#91: Broadway Conductor: David Loud: "A Strange Thing to be Grateful for"
This week on the podcast I'm talking with Broadway Musical Director and Conductor, David Loud. David tells me about his 34 years on Broadway, the magic of theatre and music "in the room" with someone. He talks to me about working with some of the best, including Stephen Sondheim. And how rewarding the teaching he's doing now is.
David tells me about the energy of being in the middle of everything while conducting on Broadway, and how the best collaborating happens when everyone makes the same show. We talk a lot about being grateful during the hardest things in life and David tells me about being diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and the peace he has found since. David is releasing his memoir Facing the Music in February 2022 be sure to check that out.
Great, special chat this week.
Music by Guustuuv
This episode was sponsored by Him&Her
About Facing the Music:
https://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/Facing-the-Music/David-Loud/9781682451915
FACING THE MUSIC
By David Loud
"Beautifully written, filled with vivid details, braided with
love and loss and wit and the perspective of someone with
an utterly unique story to tell."
-- Lynn Ahrens, lyricist
(Ragtime, Seussical, A Man of No Importance)
Experience Broadway musicals from a new perspective – from the
conductor’s podium.
David Loud occupies a unique place in Broadway history. In addition
to his distinguished career as one of Broadway’s most respected music
directors, he originated three Broadway roles as an actor, including his
appearance in the original cast of Stephen Sondheim’s legendary failure
(and cult classic) Merrily We Roll Along, directed by Harold Prince. In a
career spanning several decades, he served as music director for the original
Broadway productions of Ragtime, Curtains, Sondheim on Sondheim, The
Visit, The Scottsboro Boys, and Steel Pier, as well as revivals of She Loves Me,
Sweeney Todd, Company, and Porgy and Bess. And he appeared alongside
Zoe Caldwell and Audra McDonald in Terrence McNally’s Tony-winning
play, Master Class.
FACING THE MUSIC is David Loud’s poignant and hilarious memoir
of his extraordinary adventures conducting Broadway shows, rubbing
shoulders with John Kander, Fred Ebb, Audra McDonald, Stephen
Sondheim, Harold Prince, Angela Lansbury, Chita Rivera, Roger Rees, Zoe
Caldwell, Marin Mazzie, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Garth Drabinsky, and
Barbara Cook, among others.
It is also a look at his path to the podium, from his one-of-a-kind
childhood (a stage-struck kid growing up at a school devoted to organic
farming and mountain climbing), to formative experiences at a New
England prep school and Yale University. His coming out as a gay man and
his diagnosis as a person with Parkinson’s Disease, combined with his
extraordinarily entertaining backstage anecdotes, make for a riveting look at
what it means to live, love, and make music in the rarefied air of Broadway.
“Luminous and surprising, an extremely honest memoir of a
life lived in the world of Broadway musicals, by one of the
theatre’s most gifted conductors. I can’t think of another
book quite like it.”
-- John Kander, composer
(Cabaret, Chicago, New York, New York)