The Marvelous Wonderettes

The Four Marvelous Wonderettes

This production has been one of the defining moments within my professional career since this is the first company outside of a student production that gave me the opportunity to work with a four person cast, hire my own musicians, and fully music direct a show.

I served as both music director and the accompanist for this show, and the rehearsal period was a very short 3 weeks before tech and show week. The first week was solely focused on music and managing the difficult four part splits for the 50’s and 60’s styled songs. To familiarize the cast with singing chords outside of normal triads, we focused on a particular chord each rehearsal and switched parts around to allow the cast to understand where their note fit inside the chord.

Concerning the pit, I had to reduce the pit to a three person combo: piano, bass, and drum kit due to budget and space constraints. There was no written bass part within the score, so I adapted the piano conductor left hand score to be the bass part. Then I used the freed left hand I used Mainstage and played on a secondary keyboard to fill in textural parts with bells, organs, strings and electric pianos.

We were able to extend the life of the show beyond the first weekend at Allerton Mansion by playing at other venues such as The Rose Bowl and Canopy Club, staying flexible with spacing and scheduling. Overall, I am very grateful and blessed to have this opportunity and enjoyed every moment of this show.

Photography by Darrell Hoemann