In recent years many musicians from other areas of the industry have been making the transition into music theatre. Whether they are looking for a change of pace, more steady work or income, theatre seems to be a safe haven for original artists.
From here writers entered a new territory of Jukebox musicals. Songs were pre-written and already popular, they just needed a story line. We Will Rock You (Queen), Mama Mia (ABBA), Jersey Boys (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons) and Rock of Ages (80s music) all followed this trend. Usually these shows came out to give the lagging artists a revival, so how does that work for a recent act such as Green Day and their American Idiot Broadway show?
U2 also jumped on the band wagon writing the music for the infamous Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark and Justin Burford (The Sleepy Jackson, End of Fashion, Rock of Ages) arriving from the rock scene. That’s not including the straight actors who decide to try out singing (eg. Kate Kendall from the Matt Frank/Dean Bryant production of Next to Normal)
With all these people arriving in music theatre from other genres, it is good that their celebrity is lending cred to the ‘daggy’ repuation of music theatre, but at the same time it invalidates the need for tertiary theatre schools and the expensive fees to attend them.
To gain positions as a professional music director formal education in music is still expected in order to know the music shorthand trained instrumental musicians use, discern skills when recruiting a band and to knowledgeably review, edit and lead from a conductors score. The music director is expected to sight read and play an instrument proficiently themselves, most likely piano.
Melbourne Theatre Company is the oldest professional theatre company in Australia, producing over 750 plays and musicals since 1953. Founded as the Union Theatre Repertory Company, MTC focused on plays until recently.
MTC prides itself on it’s educational programs for artists starting out, as well as the amount of jobs it provides for mid-career artists. For ways that MTC supports the arts community, and therefore might support you go to http://www.mtc.com.au/about/template.aspx?id=7478. This program is what allowed Mathew Frank to become a name in music directing.
Every year as well as over 20 debut actors, MTC employs seasoned professionals recognisable from Australian theatre, TV and movies (as
well as the world famous, including Geoffrey Rush), to help mentor the actors performing with them.
Hopefully MTC will continue to support artists on and off the stage for many years to come.
I originally met Mathew Frank when I was asked to fill in for him at one of his jobs as a accompanist/Musical Director at Centerstage. Centerstage is a performing arts institution that runs music theatre, dance, drama and acrobatics classes for children ages 3 and above through to ShowFit, a full time, one year music theatre course for those 18 and over.
Centerstage was started in 1991 by Ian and Leanne White as a small school and now has over 500 students with many alumni going on to work in
professional theatre, television and movies.
As a Music Director with ShowFit, Matt played piano for performance workshops and ran performance classes. Earlier this year he was asked to MD Next To Normal and therefore had to leave his duties at ShowFit for some time.
As a professional musician in Melbourne, a key requirement is to juggle multiple jobs and opportunities. While you are teaching at 3 schools you might also be playing piano for a number of different companies, musically directing a show, playing in the band for a performance run and writing original material in your spare time. Being able to diversify your activities and skills seems to be the only way to continue working as an arts professional.
In January 2011, Matt Frank was the MD for the Young Australian Broadway Chorus (YABC) production of Spring Awakening. This production was the Melbourne premier and received rave reviews from the Melbourne theatre community. Based on a banned German 1891 play about teenagers discovering hardship and sexuality before their parents deem them ready, Spring Awakening uses modern words (titles of songs include “The B**** of Living” and “Totally F***ed”) and a modern rock score combined with olden style dialogue and dress.
New musicals are now dealing with edgy themes and lyrics that you would expect to hear in more a punk, metal, rap or hard rock song. This is attracting new younger audiences that are taking time to look deeper into the appeal of musicials, instead of disregarding them as uncool.
Part of the appeal of the YABC performance was teenagers playing teenagers. The closeness of the experiences brought a raw energy to the performance that I found totally compelling, and as with all musicals, the music direction played a huge part in communicating the story.
The YABC started in 1995 and is now an extensive after school course for 8-18 year olds. Previous students have performed professionally on stage (The Boy from Oz, Fame), in movies (Charlotte’s Web, Hating Alison Ashley), on TV (Blue Healers, City Homicide) and many other performances.
Following on from their success with Prodigal, Bryant and Frank wrote the all-female three-in-one show, Virgins: A Musical Threesome. The first act, The Virgin Wars, trails cheerleaders promoting abstinence followed by Girl On The Screen, a story about a journalist asked to investigate woman running porn sites. The final act, Jumpin’ The Q, sees asylum seekers competing in a reality TV singing contest for Australian citizenship.
Expanding on their success with Prodigal and Virgins, Bryant and Frank wrote Once We Lived Here, a story of a family clinging to their farm in the outback.
One notable thing about Bryant and Frank is these three shows have all featured names that went on to become stars in Australian theatre, from Verity Hunt-Ballad (Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins) to Esther Hannaford (Penny Pingleton in Hairspray), to Trevor Ashley (Edna Turnblad in Hairspray).
The Adelaide Cabaret Festival is the largest cabaret festival in the world, with over 48 000 people attending annually. Started in 2001, the festival continues to grow and promote cabaret acts from around the world.
Matt and Dean’s first musical was titled Prodigal, a story about a country boy coming out, which premiered at Midsumma in 2000. Following that it was performed at the New York Music Theatre Festival. This year it has undertaken a return season at Midsumma.
Midsumma is the Annual Melbourne Queer Festival held every year since 1988 for three weeks in January and February. Considered one of the top 5 gay and lesbian festivals in the world, Midsumma utilizes over 70 venues to perform and display events and activities such as:
visual art
theatre
spoken word
cabaret
film
live music
sport
social and political forums and debates
All of these events somehow relate back to the queer community either by their subject matter or personnel.
Midsumma was first proposed in 1986 by the Victorian AIDS Council as a celebration in the face of the worst years of AIDS. By 1988 Midsumma had imported a festival organiser from Sydney to plan the first festival. Throughout the 90s Midsumma struggled to stay afloat, but by 1995 corporate sponsorship had arrived and allowed the festival to continue.
The New York Music Theatre Festival started in 2004 as a way to promote new talent in light of the fact that shows were running for well over a decade on Broadway. With rising prices and more new musicals written per year than ever before, a read-though which would have received attention 50 years ago was drifting into obscurity. NYMF became the launching pad for shows such as [title of show], Altar Boyz and Next to Normal to gain worldwide recognition.
Both of these festivals are extremely important to encouraging new artist work, not just as writers, but as performers as well.
Bryant & Frank continue a long tradition of musical partnerships. In the 1940s and 1950s Rodgers and Hammerstein (Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II) wrote a large collection of shows such as Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. These shows are still performed frequently today. Rodgers also collaborated with Lorenz Hart writing over 20 musicals together, though none reached the heights of his shows with Hammerstein.
Other famous song writing teams in theatre include:
One of the first tertiary institutions to offer a music theatre course in Australia was the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, commonly known as WAAPA. It was here that Matthew Frank was first given the opportunity to work in a music
department on a musical.
Entering WAAPA as a composition student with a basic training on Organ and wanting to become an on-stage performer, Matt gravitated toward working as rehearsal pianist and learning the ropes of becoming a Music Director.
Now many tertiary institutions around the country offer courses in music theatre including:
As well as many tafe colleges such as Box Hill, and private collages such as APO Danceworld and Showfit who offer Certificate and Diploma courses in Victoria.
As this stage there is no official training path to become a music director. Music directors come from many disciplines and backgrounds, but the dominant professional music directors usually have a background and training as a piano accompanist.
With an interest in Music Theatre, when asked to investigate a ‘Global Musician’ based in Melbourne, my thoughts turned to who in theatre has had experience overseas. First to mind is Guy Simpson, who is the worldwide music supervisor for Phantom of the Opera. When I met Guy, who at the time was slated to Musically Direct Rock of Ages as a carry on from being the MD for the Australian Premier of We Will Rock You, for an interview, he was auditioning for Love Never Dies and flying to Europe in a few days to audition for another production of Phantom. Guy’s commitments didn’t allow him to continue as MD for Rock of Ages, but he is currently in Melbourne for Love Never Dies.
Another option on my list was Kellie Dickenson, the MD for Dr Zhivago. Unfortunately they are now in Sydney.
Andrew Patterson is another MD living in Melbourne with some international success. While he is currently Assistant Music Director for Rock of Ages, his original show Eurobeat has had success overseas.
My final option was Matthew Frank. Matt was recently the MD for MTC’s Next to Normal and has previously had two shows run off-Broadway. Matt was kind enough to agree to give an interview about his work and experiences, so you’ll be hearing more about him in coming weeks.
Meliki, at 22, is a full time musician. She has forged an original sound fusing the familiarity of all that has come before with a fresh, contemporary perspective. Her training as a jazz and classical multi-instrumentalist, varied live experience backing other artists and performing her own material has led her to combine rhythms collected from around the globe with popular music making for a new musical blend of folk-pop with rootsy world influences.
meliki.wordpress.com 