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Make it Sing! Online Winter 2026

02/12/2026 06:00 PM - 03/26/2026 09:00 PM CT

Category

Class

Admission

  • $375.00

Location

Online

Summary

Thursdays
Six Sessions
via Zoom, 6-9 pm Central
Feb 12, 19, 26, March 5, 12, 19, 26

Description

Make It Sing: Using Music and Songs in Plays

with Jenny Magnus

In this course, we will explore the use of music and songs in plays.  We will consider classical Musical Theater strategies, as well as more experimental forms.  You do not need to write music to take this class or think about these ideas, but if you do, great!  We will unpack the way song can drive narrative and character development, set the scene or mood, and how music and sound create space and environment on stage.  We will explore how to communicate with and work with collaborators who write music to find the right sound for your piece.  With prompts that open up the possibilities of lyric writing, you will make your own original work based on your interests, receiving feedback and driving towards a draft of a show or a collection of songs.  

Jenny Magnus, a Chicago Dramatists Resident Playwright, is a writer, performer, composer, musician, director, and teacher who is a founding co-Artistic Director of the Curious Theater Branch, an all-original theater company, now in its 36th year.  She is the author/creator of plays that have been produced at Steppenwolf Theater, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Atheneum Theater, Prop Thtr, and on tour throughout America and Europe.   Her collection of performative work, Observations of an Orchestrated Catastrophe: 9 Plays and Performances, was published in 2014 by JackLeg Press, and was reprinted in 2021.   She has released 14 albums of music and is currently to be seen drumming and singing in the cabaret/rock and roll band The Crooked Mouth, who just released The Times We’ll Have, their 4th album.
 

Instructors send out Zoom invites before class begins. 

 

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