A tour show with a few tricky moments.  Lots of instruments crammed into a small space.  This was the first show where I was required to get a Miller Machine for the triangle parts.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Valerie Gebert, music director

Salt Lake City: Capitol Theater, Ben Whitely, music director

I played book 2 which is mostly congas with some extra shaker, tambourine, and color percussion thrown in.

Cleveland: State Theater:

Salt Lake City: Eccles Theater

Jonathan Smith, music director

Another National Tour that teched in Cleveland bringing a few extra rehearsals with it.  There are a few things in my setup that were taken out in later weeks.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Jay Alger, Music Director

The National Tour of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. The company provides all the percussion equipment, although I chose to use my own personal shakers and accessories.

Cleveland: Palace Theater

Salt Lake City: Eccles Theater

Boise, ID: Morrison Center for the Performing Arts

Toledo, Ohio: Stranahan Theater

Sue Drauss, Music Director

The reduction eliminates the percussion book and moves a few instruments into the drum book.

Hafen Theater at Tuacahn

Nick Williams, Music Director

One of the great standards of musical theater.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, John O'Neill, Music Director

The 2014 National Tour of this show combined two percussion books and reassigned some of the parts to key 2.  This was another very challenging show in terms of all the things you needed to make happen at once.  Thankfully, they sent a demo conductor cam video to work with, so I could spend several days running the show in a "flight simulator" mode to make sure everything happened with only one rehearsal.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Valerie Gebert, Music Director

A Christmas Story - The Musical at Pioneer Theater Company There wasn’t a percussionist for this run, so I brought some of the percussion effects into the drum book.

Pioneer Theater Company, Salt Lake City, Utah

Helen Gregory, music director

This musical was a vehicle for the great singer and dancer Tommy Tune.  I was finding confetti in my stuff for weeks.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Michael Biagi, Music Director

It was such a great experience to not only perform with this tour but to be the city where they did all the technical rehearsals in preparation for the tour.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Bob Billig, Music Director

This is a video game music concert arranged for chamber ensemble. Drum set with some mallets and accessory parts.

Matthew Aument creates a very clever trio arrangement for Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples, Florida.  It combined drumset, dumbek, conga, riq, bells and some toys into a thoroughly satisfying arrangement.  The band was in the set, although I didn’t have a sightline to the house from where I was.

A light and fun show to play with some mallets and timpani, a bit of polite drumming and other colors.  This is a picture of my setup for my second run with it in Salt Lake City at Kingsbury Hall.

Cleveland: Palace Theater

Salt Lake City: Kingsbury Hall

Larry Goldberg, Music Director

The National Tour of Disney's "High School Musical."  This tour carried all the gear and the only thing I brought was my stool and my sticks and mallets.  The company provided the SPD with all the sounds programming.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Robert Sprayberry, Music Director

The new seven player revision of Paul Gordon’s musical “Jane Eyre” premiered by Cleveland Musical Theater.

This is the new seven player chamber revision of Paul Gordon’s “Jane Eyre.”

I had the opportunity to play the second percussion book on the regional premiere of Sting's "The Last Ship" at Pioneer Theater Company in Salt Lake City.  A lot of ethnic hand drum stuff including extensive bodhran, pandiero, udu, bendir, and foot pedal effects including shaker, tambourine and crasher effects.  Sting did make it to a performance.

Salt Lake City: Pioneer Theater, Helen Gregory, Music Director

This is a complicated book and very challenging.  It involves all kids of styles and instruments, including a set of marching tenor drums (thanks to George Shernit with Jupiter Band instruments for loaning me a demo set from Mapex.)

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Jan Rosenberg, Music Director

Three timpani, mallet instruments including marimba (but you only need about an octave of it) and only a small cocktail type kit set up for one tune.  A very interesting, beautiful, and complex score.

Cleveland: Palace Theatre, Jim Lowe, Music Director

The band was put in a remote location on this tour because the initial staging blocked off the pit area.  

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Brent-Alan Huffman, Music Director

I was fortunate to be able to "tech" this tour in Cleveland for 29 performances with additional rehearsals and then get a chance a year later to perform it for another four weeks in Salt Lake City.  I went down to Amish Country to find a hardware store where I could sound check all the washboards and find one I really liked.

Cleveland: State Theater, AnnBritt DuChateau, Music Director

Salt Lake City: Daniel Bowling, Music Director

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Rebekah Bruce Norton, Music Director

This first national tour hired two players locally. I elected to play the conga book which was mostly conga, tambourine, mark tree, and a few accessories. The other player has mallets and timpani and other accessories. This was another tour that "teched" it's tour in Cleveland with a couple of additional rehearsal services to make sure everything travelled well.

Cleveland: State Theater

Salt Lake City: Capitol Theater

Darryl Archibald, Jennifer Oikawa, Music Directors

Lincoln Center’s “My Fair Lady.” Mark O’Kain’s setup and gear that I subbed on for one week.

This is a photo from one of the two rehearsals in the Palace Theater lobby.  Two rehearsals is a rarity with most touring shows.  Only the biggest and most complicated have them.

Cleveland: Palace Theater

Salt Lake City: Capitol Theater

James Dodgson, Music Director

This is a photo from one of the two rehearsals in the Capitol Theater lobby.  Two rehearsals is a rarity with most touring shows.  Only the biggest and most complicated have them.

Cleveland: Palace Theater

Salt Lake City: Capitol Theater

James Dodgson, Music Director

Here's a different view of the percussion setup for Newsies.  This time, remoted at the Capitol Theater in Salt Lake City.

The National Tour of Jason Robert Brown's Parade at the Palace Theater.  The tour closed here and it was was the first national tour I ever played as the one local percussionist hire.  It was quite the maiden voyage made even more interesting by the fact that the composer was the conductor and Cleveland was the closing city on the tour.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Jason Robert Brown, Music Director

This show was the first time I ever had to be remoted solo by a tour at Playhouse Square.  The only room that the timpani could fit through the doors was the lead's dressing room. I had my own bathroom, sinks, a fireplace, etc.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Ryan Cantwell, Music Director

Another picture of my setup for the 2014 National Tour of Pippin.  This side lets you see the suspended instruments and hand drums more clearly.

Rent: Kent State University, Jonathan Swoboda, music director

The Shrek tour was the first time I encountered the company bringing a Wernick Xylosynth with them to cover all of the timpani, chimes, crotale, and xylophone parts.  As you can see in the lower right corner, this show featured an extensive amount of hand drums and used foot pedal tambourine as well.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Andy Grobengeiser, Music Director

I had the opportunity to tech the 2016 National Tour of "The Sound of Music in Boise, Idaho.  I was also the drummer for the closing city of the tour at my home theater in Cleveland, Ohio.  It's a very straight forward show and always a favorite.

Boise, ID: Morrison Center for the Arts

Cleveland: Palace Theater

Jay Alger, Music Director

Another very traditional style show.  I'm using a 14" Ludwig floor tom for the tabor part.

Cleveland: State Theater, Ben Whitely, Music Director

The National Tour of the Lincoln Center production hired the drummer/percussionist locally. They carried their own Chinese tom and two note marimba (only two needed). This was the first show at Playhouse Square where I was hired to play drums.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Larry Goldberg, Music Director

The tour provides all the instruments as the band is on stage for this production.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Anne Shuttlesworth, Music Director

The 2011-2012 National Tour of West Side Story brought with it the five player percussion score.  The performer was asked to get as much as he could reasonably get to over the course of the evening.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, John O'Neill, Music Director

A very demanding mallet heavy book. It has all the instruments, vibes, xylophone, bells, chimes, and marimba.

Cleveland: Palace Theater

Salt Lake City: Eccles Theater

Michael Horsley, Music Director

Probably the most massive percussion setup for a tour show to hire locally. I’ve been lucky to be able to perform this show repeatedly and to really get to know it from so many different perspectives.

Cleveland, 2006: Dominic Amendum (1st)

Cleveland/Buffalo, 2008: Boko Suzuki (1st)

Cleveland, 2009: Jason Yarcho (1st)

Cleveland/Boise/Spokane 2013/14: Jason Sherbundy (2nd)

Cleveland, 2017: Dan Micciche (2nd)

Toledo/SLC/Boise, 2018/19: Adam Souza (2nd)

Cleveland/Columbus 2021-2022, Evan Roider

A wonderful "old school" musical with a traditional style book.

Cleveland: Palace Theater, Bob Billig, Music Director