{"id":27954,"date":"2026-11-04T12:11:43","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T12:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/11\/04\/little-known-theater-jobs-vocal-dance-and-music-arranger-broadway-news\/"},"modified":"2026-11-04T12:11:43","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T12:11:43","slug":"little-known-theater-jobs-vocal-dance-and-music-arranger-broadway-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/11\/04\/little-known-theater-jobs-vocal-dance-and-music-arranger-broadway-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Little-known theater jobs: vocal, dance and music arranger – Broadway News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran vocal, dance and music arranger David Chase offers a brilliant, detailed primer on the discipline of arranging.
David Chase is practically synonymous with the title \u201cmusic arranger.\u201d In addition to having served as a Broadway musician, conductor, music director and supervisor, Chase is credited with providing the vocal and\/or dance arrangements for 35 Main Stem productions. 
He began with the dance arrangements for the 1996 revival of \u201cA Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum\u201d and most recently arranged the music for Tony Award-winning Best Musical \u201cSchmigadoon!\u201d In between, Chase has created the dance arrangements for such shows as \u201cThoroughly Modern Millie,\u201d \u201cBilly Elliot\u201d and 2017\u2019s \u201cHello, Dolly!\u201d; vocal and dance arrangements for 2006\u2019s \u201cThe Pajama Game,\u201d 2009\u2019s \u201cBye Bye Birdie\u201d and 2022\u2019s \u201cThe Music Man,\u201d among others; and music arrangements for the likes of \u201cSide Show\u201d and 2013\u2019s \u201cCinderella.\u201d
With such an imprint on the sound of musical theater for the past 30 years, it\u2019s amazing that Chase originally had no plans for a career in showbiz. He acted in, and sometimes accompanied, musicals in high school and college, but graduated with, as he said, \u201ca degree in biology (with the original intent of going to medical school), an ongoing love of theater and the ability to play piano.\u201d
\u201cI spent the summer after graduation as a bass player for a summer stock company,\u201d Chase told Broadway News. \u201cI took the job because the music director and pianist just received his Masters in piano performance from Oberlin, and I convinced myself that by seeing a \u2018real\u2019 pianist play, I\u2019d get the theater bug out of my system. The opposite happened.\u201d Chase realized he knew more about music than the pianist!
\u201c[I] devoured every book I could about how music functioned in theater and ended up playing (and arranging) \u2018Forbidden Broadway\u2019 for the next three years,\u201d Chase said. Even so, Chase thought he\u2019d play some piano and eventually get on with medical school. After all, his father was an Army man and a doctor, with a specialty in aerospace medicine, and Chase liked biology and math. But Chase kept getting asked to play piano \u2014 first for auditions and rehearsals (including for the Rockettes), then for more Off-Broadway (moving up to music director on shows like \u201cForever Plaid\u201d) and later subbing in Broadway orchestras (\u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d and \u201cCrazy for You\u201d). 
In 1994, Chase was named associate music director for the \u201cDamn Yankees\u201d revival, under music director and conductor James Raitt, the musician and arranger who first encouraged Chase to conduct. Sadly, Raitt was often ill, due to AIDS. Chase would fill in for him. \u201cDamn Yankees\u201d opened in March 1994, and Raitt passed away in April. Chase shared, \u201cI still use his baton every time I conduct.\u201d
Here, Chase gives an unparalleled lesson on the discipline of arranging, describes a typical day in the life and shares incredible stories from his days on shows from \u201cKiss Me, Kate\u201d to \u201cSchmigadoon!\u201d
What does a vocal arranger do, and what does a dance arranger do?<\/strong>
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Veteran vocal, dance and music arranger David Chase offers a brilliant, detailed primer on the discipline of arranging.David Chase is practically synonymous with the title \u201cmusic arranger.\u201d In addition to having served as a Broadway musician, conductor, music director and supervisor, Chase is credited with providing the vocal and\/or dance arrangements for 35 Main Stem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}