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  • 1.  librettos

    Posted 02-04-2016 07:56

    I am doing a musical theatre unit with one of my classes and I want to find librettos. I want the students to read the musicals as they work on their character development.

    The sheet music and vocal selections are fairly easy to find, but there are many librettos that we don't own. Does anyone have a good resource? Librettos for purchase seem to be much harder to find than scripts.

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    David Tate Hastings
    Drama Teacher / Kansas Thespians Co-Chapter Director
    Olathe Public Schools
    Olathe KS
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  • 2.  RE: librettos

    Posted 02-04-2016 09:05

    Samuel French has some for purchase. I'm pretty sure that's where I've gotten most of mine. They have both little and well known options.  :)

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    Shira Schwartz
    Chandler Unified School District
    Chandler AZ

    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: librettos

    Posted 02-04-2016 14:37

    Unless you're searching through slightly dubious sources where folks have scanned the entire libretto/book into file sharing sources (highly illegal, methinks, and a terrible example to set to our students), then one should probably seek who the license holder is for the musical you're looking for, and seek to purchase from the license holder directly...though having not done this myself, not sure if that can be done.

    Usually it seems that publically available librettos tend to be 'selections from...' rather than the whole musical. But I would trust that Shira is right when she says she was able to purchase the libretto from Samuel French if it's available.

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    Phillip Goodchild
    Theatre Arts Instructor/Assistant Department Head of English
    Ruskin FL

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: librettos

    Posted 02-05-2016 08:00

    You might check with the Drama Book Shop in NYC and see what they have on the shelf. I'd have a list of ideas when I call.  Or better yet, go to NYC on a shopping/show trip!

    The Drama Book Shop, Inc. | Tools and Resources for Theatre, Film, Video and the Performing Arts

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    The Drama Book Shop, Inc. | Tools and Resources for Theatre, Film, Video and the Performing Arts
    GREETINGS Thank you for visiting our website. Please follow us on Twitter: @dramabookshop. January 25, 2016: We are open regular business hours. IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Our website uses a shared database and many of our most popular items are not yet listed here.
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    John Perry
    Drama Instructor
    Atherton High School
    Louisville KY

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: librettos

    Posted 02-05-2016 22:20

    Librettos should be readily available to purchase for most works from publishing houses such as:

    Samuel French (samuelfrench.com)
    Dramatists Play Service (dramatists.com)

    However, the Big 4 musical licensing houses generally do not publish - they represent the grand rights to license the Work. This would generally apply to:

    Theatrical Rights Worldwide (theatricalrights.com)
    Music Theatre Int'l (mtishows.com)
    Rodgers & Hammerstein (rhh.com)
    Tams Witmark (tamswitmark.com)
     
    That doesn't necessarily mean that the librettos rep'd by the Big 4 aren't published: but in most cases only the most popular (meaning an independent publisher can see a return on investment through sales) enjoy that status (or sometimes the works of one author may be published in a volume).
     
    If you do a search at Drama Book Shop, for example, you'll see a selection of independently published librettos in addition to the SF & DPS librettos that the store sells. But you'll also get all of the opera libretti mixed in with those search results.
     
    (From this advanced search page, I used the word 'libretto' in the description blank and hit 'search.' Results from independent publishers gave titles such as Rent, In the Heights, Pal Joey, A Chorus Line, Passing Strange, Into the Woods, 13, Avenue Q, etc.
     
    Many of the librettos (listed above) are published by Applause Theater & Cinema Books which appears to have been usurped by Hal Leonard. Mentioning because it may be easier to it may be easier to write a PO to Hal Leonard than Drama Book Shop.
     
    Applause nee Hal Leonard (halleonardbooks.com)
     
    And, of course, similar results are produced by searching the term 'libretto' at Amazon if you want to put the mom & pop specialized sellers out of business.
     
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    Michael McDonough
    New York NY

    Original Message