Drama Musicals

Michael Kunze explains:

“The mean­ing of the term musi­cal has become much too broad. We may talk about a musi­cal revue, a Broad­way com­edy, an Amer­i­can operetta, a the­atri­cal play with music, or even a series of musi­cal num­bers with­out any con­nec­tive story.”

“My musi­cals won’t fit any of these cat­e­gories – so I call them Drama Musi­cals. I pre­fer to avoid the label musi­cal altogether.”

“Drama Musi­cals com­pare to movies. The entire cre­ative team has only one goal in mind – how to best tell the story. Noth­ing else will be con­sid­ered if it won’t serve this purpose.”

“Even the most beau­ti­ful music, oth­er­wise spec­tac­u­lar effects or breath-taking dance moves will be dis­missed — if they don’t con­tribute to the over­all qual­ity of the story.”

“Due to the lack of exist­ing mod­els, I’ve devel­oped my very own story struc­ture with key scenes and lead motives in a three-act set­ting. In that and other aspects, I acknowl­edge the strong influ­ence of my New York teacher, Robert McKee — a mas­ter in the field of story theory.”

“Just like any other musi­cal, the Drama Musi­cal aims to enter­tain and enrich its audi­ence. I trust the cri­tique of the col­lec­tive the­ater pub­lic. If they are bored – I’ve failed.”

“Ide­ally, after attend­ing one of my shows, the fans take some­thing away in their hearts. I’d like to inspire their thoughts and emo­tions with insights for their more mun­dane every­day lives. How­ever, I am not the teacher – the story is.”

In this short video, Michael Kunze explains the con­cept of a drama musical…