By Kathryn Craft
Today’s mad skill comes to us via Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the music and lyrics for one of my favorite musicals, Wicked, based on Gregory Maguire’s bestselling novel of the same name. The show tracks the early life of Elphaba, the girl who is destined to become the Wicked Witch of the West. On an episode of American Songbook at NJPAC (full episode here), Schwartz spoke of including, early on in his musicals, what he calls the “I want” song. I think we novelists can learn something from contemplating the intent of this song, which in this case is the protagonist’s first.
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