In Demand: Why Broadway's New Musical Creators (and Anna Wintour) are based on Justin Levine

“I try to really give my full attention to the task at hand,” says Justin Levine. That might sound like a simple enough goal — but for Levine, Broadway's beloved musical polymath, it's not so easy these days.

Since 2009, when Levine was musical director, co-arranger and also a performer in the off-Broadway rock musical smash Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, more and more theater makers have called upon his various complementary talents to enhance their work. As a music director, arranger and arranger, he is most often involved in the development of new musicals. “Sometimes I look at my resume and feel, 'Oh wow, I felt like there were twice as many projects as this,' when in reality it was weaving in and out every step of developing a show,” says Levine. with a laugh.

Storyline: Eight years ago, Levine began work on his two biggest musical projects to date — Red Mill! The musical and The foreignersboth eventually committed to Broadway — within weeks of each other. Red Mill! began performances in June 2019. was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reopening along with the rest of Broadway in mid-2021. and won 10 Tony Awards in 2021, including one for Best Orchestrations for Levine and Co.

Levine's work on “the bullet train that is Red Mill!,” as he calls it, is still far from finished — he’s been “heavily involved” in positioning its iterations around the world, including one in the Netherlands this fall, helping to train the new companies for each. But that's just one project that's been going on lately. At the 2024 Tony Awards on Sunday, he is nominated in three categories for his work The foreigners, making him one of the most nominated people at this year's ceremony. One of those nominations (for Best Original Score) is in the same category as another big show that the music team worked on last year, This is where love lies. And in May, Levine returned to one of his most glamorous jobs in recent years: overseeing the musical elements of the fashion world's landmark event, the Met Gala.

“I just want to make music, but I also want to perform that music, I want to create music for other people,” says Levine, who studied theater in college but says he has no formal musical background. In fact, add one more goal to that list: to provide a place for others to do the same and more. Of all he's done, Levine says, the project he's truly most excited about is far from New York City: He's in the process of turning the “real fixer-upper” of a house he bought an hour north into “a place that will enhance creativity and inspiration” for other artists, where “art can be made but also where it doesn't have to touch That way.” He envisions it as a less productivity-obsessed art residence where he’ll also be able to indulge in his latest creative hobby: vegetable gardening.

Below, Levine breaks down his work on three of his recent high-profile projects.

The foreigners

For the intimate musical adaptation of SE Hinton's young-adult classic, Levine occupied three roles: contributing to the book by playwright Adam Rapp; co-wrote the score with Jamestown Revival's Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance. and co-creator of the orchestrations with music director Matt Hinckley and Jamestown. “I used to play in bands and play music that definitely feels the same world as the music,” says Levine. “I have a wide and varied musical taste: I like American roots music, soul, early country, bluegrass and folk, Americana, gospel. When I first met John and Zach and heard Jamestown's music, it reminded me of some of my favorite music. All in all, his world [The Outsiders] it is both familiar and unique in its own right.”

Levine helped the Jamestown duo maintain the integrity of their music within a theatrical context, focusing on ways it could be used more effectively in the show to build and advance the story and character development. With Rapp, who had never written the book of a musical before, “it was very much a matter of working with him early on on the structure of the book, putting the book and the songs together, finding the most effective ways to exchange the. Adam and I did that together, and John and Zach were often part of that process.”

This is where love lies

David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's thrilling disco musical about the rise and fall of Imelda Marcos in the Philippines has had an unusually long and exciting journey to reach Broadway in 2023, and Levine was the show's original musical director, participating from her first workshops in 2011. “I loved it from the moment I started working on it,” says Levine. “I learned so much from David.” As This is where love lies was based on a concept album of the same name, Levine's roles working on music production and additional arrangements meant he helped the creators flesh out the show and figure out how the album's songs would be adapted to the stage.

“That involved working directly with the cast, with David, to bridge the gap between the worlds of pop and theater,” Levine explains. “On the one hand it was about the cast's approach to singing the material, exploring the ways in which these songs could be performed with the integrity of the style and the telling of the story. how are they placed? where there is vibrato vs. flat tone. The concept album itself has so many different styles of vocal technique.” In addition to considering the ideal forms of these songs, Levine also collaborated with Byrne and Matt Stine [Levine’s collaborator on music production and additional arrangements] to find ways to “maximize the narrative and [the songs’] sustainability in the context of a musical'.

The Met Gala

Four years ago, Levine was approached with an unusual assignment: to create a musical medley celebrating the return of Broadway and theater to New York for the first Met Gala since the pandemic. FashionAnna Wintour 'didn't call me or DM me,' she laughs, 'but she asked me out because of my work at Red Mill!” He admits that, before the invitation, “he didn't really know much [the event]”, but thought that “it might be fun to build something with pieces of musical theater that have crossed over into the pop world, or become samples, or are just an important part of the fabric of popular culture.”

Since then, Wintour and her team have continued to invite him back, and his role has expanded to include everything from creating random musical moments during the evening's spectacular to working closely with the headliner—this year, Ariana Grande—for to create their setlist and star performance. “She's such a collaborative person — so enthusiastic and passionate and hardworking,” says Levine of Grande. He also worked closely with the “humble and brilliant” music director and producer Natural (aka Johnny Najera).

As for Wintour, whom Levine calls “one of the biggest supporters of the theater in New York,” she pays attention to every musical detail of the evening — and, Levine adds, “she gives the best notes. But he is very much a supporter and fan of the arts. he never feels like he's giving a note just for the sake of giving it. It's clear that it's coming from a genuine place and that there's a real vision behind it.”