In Demand: Why Broadway’s New Musical Creators (And Anna Wintour) Rely on Justin Levine

“I attempt to actually put all my focus into the venture in entrance of me,” says Justin Levine. That will sound like a easy sufficient aim – however for Levine, Broadway’s favourite musical polymath, it’s not really easy as of late.  

Since 2009, when Levine was music director, co-orchestrator and in addition a performer within the genre-smashing off-Broadway rock musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, increasingly more theater creators have referred to as upon his numerous complementary abilities to bolster their work. As a music director, orchestrator and arranger, the 38-year-old has most frequently discovered himself concerned within the growth of recent musicals. “Typically I take a look at my résumé and really feel like, ‘Oh wow, it has felt like there have been twice as many initiatives as this,’ when actually it was about weaving out and in of every developmental step of a present,” Levine says with amusing.

Living proof: Eight years in the past, Levine began work on the 2 greatest musical initiatives he’s had since — Moulin Rouge! The Musical and The Outsiders, each in the end Broadway-bound — inside mere weeks of one another.  Moulin Rouge! started performances in June 2019; was suspended as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, reopening together with the remainder of Broadway in mid-2021; and gained 10 Tony Awards in 2021, together with one for finest orchestrations for Levine and his collaborators. 

Levine’s work on “the bullet practice that’s Moulin Rouge!,” as he calls it, continues to be removed from achieved — he’s been “closely concerned” in mounting its iterations all around the world, together with one within the Netherlands this fall, serving to practice the brand new firms for every. However that’s only one ongoing venture on his slate these days. On the 2024 Tony Awards on Sunday, he’s nominated in three classes for his work on The Outsiders, making him one of many most-nominated people at this 12 months’s ceremony. A type of nominations (for finest authentic rating) is in the identical class as one other main present whose music crew he labored on this previous 12 months, Right here Lies Love. And in Might, Levine returned to one among his extra glamorous jobs lately: overseeing the musical components of the style world’s landmark occasion, the Met Gala.

“I simply wanna make music, however I additionally need to carry out that music, I need to create music for others,” says Levine, who studied theater in faculty however says he doesn’t have a proper musical background. Truly, add another aim to that listing: offering a spot for others to do the entire similar and extra. Amid all he has occurring, Levine says, the venture he’s really most enthusiastic about is way from New York Metropolis: He’s within the strategy of turning a “actual fixer-upper” of a home he purchased an hour north into “a spot that may foster creativity and inspiration” for different artists, the place “artwork may be made but in addition the place it doesn’t must really feel that manner.” He imagines it as a much less productivity-obsessed artist residency, the place he’ll additionally be capable to bask in his newest inventive interest: vegetable gardening.

Under, Levine breaks down his work on three of his current high-profile initiatives.

The Outsiders

For the intimate musical adaption of S.E. Hinton’s younger grownup traditional, Levine occupied three roles: contributor to playwright Adam Rapp’s e book; co-creator of the rating with Jonathan Clay and Zach Likelihood of Jamestown Revival; and co-creator of the orchestrations with music director Matt Hinckley and Jamestown.  “I used to play in bands, and performed music that positively feels in the identical world because the rating,” says Levine. “I’ve a large and assorted musical style: I really like American roots music, soul, early nation, bluegrass and folks, Americana, gospel. Once I first encountered John and Zach and listened to Jamestown’s music, it jogged my memory of a few of my favourite music. General, the world of [The Outsiders] is each acquainted and distinctive unto itself.”  

Levine helped the Jamestown duo protect the integrity of their music inside a theater context, specializing in the methods by which it may very well be used most successfully inside the present to construct and advance the story and character growth. With Rapp, who had by no means written the e book of a musical earlier than, “it was largely a matter of me from an early stage working with him on the construction of the e book, stitching collectively the e book and the songs, discovering the simplest methods to commerce these off. Adam and I did that collectively, and John and Zach have been usually a part of that course of.”  

Right here Lies Love

The immersive David Byrne and Fatboy Slim disco-driven musical in regards to the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos within the Philippines had an unusually lengthy and winding path to reaching Broadway in 2023, and Levine was the present’s authentic music director, concerned since its early workshops in 2011. “I liked it from the second I began engaged on it,” says Levine. “I realized a lot from David.” As Right here Lies Love was primarily based on an idea album of the identical identify, Levine’s roles engaged on music manufacturing and extra preparations meant serving to the creators flesh out the present and determining how the album songs can be tailored to the stage.

“That concerned working immediately with the forged, with David, so far as bridging the hole between the pop and theater world,” Levine explains. “On the one facet it was in regards to the forged’s strategy to singing the fabric, exploring the methods by which these songs may very well be carried out with the Integrity of the model and the story telling; how they’re positioned; the place there’s vibrato vs a straight tone. The idea album itself has so many alternative types of vocal method.” Apart from analyzing the best types of these songs, Levine additionally labored with Byrne and Matt Stine [Levine’s collaborator on music production and additional arrangements] to search out methods to “maximize the storytelling and [the songs’] viability within the context of a musical.” 

The Met Gala 

4 years in the past, Levine was approached with an uncommon task: to create a musical medley celebrating the return of Broadway and theater in New York for the primary post-pandemic Met Gala. Vogue’s Anna Wintour “didn’t name me or slide into my DMs,” he says with amusing, “however she did request me due to my work on Moulin Rouge!” He admits that, previous to the invite, he “didn’t actually know a lot about [the event],” however thought it “may be enjoyable to construct one thing with items of musical theater which have crossed over into the pop world, or been sampled, or simply been a serious piece of the material of standard tradition.” 

Since then, Wintour and her crew have continued to ask him again, and his position has expanded to incorporate the whole lot from creating random musical moments all through the spectacular night to working intently with the headliner — this 12 months, Ariana Grande — to construct their setlist and starring efficiency.  “She’s such a collaborative particular person — so enthusiastic and passionate and hardworking,” says Levine of Grande; he additionally labored intently along with her “humble and good” music director and producer Pure (aka Johnny Najera).  

As for Wintour, who Levine calls “one of many greatest supporters of theater in New York,” she pays consideration to each musical element of the night — and, Levine provides, “provides the very best notes. However she’s very a lot a supporter and a fan of the humanities; it by no means seems like she’s giving a notice simply to offer one. It’s clear it comes from a real place and that there’s an actual imaginative and prescient behind it.”