on May 25th, 2008Music Director
I’m fairly active in musical theater in the Bay Area. I lead the Board of Directors at Altarena Playhouse, the Bay Area’s oldest continuously-operating community theater (founded 1938), and I have served as Music Director for many productions there. You will probably find photos of me in that capacity on Altarena’s web site.
I’ve also served as Music Director for the Haste Street Players and the Custom Made Theatre Company in San Francisco, where I music directed the 2007 production of Assassins that was chosen as a “Top 10 Bay Area production” by TalkinBroadway.com and recommended by the SF Bay Guardian as a “Notable Theater Production of 2007″
Theater History and Practice
I recently gave a talk at the RAD Lab that included a brief overview of the history of this indigenous American form, its role in commenting on and presenting American cultural identity, and what it takes to get a musical “from the page to the stage” (i.e. the production process).
Slides will be posted here soon.
Music Director’s Cheat Sheet
I’m also continuously working on a book, So They Talked You Into Being Music Director, about how to Music Direct a community show, including a lot of things they don’t teach you in school, even if you have a music degree.
You can view most of it online here, but if you’d like to get your own copy, please PayPal me (fox@alum.mit.edu) as follows:
- Printable PDF – $10.00
- Ebook compatible with most readers (Kindle, Kindle for iPad, Kindle for Mac/Windows, Sony, Nook, Android, etc.) – $10.00
- Hardcopy mailed to you – $20.00 (please be sure to enter a shipping address when you PayPal me).
Bear in mind it’s a work in progress, so there are some gaps (the PDF/ebook/hardcopy content will be a bit more developed than the online content at any given time). The price will probably go up when it’s done.
My Music Director Gigs
Music Director: Assassins, Bye Bye Birdie, Cabaret, Chicago, Company, Guys & Dolls, Gypsy, The Last Five Years, Man of La Mancha, The Man Who Saved Christmas, Merrily We Roll Along, Spelling Bee, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, Oh My Godmother!
Original Orchestrations: Oh My Godmother!, The Man Who Saved Christmas.
Original Reductions for Small Theater Pits: Gypsy, Man of La Mancha, Merrily We Roll Along, Oklahoma!
Assistant Music Director and/or Arranger for Oklahoma! (Contra Costa Civic Theater 1998), and I’ve played the piano or piano/conductor books for A Chorus Line, Cabaret, Grease, Into the Woods, Joseph…Dreamcoat, and I’m intimately familiar with many, many more.
