GANGSTERS! The Musical

From Composer to the Stage
Writing GANGSTERS! was only part of the job. DJ King Rico brought the score to life each night through a custom performance rig built to integrate the prerecorded band with the live production.

I had produced records. I had composed for the stage. But GANGSTERS! presented a new challenge: writing my first full musical.

Commissioned for DePaul University’s Theatre School, GANGSTERS! brought together my worlds as a composer, producer, musician, and music director in a completely new way.

Writing the music was only the beginning. We prerecorded the band and separated the recordings into individual tracks, creating a flexible playback system for the production. That process gave me the opportunity to collaborate closely with student sound design majors and the sound engineer to shape the mixes, cues, and musical transitions for the show.

From working with actors and musicians to collaborating with the sound team, GANGSTERS! became a truly cross-disciplinary experience—one that expanded what music direction could look like for me.