By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor
“It’s hip again,” said Michael Wartofsky, a Berklee professor and composer. He was referring to musical theater, the long-established yet sometimes underappreciated art form, which combines music, song, dance, and dialogue. Wartofsky attributed much of musical theater’s current popularity with recent high-profile movie musicals like Chicago, Sweeney Todd, and yes, love it or hate it, High School Musical. Musical theater at Berklee is “growing in leaps and bounds, and it’s very exciting.” 
Wartofsky is one of several committed, talented professors who have led the way in advocating for greater musical theater resources at the college. In addition to Wartofsky, professors and administrators such as Jeri Sykes, Sharon Brown, Amy Merrill, Rebecca Perricone, Jack Perricone, Camille Colatosti, Ron Savage, and Larry Simpson have played an important role in expanding the opportunities for students to explore musical theater studies both inside and outside of the classroom.
In total, Berklee offers fifteen courses related to theater spanning a variety of disciplines, which correlates to the multifaceted, collaborative nature of the form. Whether you are interested in performing onstage, playing in the pit orchestra, writing the libretto for a show, composing the songs and score, or directing, the course offerings at Berklee enable students to study what interests them most about musical theater.
Wartofsky teaches two levels of musical theater writing. By offering these specialized courses, Berklee is “one of a kind. There is nowhere else I am aware of where you can study musical theater writing at the undergraduate level.”
Musical Theater Writing 1 concerns the basics of songwriting for character and plot. Students adapt a scene from a play into a musical number. Wartofsky has used Arthur Miller’s dark family drama, A View from the Bridge, as well as Tennessee Williams’ Rose Tattoo as dramatic material for students to analyze and then adapt. Students also analyze musical theater repertoire, including Sweeney Todd, The Full Monty, and The Color Purple. Students pair up, and all of the songwriting is collaborative.
In Musical Theater Writing 2 students conceive of a full-length musical but are only required to write high points of their show, which do not necessarily have to follow the sequence of the plot. “It’s more of a workshop atmosphere,” he said. Students bring in the progress of their musicals and subject them to peer critiques and suggestions. Wartofsky is diligent in creating an atmosphere where students feel comfortable in having their hard work critiqued. He has a strict policy requiring students to provide positive feedback first, then constructive criticism second. “He’s very organized. He’s a great teacher,” said Justin Bohr, who has completed Musical Theater Writing 1 and is currently developing a musical in Musical Theater Writing 2 with collaborator, William June. In both levels, work-study vocalists rehearse and perform the assigned songs so that composers can hear their material, a process that takes the songs out of the composer’s head and more into the realm of theater.
It’s Wartofsky’s dream that students will continue developing the musicals they conceive in his class. He hopes the next generation of great musicals may include one developed at Berklee. It’s easy for students and Wartofsky alike to dream big when many important names in the musical theater world are alumni. Larry O’Keefe, who penned the recent Broadway hit Legally Blonde, was a classmate of Wartofsky’s both at Berklee and Harvard in the early 90s. Stephen Bray, the co-lyricist and co-composer of The Color Purple, graduated from Berklee in 1982. Stephens Oremus studied film scoring at Berklee before he became a top music director, orchestrator, and arranger for shows such as Wicked, Avenue Q, and High Fidelity. Alex Lackamoire, class of ’95, won a Tony award this past summer for co-orchestrating best musical winner, In the Heights.
The enthusiasm and talent of the students interested in musical theater thrill Wartofsky. One of several stand-out students is songwriting major, Nick Connell, who is the president of the musical theater club, music director for Musical Theater 2, and music director for a recent reading of Warkfosky’s own musical, The Navigator. “It’s like he was born to do musical theater,” said Wartofksy.
As president and vice-president of the club, Connell and Nick Olof organized and developed Schwartzmania last spring in the cafe, which was a fully orchestrated and choreographed revue of songs from famed Wicked, Pippin, and Prince of Egypt composer, Stephen Schwartz. Recently, they performed South Park: the Musical. With the support of Sharon Brown, they are producing Adam Guettal’s complex, operatic musical, Light in the Piazza, an ambitious undertaking given that many seasoned Broadway professionals find it challenging to perform. The vitality of the club certainly contributes to musical theater culture at Berklee.
Light in the Piazza is one of several events produced for the newly developed Berklee musical theater season. Peter Cokkinnias’s Broadway orchestra ensemble will join with Sharon Brown’s musical theater vocal class for a Sondheim revue to be performed at the BPC. Cokkinnias and Brown are also producing Jason Robert Brown’s acclaimed musical, Parade for this spring, again using the musicians and performers in their respective classes. In addition, CWP professor, Kevin Bleau’s body swap musical, If You Want My Body will be performed at Berklee in late January.
A reading of The Navigator on November 24 kicked off the season. Wartofsky wrote the music and score to the musical. Utah native Kathleen Cahill wrote the book and lyrics. Students from Berklee and Boston Conservatory performed the reading to a packed house at David Friend Recital Hall. The story concerns the New England historical figure, Nathanial Bowditch, an early 19th century navigation expert, former indentured servant, and seafarer. Wartofsky and Cahill wanted to write a musical that was “inspiring and entertaining, not an educational piece and not a history pageant.” Time travel and progressive gender politics figure prominently in the story. “We’ve incorporated time travel because that’s what genius is: the ability to have a vision for the future, for the world’s potential, for our own individual potential.”
Wartofsky and Cahill have been working on The Navigator since 2005, and Wartofsky expects the writing process to continue for at least another two years. Wartofsky said that the average musical takes seven years to write. He has found Berklee’s support to be integral in developing the musical. He was awarded the Faculty Fellowship Grant to work on it. “Berklee is so well set up for developing new musicals because of all the talent we have here.”
Wartofsky has unique insights into the difficulty of making it in the musical theater world as a composer. “You can’t make a living, but you can make a killing,” he laughed. He insisted that aspiring composers must have a profound love for their craft in order to withstand the hardships and rejection they face in the industry.
He also insisted that, “No one can do this alone.” Collaborative teams are responsible for all of the great musicals, and networking plays an important role in establishing the creative partnerships that generate successful musicals. Luckily, “there is a really supportive network of theater writers, and in general people want each other to succeed.” Due to the hard work of students, faculty, and administrators, Berklee is a place for the next generation of musical theater performers, orchestrators, arrangers, librettists, and composers to learn, network, and create.
