Beating Broadway: How to Create Stories for Musicals That Get Standing Ovations

by Steve Cuden

BEYOND THE MIDPOINT Coming out of the midpoint (and intermission), and proceeding through the second half of the second movement, ought to result in a slowly devolving sea of troubles that will, with time, come to a point in which all seems impossibly impassable. The hero’s situation will eventually turn grim. Both the hero and the audience will come to an understanding that the hero may not be able to prevail. The slippery slope becomes ever slipperier. All will begin to seem lost. It will be a deeply distressing period of time for the protagonist. This can result in a loss of job, love, marriage, family, status, faith, possessions, etc. Lives could be at stake. Whatever it is, it looms large in the protagonist’s life. Despite increasingly long odds against success, the hero continues trudging across the tundra that is the second half of the story’s second movement. The protagonist’s goal may be tantalizingly within sight—and yet it seems as far away as ever. He is not quite there yet. And then things get much worse as the hero heads toward what appears to be the end of the line for his quest—a cliff over sharp rocks and crocodiles. The end of the story’s second movement leads into potential catastrophe. As the old saw goes, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”