Meet BVC: Cynthia Kortman Westphal!

Written By: Chelsea & Cynthia 

We've told you that we know what it takes to make it on Broadway because we've been there ourselves.

We would love to share with you those stories, experiences on Broadway and what we still dream of accomplishing - starting off with our very own Cynthia Kortman Westphal! Lets get started!

Q: You were a classical piano major, went to grad school for classical piano performance and planned to be an opera coach. But then you moved to New York City in 1995 and one night changed the course of your life. Tell us about that first night and what piqued your interest in musical theater? 

A: The night that I moved to New York, the only person I knew in the city forgot to pick me up at the airport, so I ended up needing to stow my luggage at the airport. As I'm standing outside the airport trying to think of where do I go, I saw a bus that said 'Times Square', and I thought, "Well, I've heard of that. I think I'll go there and just keep trying to get ahold of my friend".

I'm just standing in the middle of Times Square and decide I'm just going to see a Broadway show to fill my time for the next couple hours and keep me safe and warm.

I walked up to a ticket booth and spent $50 on a ticket to any show I could get into, Crazy For You. I ended up in the balcony where I could look right down into the pit. And when the show started, I noticed it was a woman conducting. Seeing this woman conduct this orchestra was an eye opener that people do this as a living.

And that night I literally said to myself, that's what I want to do. I made a complete pivot in that moment. No more opera coaching - I want be a Broadway music director or conductor.

Q: What was your first job on Broadway in NYC? 

A: I had a job as a sub child wrangler on the show Tommy. Essentially I was the babysitter for kids in the show - I made sure they're in the right costume or place at the right times, and that they're getting fed and watered on a regular basis. I received $50 a show and at the time I did two or three shows a week. 

When Tommy closed, I used those child wrangling connections to get another child wrangling job on The King and I, which at the time was starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Donna Murphy. As a child wrangler, you would bring the kids right up to the stage and stand backstage waiting for them to finish their scene and then usher them back to the next entrance they had. With both of those shows, the gift was getting to witness these incredible Broadway performers night after night while in the wings. As someone who didn't grow up in or study musical theater, I feel like it was my big initial education to the industry.

Q: What were some of your first professional jobs related to the music scene? 

A: I did quite a lot of smaller jobs around the city, which I would call them off, off, off Broadway shows. My first show in New York was in a basement of a church on 53rd Street, and all of the black keys had cracked off, so the piano was basically just completely flat.

I also did a lot of auditions since through my classical training, I was a great sight reader. Since I had little experience in the theatre world, I used this as my opportunity to learn new repertoire. I had a notebook that I would keep with me, and any song that someone brought in that I didn't know, I would it write down. In the beginning, if I played for 100 auditions that day, I usually had about 92 songs on my list. But as time went on I remember just getting through an audition day being proud that I only had six songs on my list. That felt like such an achievement to notice my growing repertoire. 

Q: How does one break into Broadway jobs beyond performing? How did you seek out conducting positions? 

A: The main thing that I did was I hustled and connected with anybody I could. One of the first things I did while child wrangling on Tommy was I hung around in the pit and tried to get to know those musicians. Out of this I was lucky enough to get piano lessons with the conductor of Tommy. I accosted him outside the stage door one night and just, I said, "Hi, I'm Cynthia. I just moved here from Michigan and I would love to take some musical theater lessons and lessons in rock and roll piano". The first time I asked him, he sort of rebuffed me and said, "Yeah, I don't really give lessons unless someone really has potential".

But then about a week later, I gathered up my courage and I said, "Hi, I talked to you last week. You said you only give lessons to people who are really good. I'm really good. I think I'm worth your time and could really benefit from your expertise - I just don't know how to play these styles". And eventually he did give me lessons in rock pop piano, and he started recommending me for small shows and those led to bigger opportunities.

The guy who was giving me the rock lessons ended up recommending me for a show that was being done at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. I ended up playing that show for a couple of weeks and it was during that time that Joe Church got offered The Lion King as the music director. And Julie Taymor was really adamant about wanting a pit for The Lion King that was diverse, because at the time were not a lot of women musicians on Broadway.

Because of that, my name got put on a short list of people to be considered and then luck would have it, the women before me turned down the opportunity for Keyboard 3 and I was the third person it was offered to (and said yes!).

Q: At some point after you started playing Keyboard 3 you were asked to fill in conducting - how did that role evolve?

A:  Before Lion King, I did another show that eventually made it to Broadway, called Gershwin's Fascinating Rhythm that had done an out of town tryout in Hartford. And when I interviewed for that position, I'd never conducted in my life.

The reason I was even interviewed was because the conductor was going to be at a grand piano while conducting the orchestra. They were finding musicians who could conduct and do the more popular tunes, but they were having difficulties finding someone with the classical chops to play these other pieces.

We did about 70 shows out of town by the time I got to Lion King, so I had thankfully already had some conducting experience, both from the piano and with a stick over a long length of time.

All shows have a number of subs so that you're covered at all times. It's just like having standbys or swings for the actors. So about a year into the run of Lion King, I started conducting as one of the subs, and then slowly worked my way up from there to the point where I was conducting four or five shows a week.

It was such a great way to learn, so I was really thankful for that.

Q: You did Lion King on Broadway for seven years, and in 2004, you ended up making a really big pivot to teaching at the University of Michigan. What was that huge shift like?

A: Yeah, it was the pivot that I wasn't really ready to make as I genuinely thought I would live in Manhattan for the rest of my life. Yet, after I got married we started looking in Manhattan to buy a place and as you know, apartment prices in New York are...tricky. 

What I found was, yes, we can afford the neighborhood we want but if we go for it, I will be locked into this show for the rest of my life. It was one of those things where the amount of money I was making, conducting that much on Lion King was probably about the most money I was ever going to make in the field of musical theater and the idea that I might need to stay there forever was just a little more than I could wrap my head around. 

So we started to casually consider other areas we could live and I asked my husband if he could live anywhere, where would it be? And Ann Arbor was the first place he listed because at that time, but he had a very strong interest in urban planning and had read about it on one of the top 10 places to live in the country.

The next day I was sitting in the apartment and I remembered I had seen University of Michigan listed in many of the auditions I had played for over the years. I realized, okay, wait, isn't that in Ann Arbor? Sure enough, I went online and there was a job posting for a music director at University of Michigan. And despite having never taught a day in my life, we decided I should at least apply.

Fast forward a few months, and I ended up getting offered the job and at that point the pay was substantially less than my Broadway show. But there had been so many little coincidences that had happened along the way that we finally felt like we were meant to move to Ann Arbor. 

I ended up asking for a leave of absence at Lion King, assuming it wouldn't be granted. But they gave it to me and my expectation was, that I'll go teach for a year and then I can come back renewed and ready to continue with the production.

So we moved out in 2004 and I taught for the year. Then my husband decided to go back and get a Master's at University of Michigan. By the time that first year was wrapping up, and my husband had another year left in his masters and now we're talking about maybe having a baby and all those things. Which led me to take the leap and finish my time on Broadway and I stayed at Michigan. 

Q: Over the last 18 years you've shifted your focus to education and working with students, but you've also had so many incredible professional opportunities as a conductor and as a music director.  How did those two things align with each other over the last almost two decades? 

A: It was so fascinating because I felt like by the time I left New York City, I had done three Broadway shows as a pianist and conductor and when I moved to Michigan, I thought that  part of my life would be over. But instead I played for maybe 16 national tours, which all came through Detroit. Just to have that opportunity to continue to work at these high levels of Broadway national tours was so fulfilling because I felt like I was getting my cake and eating it too.

And then my first year of teaching, two of my students were Justin Paul and Benj Pasek (You might have heard of them😉) and a few years later when they started writing, I ended up doing four years on their production A Christmas Story. Two of those years were on Broadway, one year of the national tour, and one year of helping to mount the tour following the Broadway run.

It was an incredible gift to get to do that and it led to other projects and other shows. I got to do a production at the Fifth Avenue in Seattle as a part of the first all women creative team that that theater had ever seen. I was the first music director of the national tour of Come From Away that I was able to do while on sabbatical at U of M. 

Q: What advice might you offer to musical theater performers from all the places you've sat and all the things you've experienced?

A:  A couple things:

1. Just say yes to as much as you can. It's interesting how many auditions I've sat through where when a singer is given an adjustment or suggestion and they hesitate. But I say, just give it a shot. It might be a mess, but it's gonna show us that you are creative and you're willing to get in the sandbox to figure something out. 
2. Try to get out of the mindset of playing any kind of game. There's just such a difference in an audition when someone comes in with wild abandon versus trying to carefully parse out what they think might be needed

There's an Elizabeth Gilbert quote from her book Big Magic that I love, which goes: "Find the thing you love to do so much that the words success and failure in essence become irrelevant." I love that mindset for walking into an audition room. Finding the thing that you love to do so much that the words success and failure just don't even mean anything anymore because you just love to do it.

We hope you enjoyed this opportunity to get to know Cynthia and her experiences on Broadway, and transition into teaching! 

If you're interested in exploring other interesting musical theatre conversations - check out the Broadway Vocal Coach podcast! Or check us out on Instagram, and get involved in the conversation! 

And if you’re ready to get expert mentorship and ongoing training, then you’re invited to join us inside the BVC membership. Book a free consult with us - we can’t wait to hear your story and help you take the next step in your career.