Dorico Tutorials

Creating Dorico Templates for Musical Theater

Set Up the Players and Layouts

Go to Setup mode and begin by creating the Players who will make up the pit. Add the Instruments held by each Player as you normally would. Additional instruments can easily be added to a Player later as the orchestration develops.

Dorico automatically creates a Full Score Layout and individual Part Layouts as Players are added. Musical theater often requires one or two additional Layouts, such as a Piano/Vocal (otherwise known as a Rehearsal Piano part) Layout, which can eventually be adapted to include material the rehearsal pianist needs to cover that isn’t necessarily present in the pit piano part.

You may also want a Piano/Conductor Layout for the pianist/MD. This can contain the complete score while displaying the non-piano staves at a reduced size, allowing the MD to see what everyone is doing in a more compact layout with fewer page turns.

If a Player is playing more than one instrument, Layout Names can be edited in Setup mode to include the Instrument names the Player will be playing.

Flows

Dorico starts the project with a Flow already in place, so you can set up the first musical number and begin working. Define a meter, give it some bars, set a tempo, and start writing!

When you start working on the next song, create a new Flow in Setup mode.

Setup mode > Properties is the right place to be for Flow management, used for creating, naming, reordering, and managing Players and tacets for each Flow.

Dorico numbers Flows automatically according to their sequence. Later, we’ll use those automatically generated Flow numbers for the boxed ordinal numbers in the score and parts.

The Info Window

File > Project Info (Cmd/Ctrl-I)

The Info window is a metadata repository, and works best for that purpose. Although it also offers the ability to add, rename, and reorder Flows, those operations tend to bog down when done in the Info window.

Project vs. Flow in the Info Window

The Info window always opens to the Project Info screen, with fields containing Project metadata (Title, Composer, Copyright, etc.), while also providing a separate Info screen for each Flow. The Info window therefore contains both Project-level metadata and Flow-level metadata.

Information specific to each musical number—its displayed title, Composer, Lyricist, Arranger, Copyright and optional cast list—can be entered as each Flow is created, copied from Project Info via the Info window, or left blank as needed. The most essential information for each Flow is the Flow Title.

How much information you enter at the Flow level depends on the show. If the same creative team is credited throughout, it may make more sense to display those credits from the Project information and mention them only once. If different numbers have different composers, lyricists, arrangers or copyright information, Dorico provides separate fields for each Flow. We’ll set up the Page Templates so you can use whichever approach the project requires.

Each Flow’s Info screen also has a useful Other Information field, which can be used for a cast list that directors might find very useful.

Set Up the Page Template Sets

Now go to Engrave mode to set up the basic page architecture for the score and parts.

Dorico organizes Page Templates and Flow Headings into Page Template Sets. It’s useful to understand that hierarchy before making any changes: the Page Template Set is the container, and the Page Templates and Flow Headings belong to it.

We’ll create one Set for the Score and another for the Parts. When we’re finished, they’ll look like this:

THEATER SCORE — Page Template Set
│
├── Page Templates
│   ├── First
│   ├── Default
│   └── Gap Top
│
└── Flow Headings
    ├── Default
    └── Tall


THEATER PARTS — Page Template Set
│
├── Page Templates
│   ├── First
│   ├── Default
│   └── Gap Top
│
└── Flow Headings
    ├── Default
    └── Tall

That’s two Page Template Sets containing ten layout assets: six Page Templates and four Flow Headings. It sounds more complicated than it is. Most of these will be copies or adaptations of Dorico’s defaults.

Start at the Template Set level. Create a new Page Template Set (Engrave mode, right panel bottom) based on Dorico’s Default Full Score Set and name it Theater Score. Create another based on the Default Part Set and name it Theater Parts.

If you’ve got the Score Layout open (change the focus Layout via the Layout Selector dropdown at the top of the workspace), choose your new Theater Score Page Template Set to begin editing. Following that, open any one of the Part Layouts to apply and edit your Theater Parts Page Template Set.

We’ll configure the individual Templates inside those Sets next.

Edit the First Page Templates

The First Page Template is the front-page design for each musical number. Later, in Layout Options, we’ll set each new Flow to begin on a new page and use the First Page Template. This gives every number an easily identifiable opening page in both the Full Score and the individual Parts.

Dorico’s default First Page Templates contain Text Frames that use Project tokens to display information stored in Project Info. That’s appropriate for information that identifies the show as a whole. The Project Title, for example, should remain the Project Title.

Musical theater credits can be more variable. One team may have written the entire show, or individual numbers may have different composers, lyricists, arrangers or copyright information. For that reason, we’ll make the credit fields capable of drawing their information from the current Flow.

Edit the appropriate Text Frames in the First Page Templates, replacing the Project-level credit tokens with their Flow equivalents where needed. For example:

{@projectComposer@} becomes {@flowComposer@}

{@projectLyricist@} becomes {@flowLyricist@}

The same principle can be used for Arranger, Copyright and other credits that might change from one musical number to another.

This doesn’t require every Flow to have different credits. If one creative team wrote the entire show, the Flow fields can contain the same information throughout. Dorico’s Copy from Project function makes it easy to populate them from the Project information. But if a particular number has different credits, the Page Template is already set up to display them.

In other words, Project information identifies the show; Flow information can identify the individual musical number. Which information you actually enter at the Flow level depends on the production.

Add the Cast List

If you’re using the Flow’s Other Information field to store a cast list, add a Text Frame beneath the Lyricist field on the left side of both First Page Templates. Shrink the Music Frame vertically to make room for it.

Enter the Flow Other Information token in the new frame:

{@flowotherinfo@}

Now whatever has been entered in Other Information for the current Flow will appear there. If you aren’t using cast lists, this step is optional.

Add the Boxed Musical Number

Add another Text Frame in the upper-right corner of both First Page Templates.

Enter:

{@flownumber@}

This tells Dorico to display the automatically generated number of the current Flow.

Create a new Paragraph Style called Flow Number, using:

• 20 pt type
• 1.5 pt border
• 1.0 pt top padding
• 4.0 pt right padding
• 1.0 pt bottom padding
• 4.0 pt left padding

Apply that Paragraph Style to the Flow Number token.

This produces the familiar boxed Broadway-style ordinal number. Because the number comes from the Flow itself, reordering the Flows later automatically changes the displayed numbers.

Add Flow and Layout Information to the Default Page Templates

For both the Theater Score and Theater Parts Page Template Sets, edit the Default Page Template and add the following tokens to the Text Frame at the top:

{@flownumber@}. {@flowtitle@} - {@layoutName@}

Create the Gap Top Page Templates

Most pages will use the normal Default Page Template. Occasionally, though, you’ll need additional space at the top of a page for dialogue or other material.

In each Page Template Set, make a copy of Default and name it Gap Top.

Edit the new Page Template and drag the top of its Music Frame farther down the page, leaving additional space above the first system.

You may eventually want another version with a larger gap, but there’s no reason to create one until you actually need it.

Create the Tall Flow Headings

Flow Headings are separate from Page Templates. They identify the individual Flows—the musical numbers—and contain the Flow Title, rather than the Project Title.

Each of our Page Template Sets already contains a Default Flow Heading. Make a copy of it and name the copy Tall.

Edit Tall and add a Graphic Frame beneath the Text Frame at the top, giving the Flow Heading additional vertical depth. This provides extra room when a block of text or other material above the first staff would otherwise collide with the normal Flow Heading or music.

Do this in both Sets, giving us a Default and Tall Flow Heading for both Score and Parts.

Our page architecture is now complete:

THEATER SCORE
├── Page Templates
│   ├── First
│   ├── Default
│   └── Gap Top
└── Flow Headings
    ├── Default
    └── Tall

THEATER PARTS
├── Page Templates
│   ├── First
│   ├── Default
│   └── Gap Top
└── Flow Headings
    ├── Default
    └── Tall

Layout Options

Open Layout Options (Opt/Alt-L).

Layout Options are set independently for each Layout, so first make sure the Layout you want to edit is selected in the list on the right.

I. Page Setup — Score

Make sure Full Score is selected in the right-panel Layout List.

a. Page Size

In the far-left panel, select Page Setup > Page Size.

Larger Scores need higher Rastral Size numbers, which are counterintuitively numbered to get larger as the print gets smaller.

Check this number as soon as you have all your Players in the score. Orchestral scores might need a Rastral Size as high as 7.

b. Page Template

This should already show your new Theater Score Page Template Set selected. If it isn’t, select it.

c. Flows

For the Score Layout, select:

1. Always start new page
2. Use ‘First’ page template: Any flow starting at top of the page
3. Show flow headings: For All Flows

The defaults work well for the rest of the options in Page Setup.

d. Staves and Systems

In the Full Score Layout, and your Piano/Conductor and Rehearsal Piano/Vocal Layouts if you have one or both, set:

1. Staff Labels on First System: Full
2. Staff Labels on Subsequent Systems: Abbreviated

The Vertical Spacing section contains a number of powerful options for controlling the appearance of the score, but a full discussion of those is beyond the scope of this article.

For a deeper look at Dorico’s Layout and spacing controls, I highly recommend this tutorial by Dorico’s John Barron:

II. Page Setup — Parts

Options a–c above work well for Parts. For option d:

d. Staves and Systems

1. Staff Labels on First System: None
2. Staff Labels on Subsequent Systems: None

Hopefully the player already knows what instrument he’s playing. If he’s doubling, Dorico will handle instrument-change labeling automatically.

Segues: Sometimes a number needs to continue directly into the next without a page turn. In that case, Flow Heading Overrides are available via Setup mode, making it possible to continue the next Flow on the same page without changing the normal Layout settings for the rest of the show.