Interview: Orchestrator Doug Besterman's B'way Triple Play

Doug Besterman has three
shows running on Broadway this season.

After 31 Broadway shows, three Tony and two Drama Desk Awards, orchestrator Doug Besterman is achieving a rare feat: three shows running simultaneously in one season. Death Becomes Her opened to rave reviews in November at the Lunt-Fontanne and two dissimilar shows: Smash and Boop! The Musical are now in previews at the Imperial and the Broadhurst respectively. Besterman made his Broadway debut working in collaboration with James Raitt on the 1994 revival of Damn Yankees. He has won Tonys for his work co-orchestrating with Ralph Burns on Fosse and Thoroughly Modern Millie and won a solo Tony for The Producers. His numerous other credits include A Bronx Tale, It Shoulda Been You, Dracula, Seussical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and many more.

Film credits include the live action version of Beauty and The Beast, and Frozen. TV credits include the Marc Shaiman/Scott Witman compositions for Smash, Schmigadoon, ABC’s version of Annie, The Sound of Music Live, and Peter Pan Live

I managed to snag a chat with the very busy Besterman to discuss his present shows, past hits and what exactly an orchestrator does.

What exactly does an orchestrator do?

It’s a great question. The composer of the show will write a score. They’ll generally deliver that score in a form that can be played on the piano. They may be various other folks on the music team who contribute to that score such as dance arrangements, vocal arrangements, transition music, an overture, that sort of thing. In the end, they have a set of songs and material on piano sheet music. Then I take that piano music and flesh it out for whatever the ensemble is for that project. For a Broadway show, it could anywhere from nine to 19 musicians. On a film it might be 40 to 100 musicians. I’m translating that music into whatever is required for the instrumentation for that project.