How to Write a Research Paper on a Musical

When you are writing a research paper on a musical there are many things that you have to find out before you can actually sit down and start writing. The first time I attended college, I was a musical theater major. This required me to write a lot of papers on musicals. Because the term musical is decidedly an American term I did a lot of research on American writers. In the early 1900s the term musical was first used in the United States to describe the dance and music phenomenon of Broadway in Manhattan, New York.

There are several things that go into the research of a musical. You don't want to just write a paper about the story. You should want to write about the author a little bit and the times surrounding the story. For example, in Thoroughly Modern Millie we were told the story of young Millie from Kansas who wanted a new life in New York City. The story was based in the 1920s, a time when women were just beginning to enter the workforce. These are the kinds of things that you are going to want to find out.

Doing Research
When doing research there are about topics you will want to investigate. You will want to research the following list of terms. 

1. Who is the writer of the musical or stage play?
2. Who is the lyricist?
3. When was it written?
4. What is the story about?
5. When did it open on Broadway? How long was the run of the show? What theater on Broadway did the musical open at?

After you have found out this information you are going to want to do some deeper research. Find out where the writer was born, what age he was when he wrote the story, and also find out if the story relates in any way to the writers life. Often times you will find that writers subconsciously write about what is affecting them in their lives. Sometimes the similarities are quite interesting and can add a special flare to your paper that most others do not have.