UC Irvine

Since the establishment of the American music theater in the early 20th century, much has changed; not only the style and form of a piece, but also the performance techniques – especially as they relate to music direction. Gone are the days of a conductor standing on the podium, baton in hand– the music director has now taken up the role of pianist, vocal coach, programmer, arranger, orchestrator and more in addition to conductor. With the rise of wide-spread access to music technology, the days of 36-piece orchestras have morphed into an amalgamation of chamber group/rhythm section, driven primarily by the music director at a MIDI keyboard. Beyond even the MIDI programming, click tracks and other technological advancements have radically changed the way musicals are performed. The Prom, with a book by Chad Beguelin and Bob Martin, music by Matthew Sklar and lyrics by Beguelin, is a behemoth piece of music theater that blends aspects of old and new works in the canon, demanding well-rounded performances on all fronts. As the music director of UCI’s production of The Prom, I was faced with learning and understanding the score, reducing the orchestrations and creating a new band book, teaching the cast, programming three MIDI keyboard books and a click track, and running performances through conducting, cueing, playing, clicking, counting, waiting, vamping, cutting, listening, watching, and all other manner of verbs. This thesis documents the culmination of a year’s worth of work on this production from show selection committee meetings as early as January 2023 to performances in June 2024, using score excerpts and recordings to highlight how a music director’s work changes throughout the process to appropriately support the production.