Play Us The Music

As lovers of Musical Theatre, we all have our ideas of the most important person in any production. Coral Drouyn talks to four super talented people, without whom the show couldn’t go on.

The Musical Director is that rarest of creatures, a mostly invisible – almost mythical – and usually anonymous creature who holds a whole show together; not only does he / she conduct the orchestra and take auditions, but often works with the composer and takes the singing rehearsals. So, when I got the chance to interview four of our top musical directors, naturally I was excited, particularly since they have over a century of experience between them.

Michael Tyack (or MyTy as he is known in the profession), Peter Casey, Guy Simpson and Kellie Dickerson represent the crème de la crème when it comes to Musical Directors – all four were working on major musicals as we spoke, with Guy conducting The Phantom of The Opera in Istanbul (Turkey) and Kellie working with composer Frank Wildhorn on the early stages of the now-postponed Jekyll and Hyde, while Michael was working with both Kellie on auditions and Peter on Anything Goes.

The first thing that was obvious was that not one of them had set out to do what they are now doing. Somehow fate, and the muses, had other ideas – and steered them towards their true calling. Kellie went to University to study science; Guy and Michael both started law degrees before realising they didn’t belong; Peter was a performer, actually on stage every night in Irene for JC Williamson’s, watching Noel Smith conducting in the pit when it dawned on him that he wanted to be the man with the baton.

So how did they get from there to here, and what does Musical Theatre mean to them?

Michael Tyack was 19 when he came to work as my MD/pianist in a theatre restaurant. He was quite shy, inexperienced, but brilliant at the piano. He had only had one other professional job in music – in the pit for A Little Night Music for Williamson’s. Sondheim is a baptism of fire for a teenage pianist.

“I’m afraid there was no-one musical in my family. It was my next door neighbours that kindled my interest in the piano and taught me to read music at a very young age,” Michael told me. “I started formal lessons at the age of six, so by the time I reached university ageI didn’t feel a great urge to do a music degree. I decided to do Law. That didn’t quite last two years and I realized my only other interest was playing the piano, so I approached JCW, who happened to need someone to play in the pit for A Little Night Music.”

It was only a couple of years before he was musical directing his first show.

“It wasThe 20’s And All That Jazz, a small show that somehow ended up playing at The Maj in Melbourne then touring the capital cities and even doing seasons in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Dubai. That came about through knowing John Diedrich, as I had played for his production of Minnie’s Boys while I was still at high school. We met again when I began with Williamson’s and it all flowed on from there.”

On the other side of the world, in England, Guy Simpson had remarkably similar beginnings.

“There are no musicians in my family. I started playing the piano (by ear) on my granny’s neighbour’s piano when I was nine in my home village in England. My family emigrated to Australia when I was 12. I never considered music to be a possible career, so I started a Law / Economics degree at Sydney University. I had auditioned at the Conservatorium for a piano performance degree and was accepted, and turned it down. I startedthe Law degree and had a call from the Con asking where I was … realised that I really wanted to pursue music and so changed.”

But, at that stage, Musical Theatre wasn’t on the agenda.

“In 4^th year of my degree Richard Gill asked me to audition for an MD job at Marian St Theatre, Killara (now closed). I asked him ‘What is an MD?’ I had no idea of what musical theatre was. I had seen Jesus Christ Superstar and loved it but it didn’t even cross my mind that this was what I would do for a living. I was a very serious pianist.” His first show as MD was a tour of My Fair Lady with the late, great Stuart Wagstaff, before taking over The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It wasn’t a great experience – it was a big show, he was just 23 years old, and he was thrown in the deep end.

“It took a year of travelling overseas and wonderful encouragement from Michael Tyack and Peter Casey to re-introduce me to musical theatre, assisting them on Company and Cats. I then took over as MD on Cats for the Melbourne season in 1987 – this felt like my first major show where I knew what I was doing.”

Already you can see the pattern of how closely connected these special musicians are.

“But my most important show has been The Phantom of The Opera and I am so grateful to Brian Stacey. I was his assistant in 1990 and he really taught me to conduct properly.”

Peter Casey was a country boy from NSW.

“I was brought up in a musical community, which was inspired by my parents’ love of music.  My mother was a singer and my father also sang and played the drums.   My parents organised regular concerts which all of my relatives performed in! – and I soon discovered a great passion for music and singing, in particular, for musicals, which my mother used to take me to, as she shared my love of theatre.  When I was a child my parents gave me a toy piano, which became my connection to the music I loved, and which eventually fuelled my interest in arranging music.” But Peter’s entry into show business was as a singer after the family moved to Melbourne.

“I began appearing as a performer and session singer on television programmes and in 1970 I became a member of the singing group, ‘The Young Australians’, who travelled to Osaka, Japan, as Australia’s representatives at Expo ‘70’.  When I returned to Australia my fascination for arranging and orchestrating led me to seek guidance from some of Australia’s leading arrangers and orchestrators, including Ivan Hutchinson,who was Music Director of Channel 7 in Melbourne, English arranger Johnny Hawker, and Maestro Tommy Tycho, who was an inspiring and generous mentor to me for many years.”

Peter’s first job as Musical Director was Man of La Mancha.

For Kellie it was a similar story.

“There’s a lot of music in my family, but not professional musicians. My father taught guitar and my grandparents ran a music shop in the country city where I grew up. My parents went to a lot of effort to make sure I could have strong musical training by travelling a lot to larger regional conservatoriums. I stopped focusing on music when I was in senior high school as the curriculum didn’t offer any advanced studies in music, being a country high school.

“At Uni I found a whole new world of singers to accompany, Uni revues to arrange for, and of course live performances to listen to. I was playing to the extent that I thought I’d audition for the university as a performance major in music, and if I got in I’d put everything into it for a few years and see how it turned out.

“I do remember the first time I went to a live musical theatre show as part of a school performance troupe trip – it was Guys and Dolls in the Maj in Sydney, with David King conducting, Nancye Hayes as Miss Adelaide and Anthony Warlow as Sky, amongst a stellar cast. I remember looking down from the gods and thinking that the man in the centre of all that wonderful sound had the best job in the world, and I wanted to be there.”

Kellie’s first show in complete charge, after working on a plethora of musicals in short bursts, was Wicked, and her reputation was made.

Of course there were so many questions I wanted their take on, even if they didn’t agree.

Coral: Is it possible that a world hit musical will originate in Australia?

Peter: We have the talent, there’s no question … we are world class, grounded, and never less than 100%.  But it’s a question of finding an altruistic producer – and the right size theatre.

Michael: It’s more likely that someone like Mathew Robinson ,who is super talented (and there are lots of others) will have success on or off Broadway and then bring the show here. We don’t have medium size theatres – 500 to 800 seaters and that’s what you need to really develop new works.”

Kellie: The development process is so long, and every single member of the creative team has to be on the same page. It’s a long-term investment and if we had medium sized theatres, a producer might at least have a chance to break even. We need one in Melbourne and one in Sydney at the very least. Even then it will take years.

Coral: So are we destined to only have small intimate, possibly new, shows, or huge blockbuster revivals that originated elsewhere?

Kellie: We have to acknowledge the good that revivals do. If a million kids see The Lion King, and fall in love with Musical Theatre, that love could last a lifetime and that’s where our future audiences will come from.

Michael: A lot of audiences are suspicious of musicals they don’t know, have never heard. But once you fall in love with Musical Theatre, you’re far more likely to accept the unfamiliar. Going to musicals in the 60s and 70s was easy – you could let it wash over you. There’s much greater risk for everyone, even the audiences, now.

Peter: Someone will come along who takes musicals to the next stage – like Rogers and Hammerstein did with narrative, and Sondheim did after them.

Coral: How important is Sondheim to Musical Theatre? Is he the definitive composer/lyricist of the last fifty years?

Guy: I love Sondheim and as a lyricist – yes. I haven’t done enough but I’m doing West Side Story in a couple of months (for The Production Company) with an orchestra of 31, and I’m very excited.

Kellie: Sondheim has totally changed the face of Musical Theatre, no question about it. His work is so intelligent and that makes some audiences afraid.”

Peter: He has pushed all the boundaries and, most importantly, he has given new composers permission to do that, to be different, to not settle.

Michael: His work is sophisticated, but it’s not dry, like some people think. It’s full of passion and emotion but it needs commitment from everyone including the audience. When we’re young, we think the music and lyrics are beyond us…but Sondheim is a composer you grow into.

Coral: Finally, what’s the Best Thing about being a Musical Director?

Guy summed it up for all of them. There is nothing quite like the power and passion of a pit full of musicians!”

Play us the music, Maestros!

Images (from top): Guy Simpson conducting, Michael Tyack, Guy Simpson, Peter Casey, Kllie Dickerson, Peter Casey conducting and Guy Simpson discussing a score with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Originally published in the May / June 29015 edition of Stage Whispers.