I talked with Western Stage musical director Don Dally about his musical training, the give and take of musical theatre directing, key productions he’s directed and the experience of moving out of the orchestra pit into the performance spotlight.

Q - Tell me about your background and training in music and how this got linked to musical theatre.

A - I started playing violin when I was five, and then along the way I found I wanted to play in bands, so I learned brass instruments. I’d do things like sing in choirs. I went for whatever musical experience was available. In about the seventh or eighth grade I took up guitar and that was so much fun that guitar became my main instrument and I gave up violin for a while. When I got into college at Berkeley, I took up violin again.

Don on bottom left in HMS PINAFORE at Carmel Middle School.

Growing up in Carmel Valley, I’d done a little bit of theatre - school plays and that kind of thing. But I always ended up more involved in music. When I graduated from Carmel High School, I went off to do a degree in music at U.C. Berkeley. It was while I was there that I began to get involved with the Western Stage in Salinas. Starting the summer of my freshman year, I used to work vacations. But when I finished at Berkeley, I took a few years off and went to live in France.

Q - Why France?

A - Partly, I guess, because I was actually born there, although we left when I was about two years old. I’d come to a time when I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life. My dad suggested I might want to find out what it was like to be in Europe. I managed to play some music over there, but I wasn’t doing as much as I wanted, so I came back here, got a job teaching strings for Youth Music Monterey and started getting violin gigs, mainly through my brother Dave, who’s a professional violinist.

It was in 1991 that I hooked up again with Western Stage, and I’ve worked there every year since. I started playing in the pit, worked my way up to being musical director for individual shows. Now I’m Resident Music Director, which means I audition and hire musicians.

Before I started working with any other Monterey Peninsula theatres, I did quite a lot of work around San Jose - San Jose Stage. . .City Lights . . . Theatre on San Pedro Square. . . San Jose State, and one show at TheatreWorks.

Then Pacific Rep started doing musicals - so I hooked up with them, including shows at the Outdoor Forest Theatre. Then came BUDDY HOLLY. Stephen Moorer mentioned it when I’d done LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. It sounded like a good thing. I didn’t know it would end up being such a runaway hit. In addition to being musical director I played Buddy’s lead guitarist. Buddy and I became the one-two punch in the show. We did a lot of lead work and all the rock and roll kind of stage antics. It was an amazing experience, after being hidden so much in the orchestra pit, to have people actually walk up to you in the street and say, "We love your show. We’ve seen it five times!"

We took it on to San Jose Stage, and I re-musically directed it - but I could only conduct the opening weekend because of other commitments. It came back to Carmel - then a man from L.A. hired Stephen and me to go do it with a new cast in L.A. and Tucson. Then we moved it up to San Francisco. We played the Post Street Theatre, with what was part of the original Carmel cast and production. After that we revived it in Carmel. But it was a Tribute Concert version - basically BUDDY HOLLY plus more songs minus the actual play script.

Q - What shows have you found were most personally satisfying and fulfilling and why?

A - BUDDY of course was great. I’d played in rock bands, but being up on stage as a performer was something else and very exciting. I also liked JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, and EVITA’s a cool show. EAST OF EDEN was an original adaptation by the Western Stage, and it was done in three parts and each part was about three hours. It's a great story, and then to put it together onstage involved a lot of underscoring and transition music, and there was a live group of musicians onstage in costumes. And then more recently, I did SWEENEY TODD. Sondheim is the best American musical theatre composer today. He could have done symphony or opera or anything else, but he chose to do theatre. You can’t help responding to the sophistication - the way the lyrics are a perfect fit with the music is amazing.

Q - What musical theatre assignments have challenged you the most and why?

SWEENEY TODD The Western Stage photo by Richard Green

A - I think SWEENEY TODD because it is very complex musically. . . The vocal direction of some very tricky harmonies is demanding. It’s almost an opera . . ON THE TOWN at Western Stage was challenging. Bernstein’s music is tricky and having a 27 piece orchestra took some work... BUDDY was pretty challenging too. The show opens with a country group doing "Orange Blossom Special." Having to perform - and musically direct - all those musical styles and genres was challenging. BAT BOY has some pretty hard music - and the script is almost all music. Dealing with that wasn’t easy - using a band that’s only five pieces and yet covering all the different styles demanded by the piece, along with some pretty daunting music for the singers.

Q - Talk about the actual process involved in bringing music and drama to make an opera or a musical play.

A - It’s a kind of give and take process. The Director is responsible for the overall look of the show. His or her overall considerations have to take precedence over the Musical Director’s. If something doesn’t fit the overall feel of the show, you may have to compromise musically. For instance, there are times when a tempo that would be appropriate musically has to be changed for one that is right dramatically.

You almost always rehearse the music first. Singers can’t really act their songs until they know them. What takes longest are the ensemble pieces. You need to teach and then reinforce the number several times. It works differently with different directors. Some know music more than others. Some will take more input from a musical director, some less.

Q - There tends to be a kind of snobbery among some theatre people who dismiss musicals as cash cow crowd pleasers. What’s your reaction to that kind of thinking?

A - First of all, theatre is very expensive, and if some places like Pacific Rep want to do Shakespeare, they are probably going to have to support their Shakespeare with a musical. And there is something to be said for entertainment! People like to go out for the evening and have a good time, and there’s nothing wrong about that.

Not all musicals are fluff either. SWEENEY is very intense, and even BAT BOY makes a commentary on the human condition. The only reason I know anything about the life of Eva Peron is that I worked on EVITA.

Working on a musical is a real education for the participants. Western Stage has its Young Company. Those kids participate and work their way up to main stage productions. They learn discipline - the importance of being on time in a situation where others depend on you. They learn teamwork and responsibility and poise.

Q - In casting a musical is it better to cast a good actor who is not a good singer or a good singer who is a relatively poor actor?

A - Well, directors will want the actor, musical directors will want the singer, but it depends on the nature of the songs. I think an audience can spot a bad singer better than they can spot a bad actor. But there are some songs you can act your way through even if you’re not a very good singer. Listen to the recordings of some of the Tevyes in FIDDLER. Musically, they’re pretty horrible! What you need is someone like Reg Huston, who can act and sing.

Q - Talk about JOHNNY GUITAR.

A - It’s based on an old Joan Crawford movie that’s so serious that it’s funny. The musical (it’s really more a play with songs) is intentionally funny. There’s a four-piece band on stage. Reg Huston is playing Johnny Guitar. Musically it’s not difficult in the sense of songs being tricky, but there’s a fair amount of harmony backup singing, and that takes some time and effort. Having the band on stage is challenging. When you’re in the pit whatever happens, it’s not visible. On stage it has to happen in the context of the action of the show.