Musical Supervisors -- Broadway's (Apparently) "Little Known" Geniuses

Last week I bristled when a theater journalist referred to the Musical Supervisor of a Broadway show as a "Little Known" job.

As far back as Irving Berlin -- who could famously only play in the key of G-flat and relied very heavily on a Musical, we'll call it: Secretary -- Musical Supervisors have been the heros of what we think of as Broadway scores, even if most people don't bother to understand the credit or their great legacy as the people who turns songs into theater.

Every show is different. On a revival, in the case of a deceased author, the Musical Supervisor is the author designee to the production and has some heavy lifting to do, not only administratively, but also creatively.

But, consider the jukebox musicals of the 2000s/2010s and you have a clearer idea of what a Musical Supervisor may do, creatively. While some Music Supervisors translate recordings to a cast and orchestra, adding musical material to get a script in and out of a catalog for a show like Mamma Mia, some have to create an entirely new musical vocabulary for the music itself. Take Stephen Oremus' brilliant reinvention of the Elvis catalog into the score for All Shook Up. His "Can't Help Falling In Love"? C/mon. That's musical theater at its absolute most brilliant. It has THREE back-to-back stop time concepts. I mean.

Both take a remarkable skillset.

I'm a product of the Rosie O'Donnell Broadway years -- and her show was my entry to Broadway. There where very few days of my middle/high school years that I didn't rush home from school to sit on the end of my parents' bed enraptured by the sheer joy that Broadway brought her.

Take the Musical Supervisors of those days:

• Starting with John McDaniel (her musical director) and his work on the Original Broadway Production of Grease. He managed to capture what decades of musical lovers loved about the movie score, while allowing it to burst from the stage with new arrangements, new dance arrangement, and new vocal arrangements. He wasn't credited as the production's Musical Supervisor, but listen to album and you immediately hear, fall for, and understand what a Musical Supervisor contributes to a Broadway score.
• Andrew Lippa not only added the brilliant My New Philosophy and Beethoven's Day to You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown assisting Kristin Chenoweth in securing her first Tony win and cementing her as an American Sweetheart, but his arrangement of Supper Time did the same for Roger Bart. Yes, they BOTH won Tony AND Drama Desk Awards for the 1997 Broadway Production of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown... no doubt, at least in part, because of their bring-the-house-down numbers. Give the original opening number and his reworking of it back-to-back listens and you'll see that Andrew's genius gave modern audiences an immediate way into the world of the 47-year-old characters.
• Most songs on the radio are in one key. Most impactful musical theater songs have a key changes into the final chorus. "Lily's Eyes", one of the most beloved duets in the entire canon, takes an absolutely captivating tour through FIVE different keys, mostly undetectable to the lay ear, demonstrating the absolute mathematical brilliance of The Secret Garden's arranger Michael Kosarin whose contributions to the score are far more indelible than his just credited production-specific "Vocal Arrangements."
• Paul Bogaev wasn't called Music Supervisor for his work on Aida, instead being referred to as Music Producer, but compare the Concept Album to the Cast Album and you, once again, have a crystal clear example of just how influential these musical talents truly are not just at delivering the score 8 times a week, but getting it to the stage in the first place.

There are so many more examples from those years (Alex Lacamoire's 2001 Godspell Tour arrangements!), these are just the ones that I think of off the top of my head from my formative years.

It isn't lost on me that all my examples are of men and I don't like that either. That time gave us amazing and formidable women conductors/music directors like Kristin Blodgette, Kim Krigsby, Linda Twine, and Yolonda Segovia and, now, thanks to the amazing work of organizations like Maestra, we're seeing more and more women not just executing scores nightly, but being involved in the creation of them at all stages too.

I can't wait for a high schooler, falling in love with the work of Nadia DiGiallonardo, Carmel Dean, and Andrea Grody, to write about them this way in 25 years.