>I just spied your Web page and read over your bio-credentials
and
>was wondering if you might be willing to spare a moment to
offer some
>advice and information. I am soon getting out of school, and
am looking
>for work; the work you're doing seems like it may be something
I might do
>in the future, in some capacity. I'm wondering if you might
give my
>resume a quick once-over and tell me where I might go from
here, as I
>think the skills are there, it's the information that's lacking.
>And thanks again! Any advice, or leads, or just plain
ole insight that
>you could spare (or spare me from finding out!?!) would be
of interest.
A.G. (of Mississippi)
Rarely a day goes by where I don't find myself thinking, "You know, if I could really really answer that question, where would I be?" Mr. G's question is just one of many that I get that I can only answer from my experience, or from my witness of what has worked or happened with others.
So, to AG's question: how does one become a musical director/conductor? As with any work in the arts, there's no pat answer, no direct, easy route to the jobs. If you've got the chops and some reasonable credits anything that makes you visible to the people who hire musical directors can be your ticket in.
My first break as a musical director came while I was still in college and the dean was asked for recommendations for musical directors for an off-off-Broadway festival of musicals; I had been musical directing amateur and non-Equity productions in the 'burbs and was an obvious choice. And, temporarily luckily for me, the project I was working on actually moved to another venue for an open run (I say "temporarily" because the show only ran another few weeks).
Following that I played auditions for everything and did a lot of non-Equity productions. I was assistant musical director on a big budget attempted revival of Jesus Christ Superstar that lost so much money its twenty-something producers fled the country.
And then I was called in to interview for the musical director slot in a new off-Broadway production, a show I was already scheduled to play the auditions for. And although I was not selected to musical direct, in the midst of auditions when the writers found their choice of musical director was not on their same wavelength they immediately turned to me to take over. And I remained involved with the show (as well as other shows by the same team) for a number of successful years.
You never know what will get you in the front door. For example, few people know that one of the foremost teachers and writers about the Macintosh computer, David Pogue, was the musical director/conductor of a number of Broadway and off-Broadway shows, including Kander and Ebb's Flora, the Red Menace, and Cy Coleman's Welcome to the Club. Mr. Pogue had spent his life preparing to do this kind of work, graduating summa cum laude for his music studies at Yale. But it wasn't until his affinity for and knowledge of music software and the Mac in general got him rubbing noses with and teaching the musical theatre's hoi polloi that his career as a musical director took off. (Eventually the computing end overwhelmed the theatre end, but that's a different story.)
As I said at the start, there's no easy or direct route. Getting yourself seen and, more importantly, heard is the bottom line.
C U @ the theatre!
Originally published at Suite101.com Theatre, 3/10/98
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