In this interview, Kenny Seymour and Tim Kashani discuss how musicians can build successful careers in musical‑theater music departments. They stress the need to be a "triple threat"—capable of copy‑editing, orchestrating, arranging, and vocal arranging—especially during the developmental phase where pay is low but the opportunity to leave a creative imprint is high. They advise aspiring musicians to fall in love with projects and maintain belief in the work they do. Drawing on touring experience, they highlight how the camaraderie formed on the road can translate into a more relaxed, collaborative pit environment, helping balance professionalism with spontaneity. Finally, they address the difficult but necessary personnel decisions, such as replacing a drummer when lateness and reliability threaten the tour’s success, underscoring the importance of leadership and maintaining overall performance standards.
Chapters
I'm a musician and I want to be sitting where Kenny is sitting a couple years from now. What should I be looking for as how I can connect and be happy and give to a project?
Just the same way when, you know, we sit behind the desk and we're auditioning people for a show, you know, we want that triple threat. We want the singer, the actor, the dancer. In the music department, somewhat it's the same. A lot of the hats sometimes have to be worn by the same person. So sometimes the music director has to be the copyist in a reading, and he has to be, you know, the orchestrator, and he has to be the arranger, and he has to do the vocal arrangements. So being familiar with all of those different types of jobs is so beneficial, especially in the developmental process, which eventually kind of puts you in place for the longer haul, for the other development when you get to the regional, and then hopefully, you know, a New York or an international run.
And that's a really good point where you talk about, because let's be honest, at the development phase the money is— let's just say you'd probably be making more handing out flyers in Times Square than you do when you're working on the development phase. But you, you in essence are putting your stamp on that production.
Absolutely. And I mean, at that point you really start to fall in love with the project. There's some projects that you just fall in love with and you're like, you know what, I want to work on this. And you can see it down the line and you have to have somewhat of a belief in the project that you're working on.
What do you do to keep, again, the balance between professional versus spontaneous?
Well, musical theater, anything happens. You know this for a fact. Anything happens. You know, monitors can go out, you know, mics can go, um, I think that my touring background helps because when you tour, when you're on a bus for like 6 hours, a tour bus, and you're bonding with all these musicians and you're all you have, it develops a type of camaraderie. When you bring that type of dynamic into a more structured setting like a Broadway pit or musical theater, it tends to just add a little bit of ease to it as opposed to just going, okay, here we go, let's go from measure 55, okay, here we go, 3, 4, go. There's a little bit of a personality that, you know, you want to bond with people because you're going to be spending a lot of time with these guys. So, you know, have you ever had to release somebody from your— when I was touring once, yeah, I had to replace a drummer.
And with that, again, without naming any names, what pushed it to that threshold where you had to make that uncomfortable?
When it started to affect the overall tour. You know, latenesses, missing flights, you know, it's—
your rhythm section is a little important to us.
Just a little bit, especially in a pop and R&B setting, you know. The thing that I always say is that music, it is a profession, it is a job, and it can be overlooked sometimes as just being a hobby, but it's a profession and it should be treated that way, same way, you know, you would study anything else. You need to perfect your craft.
