Get Your Gun, or for Meg in Brigadoon, the assumption was that the singer would belt the notes using primarily chest voice resonance, up to about a C above middle C (C5), and no higher. Singers who belt in this way often have a break between chest resonant tones and head resonant tones.

But after Patti LuPone sang some very high notes in Evita, singers began to belt higher and higher. So, a new style called mix/belt had to be developed to meet those challenges. Currently, the preferred sound for mezzos is a mixed head/chest resonance all across the range with no clear break, with singers making vowel or placement changes to add more chest or head resonance to the sound, as desired.

So, for the alto/mezzo, there are two ranges shown. The first shows the older belt range, with the optional, higher belt or belt/mix note called for by contemporary musical theatre material shown in parentheses. The second range shown is for the alto in the ensemble, or more legit range (see explanation of legit, below).

These are general ranges for your male singers. The male falsetto voice range isn’t shown, but this can often go quite high and there are roles, such as Mary Sunshine in Chicago, that will call for these notes.

Range is also determined by timbre, color of the voice, or vocal quality. A voice that is heavier, darker, or deeper sounding is an alto, while a voice that is lighter and brighter is probably a soprano. Similar words are used to describe the distinction between baritones (darker) and tenors (lighter). Musical theatre vernacular has coined the term baritenor for a male who sits between categories. This voice type has both a rich quality on low notes and access to higher notes.

Type

Type can also play a role in determining voice category. Type is shorthand for the idea of stereotype, particularly as used in casting (i.e., typecasting), and is similar to the operatic term "fach."⁴

Broadway is notorious for its use of types, and show music reflects that. If you are having trouble determining whether a student is a mezzo or soprano, it might be helpful to consider whether she is likely to be cast in older, Golden-Age musicals in ingénue or female romantic lead roles (typically sung by sopranos) or as the older, sexier, or more comedic characters (typically sung by altos). For contemporary musicals, the types are a bit narrower: female singers are mostly working in a mix/belt sound now, regardless of whether they are sopranos or altos, so casting is less defined by range than by other considerations such as physical type or essence.

There is nothing wrong with helping a student to stretch outside her type (teachers should encourage this exploration, particularly in classroom and workshop settings), but you will often find—particularly among younger students—that a light, lyric soprano who is drawn to belty sexy, comic material may end up frustrated because the material is incompatible with her voice.

Singing outside of type can be problematic when it comes to auditions and casting. It can be difficult if not impossible for directors to see beyond wrong song choices when they are casting, and it might make an actor seem ill-informed (see the Audition Chapter for more information).

Tessitura

Deciding whether a student should sing baritone or tenor material can also be a question of tessitura, which is an Italian word that describes the neighborhood in which most of a song’s notes reside. A song for a man that has a high tessitura requires that the singer spend a lot of time at the top of his range. Although a baritone might have the capability to reach high notes when they are sprinkled throughout the song, it is more difficult for a baritone to go up high and stay there for prolonged periods. In that case, the song might be better served by a tenor, who won’t have to work as hard to hit those higher notes and, therefore, will have more stamina for the song’s duration.

While it can be very exciting to hear a baritone or alto singing at the top of his or her range, your decision about whether the song is a healthy choice might be helped by research into the kinds of voices that have traditionally sung this song. You can check the Broadway cast albums to find the singer and then research that person, or investigate solo albums by Broadway performers. (Make sure the songs are in the original show key.)

It’s your judgment call whether stamina for a song will be developed with practice, or whether the tessitura is simply beyond the capabilities of a young singer’s voice. In general, it is better for students to be very comfortable with the technical demands of their songs so they are free to focus on other things, like acting. In addition, insecurity about notes can create trauma for the student that will lead to bad habits (throat strain, worry, physical tension, or gripping) as well as limiting beliefs (I can’t ever hit high notes, I always run out of breath, "This song is too hard for