This week, Zachary Roberts, composer and musical director, sounds off on his musical influences, writing process, and what audiences can look forward to in the Brave Spirits production of As You Like It.
Zach Roberts, Music Director/Composer and BST Artistic Associate
Emily MacLeod: There have been a quite a few Shakespeare musical adaptations on Broadway at least, from West Side Story to Kiss Me, Kate. What about a Shakespeare play lends itself to a musical format?
Zach Roberts: There have been a ton of musical adaptations of Shakespeare works, especially in the classical world, where most of my training is…I was familiar with settings of songs from As You Like It before I ever came across the play. ‘It was a lover and his lass’ and ‘Blow blow thou winter wind’ have been set to music by countless composers…it’s safe to say Shakespeare’s text has a long musical history. An opera singer friend of mine has actually released a whole album of Shakespeare songs!
Shakespeare plays are easier to adapt to music because the language is so musical…A great performer of Shakespeare is already coloring the language so much…Music can be difficult to shoehorn into quotidian situations [in a play], and the heightened emotional states of love, loss, joy, anger, etc that Shakespeare’s characters encounter really spur a composer to create some juicy stuff!
EM: As You Like It already has songs in the original script, but your music is doing something a little different. How did you and writer/director Jessica Aimone decide what moments to put to music?
ZR: We thought about it in two ways…one was to fill in some gaps for characters that don’t have a lot of stage time (like Audrey or Oliver) and the other was to expand on already existing moments that seem really important. Oliver’s song (we hope) explains some more of his given circumstances and where he’s coming from, which makes his transformation a little bit more believable. Going the opposite way, with the duet between Orlando and Rosalind, we already see them together a lot in the play, but we wanted to live in the wonderful moment of their anticipation for a little bit longer.
We went back and forth a lot on what songs we wanted to have and where we wanted them to be. There are some moments that we wanted to have but didn’t make it into the final show for one reason or another. Everything in theatre is a balancing act! There may be a perfectly good song but if it doesn’t serve the overall show, it shouldn’t make it into the final version.
EM: How have the actors inspired or shaped their individual songs? Did you write for their specific voices?
Amber Gibson as Phoebe in “As You Like It”
ZR: The actors definitely shaped the way the songs were written. We had sketched out the music a little bit before we cast the actors but the bulk of the writing was done after I heard the singers at the auditions…Sometimes it’s about getting inspired by something that is related to something the actor reminds you of… art can sometimes be making a variation of a copy of a memory of a variation of a memory of an inside joke etc etc etc, so the actor’s tastes and styles are imprinted pretty deep on most of the music.
EM: What would you say are your musical influences for this score?
ZR: I have a pretty eclectic musical background and I’m not sure how much of it is apparent in the score, but I think all of our diverse experiences and tastes make it in somehow. In high school I was heavily involved in choir, madrigals, and music theatre, then I went to college to study classical music and opera, but I’m also a big fan of popular music (my snobby background is apparent when I classify it that way)…I love crunchy chords… there are lots of major 7th chords, 9th, minor 7th chords. Some of the more comedic songs are more harmonically straight forward, but the more emotional songs have more harmonic complexity.
A weird thing that I had as an inspiration point in my mind was Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It has little tastes of song that help drive forward the plot and enrich our understanding of the world and the characters, and they don’t overstay their welcome. I wanted the songs to be like little nuggets rather than a huge roast.
EM: Do you have a favorite moment right now in the show, or something that you think audiences should especially look out for?
ZR: The duet between Orlando and Rosalind is my favorite writing, but I think the forest song sung by Amiens and full company is the best moment in the show. We have some incredibly talented singers and musicians in this group and hearing everyone together is just magical!
– Emily MacLeod, production dramaturg