Musical Director

This fall, POPs is doing a production of "Ragtime." Auditions have been going on all week, and I've been present at each and everyone. But not in the role of "cast hopeful." No, for this show I am wearing a different hat... they call me, MUSICAL DIRECTOR.

I've spoken with some of you about my new role in this production, and the comments are all eerily similar. "That's great, Rachel... but... what does the musical director DO?"

Well, I'm basically like an assistant director. I get the title of Musical Director, though, because I'll be teaching the music, recruiting musicians, and conducting in the pit for the performances.

So this week, I've been at all of the auditions. The director and I changed the traditional POPs audition format and we've been pleased with the results so far. Tuesday we auditioned adults, last night we saw children, tonight we'll see adults again for an hour and after that we will see our call-backs. We hope to have the priciples cast by Monday.

It's very exciting for me to be on the other side of auditions. I'm enjoying the process and the thought that goes into casting decisions. We'll see if I'm saying the same thing after call-backs tonight, but so far, so good!

As "Ragtime" progresses, I'll give you more updates on what a Musical Director does. In the meantime, I'll shoot anyone who makes me listen to the soundtrack outside of score study!

Journey on...
rmf