Musical Director Clay Giberson talks about the music of Gracie and the Atom 

How has the process been of directing the music for Gracie? Did you usea different approach than for musicals you’ve done in the past?
Directing the music and being in the band for Gracie has been a much different experience than past musicals for me. There is more freedom musically to enhance the narrative of the story, and also in approaching the transitions from scene to scene, more improvisation overall. The music for Gracie is more song-based than other musicals I've worked on. Less abrupt tempo and key changes which makes for a smoother and consistent overall flow. There was no written score for this music so I've tried to translate from the CD as accurately as possible. This includes making decisions regarding introductions and endings to songs, shape of the arrangements. Also, figuring out how to make the music work from a technological standpoint has been an interesting challenge. The only acoustic instrument on stage is the acoustic bass, everything else is electronic.     

Had you worked with Mike Snyder (drums), Dave Captein (bass) and Cameron Morgan (guitar) before?
I've worked with Dave and Mike for many years here in Portland. Prior to this show I had never played with Cameron, but had a good feeling that he had the right balance of experience and versatility required for this music. The Gracie and the Atom CD has a lot of different guitar tracks and sounds and Cameron has really tried to recreate the most important elements of that in a live setting. That's always a challenge, to take music from a recording and recreate it live. Mike, having an extensive background in electronic drums and percussion is also triggering sampled sounds in addition to the drum parts. Dave gets such a big and earthy sound out of the electric and acoustic basses and keeps the music grounded. Part of being a jazz/session musician is being well-versed in different musical styles. All of us have that in common in our musical backgrounds.   

You worked on the original CD, did you think at that time that it would become a play and you would end up on stage playing the music?
One never knows what can happen in the course of a project and it has been interesting and certainly fun to be involved on the musical side of this one. When I first played this music I didn't really know much of the script or story at all. The sound and style was cohesive though and McKinley has a really strong musical intuition, so I'm not surprised that the music conveys and adds to the emotional content of the story. Often with musicals one can get tired of the music when playing it repeatedly, but these songs have held up well and sound as fresh to me as the first time I played or heard them. 

It must be interesting working with a playwright that is first and foremost a musician, any challenges or advantages to that?
In the sessions that I worked on the music with McKinley I tried to take on the role of a music editor in a way. She always had the big picture in mind, I tried to focus on certain details, or making suggestions that would make the compositions stronger or flow more smoothly. There is that balance between the big and small picture, and not losing sight of one or the other can be tricky if you are solely involved in the process. As a musician, one is really telling a story through sound, so that commonality is there when adding the element of language or narrative. I would think of that relationship as an advantage to a playwright with a musical background.