Author Topic: PROMPT BOOKS - using both script and libretto  (Read 5894 times)

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SMwags11

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PROMPT BOOKS - using both script and libretto
« on: Feb 16, 2011, 01:51 pm »
Hi there,

I have started work on our university's production of The Wiz.

The lighting and LED screen designers is wanting to use the score for cues and the sound and scenic designers are both wanting to use the libretto.

Any suggestions on cutting and pasting them together?

Thanks!
Stefanie Wagner

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Re: Prompt Book Help!
« Reply #1 on: Feb 16, 2011, 02:51 pm »
Does a score not exist with the libretto overlaid?

Chris

kiwitechgirl

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Re: Prompt Book Help!
« Reply #2 on: Feb 16, 2011, 06:56 pm »
I've used various different methods to do this in the past - presuming you are talking about the practicalities of cutting and pasting script and score together rather than "which bits of which do I need".  There's the scissors-and-glue method, which is not too difficult but not particularly tidy, but my most successful method is to scan the script then feed it through an OCR engine so you have a fully editable e-copy of the script (or ask here on the e-scripts thread - someone may have it!).  Then I scan the score in as pictures and electronically cut-and-paste them together.  You do end up with a massive Word file (last one I did I had to save as three seperate files as it was taking ten minutes to save when it was one document!) but it's easy to manipulate.  I don't put blocking in that book though, there are too many page turns.  Usually I like to have a rough cut done by the time the show starts running in rehearsals so that you can tweak it over the rehearsal runs (adding or subtracting score is usually what I end up doing) and then print it off for tech week.

On_Headset

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Re: PROMPT BOOKS - using both script and libretto
« Reply #3 on: Feb 17, 2011, 02:28 am »
Do you have a condensed score? It's worth asking your librarian/conductor if they have one. (A condensed score for a musical contains the major elements from the score condensed into 2-3 staves, with the libretto included. It's meant to be used by conductors, but it can certainly be called from, or used in reconciling the various departmental notes before you transfer it all into one format or another.)

You might also try and snag a rehearsal score. Not quite as helpful, but if the piano part is complete enough, you should be able to call from it, and it should have lyrics included.

Joshua S.

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Re: PROMPT BOOKS - using both script and libretto
« Reply #4 on: Feb 17, 2011, 01:07 pm »
Usually what you are going to find for musical theatre pieces are condensed scores.  If full scores are available, they usually cost extra to rent.  That's ok though, because a full score would be horrendous to call from (page turns every ten seconds).  I've done this before using the age old scissors and tape method and I've also scanned in the whole script and score and cut and paste as kiwitechgirl suggested.  Doing this all in the computer certainly took longer, but was a lot prettier, so I guess it depends on how nice you want the final product to look.  You may only need the major songs from the score depending on how cue heavy the piece is.  It is also possible that even if the designers are cuing based on the score that you can figure out a way to write those cues so they make sense in the script.  Good luck.  I personally find calling from the score a lot more fun and a lot easier, but I also have a degree in music, so it's certainly a fluent language to me.

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Re: PROMPT BOOKS - using both script and libretto
« Reply #5 on: Feb 17, 2011, 02:18 pm »
a copy of the piano reduction will be the most useful to you, since it is very possible you will need music not in the vocal reduction (there are usually light cues in the midst of dance numbers, for example, but the music for those are not included, or only as "x" bars with no vocals, in the vocal score).

Cut/pasting (literally) works for me - and then I xerox the cut/paste so the page is clean. But that is because I, too, read music and it's easier for me to tie a cue to a note in a measure. Those who don't often make pages of counts (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 in lines, over and over again) and use those for cues within dances or insert/paste those into the libretto for their clean books.

Good luck!

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Re: PROMPT BOOKS - using both script and libretto
« Reply #6 on: Feb 17, 2011, 11:25 pm »
I'm just going to say that I assume when somebody says "score" on here they are talking about the piano/vocal score, not a full orchestral reference score.

SMwags11

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Re: PROMPT BOOKS - using both script and libretto
« Reply #7 on: Feb 18, 2011, 03:09 pm »
Yeah I have a piano score and a libretto.
Unfortunately neither the orchestra score or the piano score has the dialogue overlaid... or I wouldn't be in this dilemma. 
I think I'm going to spend some times with my glue and scissors this weekend to see what I come up with.
I feel like scanning in the score would quite possible give me the biggest headache thusfar.

Thanks everyone for the great help!
-Stefanie

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Re: PROMPT BOOKS - using both script and libretto
« Reply #8 on: Apr 04, 2011, 03:38 pm »
SMWags11,

Your show might have closed by now, but can I ask if I understood you correctly?  Are you saying that the book scenes - the spoken dialogue scenes in between song numbers - were not printed in the piano score?  And that you would have called from the libretto instead - a text document that included all the lyrics and all the spoken dialogue scenes - but some of your designers wanted you to take cues from particular music notes or beats?

What did you end up doing?
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Heath Belden

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riotous