Steven M. Alper

I have been called a “musical handyman.” I have played skillions of auditions: non-Equity, dinner theatre, regional, cabaret, cruise ship, pop and Rock and Roll, off-off-Broadway, off-Broadway, Broadway, opera, revues, previews, workshop, and showcase. I have been a musical director and/or conductor for: Annie 2 and Arthur (Goodspeed Opera House), Pageant (The Blue Angel), Johnny Pye and the Foolkiller (George St. Playhouse and Lambs Theater), Up Against It (The Public Theater), Gifts of the Magi (Lambs Theater), Possessed: The Dracula Musical (George St. Playhouse), Tales of Tinseltown (Musical Theater Works and George St. Playhouse), Starting Here, Starting Now (Main St. Theater), among many others. I have been vocal arranger for many of the above. I have been arranger/orchestrator for many of the above, as well as for Godspell (1988 off-Broadway revival, Lambs Theater--for which I was also musical director/conductor), The “No-Frills” Revue (Musical Theater Works and The Cherry Lane), The Hits and the Ms.’s (Rainbow and Stars--for which I was also musical director), The Summer Winds (The Naked Angels--in which I also played the onstage pianist), Guilt Without Sex (Marilyn Sokol’s one-woman show), among many others. I have done big-band arrangements, vocal-group arrangements, choral arrangements, orchestral arrangements. I have coached hundreds of singers, actors, and musicians. I have taught piano, theory, history of music, vocal techniques, repertoire, and audition techniques around the country. I have appeared as computer music consultant on many shows and on several feature films. I have worked as a supervising music copyist for Broadway (Caroline or Change, Spring Awakening, and Spider-Man, among many others), off-Broadway, regional theatre, and film. I have co-written manuals for music software. I have written dozens of incidental scores for plays, short films and TV, including Action Painting (American Theater of Actors), Vatzlav (National Theater of Woodbee), The Disposal (Jan Hus Theater), Faces of God (Artpark), The Wake-up Call (award-winning short film), and others. I have written (with both Karen deMauro and the students of participating schools) dozens of children’s musicals. And I have composed musicals with Sarah as bookwriter/lyricist, including The Library, The Audition, C’est la vie, Rappaccini’s Daughter, and Men and Angels (formerly Chamberlain: A Civil War Romance). With Mark Harelik as bookwriter, we wrote The Immigrant, which appeared off-Broadway (and for which I received a Drama Desk nomination). We’re currently at work on a new project with D.W. Gregory as bookwriter. And I can often be found playing piano in Sarah’s backup band, The Steve Alper Quartet, and keyboards with The Lifesize Gorgeous Cocktails.