Big 2+1

Below is my Thesis, and research topic, as well as an outline for the presentation that I will be giving at the end of the year.

Research topic for SYP: Talk about Sondheim, his successes and failiures as pertaining to his musicals. Pick two successes, analyze and give evidence as to why they were successful, and the tthird is a flop, why was it a flop? Demonstrate where.
For the presentation have one piece be successful one flop and
then one of your pieces and talk about what you took away from
Sondheim's writing style in making your own musical.
Question: To what extent is linear narration a factor in the
success or failiure of a musical. Thesis: In company, sondheim's
success was based on  the wit of his lyrics and his musical
control of the narrative, and his reactions to diferent
characters. Sweeney Todd  was a success due to it's nature of
storytelling. The audience wants justice for the main character,
but once a line of social behavior (aka canibalism) as been
crossed,  the audience will withdraw, and judges the hero as
villainous. Merrily we roll along flopped on broadway due to
being too sophisticated in its way of storytelling, for an
audience that was used to stereotypical or linear storytelling.
To clarify, Success  in this case, is determined by the number of  performances and revenue.

Annotated Artifacts

Below  is a list of Annotated artifacts, articles, books, videos, and websites, that I will be using to help me conduct research and write my final paper.     
 *** Look I made a hat, by Stephen sondheim. A collection of
Sondheim's librettos, notes, and anecdotes, for his musicals from
1981-2011. This book contains a wealth of information on
lyric-writing.
 Finishing the hat, By Stephen Sondheim. Another excellent
collection of Sondheim librettos, from 1954-1981. This book also
contains overviews of other broadway composers, with Sondheim's
views on their best and worst songs, as well as deconstructions
of these songs to see what makes them effective. The book also
discusses Sondheim's process and goes a little bit into how to
write musicals.
Broadway: The american Musical. (PBS, 2003, narrated by Julie Andrews) A documentary covering Broadway from the Zigfeld
follies of 1908, through Wicked, which came out in 2003. There
isn't much info on composers and their methods, but this is a good crash course in the history and evolution of Broadway musicals.
Writing the broadway musical by Aaaron Frankel, (I have not read
this one yet, and don't know whether it's available
electronically, but I hope it will be useful).
Company, (1995 revival) soundtrack. (One of sondheim's musicals, a good example of creative lyrics, it is analyzed in Finishing the Hat.)
Merrily we roll along, (revival cast, available on Spotify.
(another one of Sondheim's musicals, with some creative and entertaining lyrics, also discussed in-depth in Finishing the Hat.)
 Follies, (the new cast recording). (more creative lyrics in this recording, libretto and lyric analyses for this show are available in Finishing The Hat as well.)
 Making musicals, by Tom Jones, a book published in 1998. A book which covers both the history of Broadway and the process of
writing musicals. Though it does not go as deeply into the
history as Broadway: An American Musical, it has an excellent section on creating your own musicals, including how to find
collaborators and how to avoid writer's block.
Playbill.com. A website with reviews of Broadway shows, news about musical theater festivals, and a free repository of librettos. It may be useful if I wanted to compare the writing styles of various composers.
NYMF (the new york musical theater festival, more info available at nymf.org) A festival  specializing in modern musical theater. The festival tries to promote new composers,
and new works. It may be useful if I wanted to compare Sondheim,
to some modern composers, just breaking into Broadway, to check
whether they're being influenced by him.
The BMI Lehmann-engel musical theater workshop. (Bmi.com) A New-York-based musical theater workshop, specializing in the creation
of musicals  of various lengths, from 10-minute to 1.5-2-hour,
works. This workshop fosters collaboration of lyricists with
book writers  (librettists) and composers. It may be useful in the same way as NYMF, to find out what the modern indie musical theater scene looks like. It also may be a program that I'd want to partake in, in the future, same goes for NYMF.
Listen to this, by Alex ross, A book which covers various composers and musical styles, from bee-bop to bach. I'm not sure whether it contains anything on the broadway musical, but it may be worth a look.
 The Edinburgh Fringe festival, in edinburgh Scotland. (edfringe.com) A very famous festival of musicals, stand-up, and concerts. There's also one in New York. I'm not sure whether the content from these festivals is findable on Youtube, (NYMF's wasn't) but I will look.
"So you want to enter a theater festival, but which one?" (from
the producer's perspective, available from
theproducersperspective.com) A very useful blog entry, featuring an exhaustive list of musical theater festivals around the world.
The Barrington Stage company (barringtonstageco.org) A workshopping environment for Musicals. This lab is famous for
workshopping William Finn's The 25th annual Putnam county
Spelling bee. (A friend of mine knows the director of the stage company, so I may be able to get an interview with her about the workshopping process from a director's point of view.)
There's a musical theater festival in Chicago, (cmtf.org).
There's also a La musical theater festival. (source: musicalwriter.com)
The National Alliance of Musical theater, (namt) has a musical theater festival, ( musicaltheaterwriters.com)., though you need your organization to be a member of the Namt, before you can enter.
Musical writing advice from Steven Schwartz, (creator of wicked,
and pippin): A solid and sensible advice column from Steven Schwartz, covering everything from getting inspiration to being produced. (available from Musical theater writers.com)