Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Using the ALSUP document format for Music Theatre Productions

In Music Theatre, an ALSUP (Another Libretto Score User Production) guide is a single PDF document that combines a musical's libretto with the show's songs in a single, "easy to use" digital performance package. In the past, (directors, performers, musicians, etc.) of Broadway-type Musicals commonly used two major (printed) documents, a libretto (script, stage directions and lyrics) and a music score (sheet music for the actors/singers and/or musicians) when mounting a new music theatre work. Much of today's licensed collateral is dated and inefficient. The format for an ALSUP performance package was created to take advantage of the functionality and the universal adoption of electronic PDF documents while eliminating the needless duplication of hardcopies for the various personnel involved in a music theater production.

An ALSUP (Another Libretto Score User Production) Document
The new standard was recently adopted and used in New York City at the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity for the production of WYSIWYG the Musical and the show was awarded the prestigious Greener Planet Award for it's holistic process and approach. PCTF is the country's first eco-friendly arts festival, providing green marketing and promotional materials and supporting sustainable design production practices.

An ALSUP formatted music theatre document uses graphic icons to link the various parts of a musical's performance package. A TOC (table of contents) icon is provided for a show's "Scenes & Songs" and a User icon for it's "Actors/Characters". The Song icon is used to navigate to a song's sheet music while the Libretto icon is used to link to the script/book. The music notation includes links to the corresponding libretto pages and vice versa from the libretto to the sheet music. Streaming audio links and QR codes are available for rehearsals and/or live online performances directly from the ALSUP document. Here's a link to the award winning ALSUP (Another Libretto Score User Production) download folder used to prepare the WYSIWYG show for the festival mentioned above.