Operations coordinator for Emory's Concerts Division and composer of musical scores for numerous theater and dance productions, Simpson agrees with the opinion of many critics that the real trick to writing a theatrical score is for the audience to not even know that the music is there. "You want the music to be there, but it cannot stand out," said Simpson, who came to Emory last spring after managing the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's Youth Orchestra and working in educational programs at the symphony. "That's sometimes very hard for composers to take. You have to be very sensitive to letting your music be in the background."
Although Simpson had read the novel on which The Enchanted April is based, in addition to viewing the 1993 film adaptation, writing the musical score for the play was still a demanding task. "I checked out the film to see it again," he said, "but I tried not to pay any attention to the music because I didn't want to emulate it. Scoring music for a play is easy if it's just scene change music where there's nothing happening on stage. But when you're trying to underscore dialogue or add a dramatic element on stage as actors are talking and working, it's very difficult because there is such a fine line between distraction and adding to the line, or the performance, at that moment."
The process of arriving at a final composition can be long and grueling, Simpson said, because the director and composer usually have to try a number of approaches before they hit upon a score that supports the play's dramatic impact without hindering it. Writing the score for a two-hour play, which normally includes a total of about 20 minutes of music cues, usually takes Simpson close to two weeks of working each night. "I usually get about three weeks to meander around in rehearsals," Simpson said. "Then I get about a week to finish it all up. I always try to work on consecutive nights, because once you're on a roll you need to keep that edge there."
Serving as musical director for a production of Damn Yankees directed by Lawrence Keller was the first step leading to Simpson's work on The Enchanted April. Keller subsequently directed Red Scare on Sunset at Theater in the Square. When Keller decided to have original music scored for that production, he brought Simpson in to score the play. After the success of Simpson's initial work at Theater in the Square, Michael Horne, artistic director for The Enchanted April, asked him to score that production.
Savannah.
His current project is composing the score for the inaugural play for a new organization, Jewish Theater of the South. Simpson said the play, Night and Her Stars, is about the quiz show scandals of the 1950s and 1960s, which were also the subject of the 1994 film "Quiz Show" directed by Robert Redford. "I'm really looking forward to this project because it's a new theater and a new audience," he said.
In addition, Simpson is completing work on a children's musical. He said that music publisher Hal Leonard is interested in seeing the work, which Simpson expects to complete this week.
While Simpson thoroughly enjoys his work at Emory, due in large part to the interaction with some of the nation's most gifted musicians, he looks forward to a time when he will be able to support himself entirely through a diversity of composing projects. "I'd like to be able to compose more music that has an ambient, ethereal quality," Simpson said, "because that's a medium where I can see myself doing something purely instrumental, something I can do in my own space and not have to rely on having a lot of performers and a big budget. If that area doesn't grow, I'll probably keep working mostly at theater, with my ultimate goal being to write a musical. But I'm not exclusively a theater or dance composer. I'll do just about anything if the project interests me."
--Dan Treadaway