Broadway music man Will Van Dyke ’02 has produced his first album of original songs, Chasing the Day, to be released later this month.
With vocals by several marquee names on Broadway including Stephanie J. Block (Wicked, 9 to 5: The Musical, The Pirate Queen, and The Boy from Oz), the CD also includes a track sung by Pauline Pisano, who once appeared with Will in a student production at Beaver.
Will composed Chasing the Day’s twelve songs while travelling as a touring musician and conductor with the national tours of Wicked and Grease.
Now back home in New York City, Will has been playing keyboards for The Addams Family on Broadway since last spring and is developing a new musical with the show’s writer, Andrew Lippa. Each Tuesday night at 11, Will co-hosts a popular musical and comedy revue called Broadway Sessions with Ben D (at Therapy nightclub, 348 W. 52nd St..).
“Other than that,” Will reports, “I’m finishing up a one-act children’s musical of Winnie the Pooh!, which I wrote for the Walt Disney Company. And recently I finished the first draft of an original musical entitled Leonardo’s Ring with Rick Elice (who wrote the book for Jersey Boys and The Addams Family).”
In addition to Stephanie J. Block and Matt Doyle, Chasing the Day’s vocal roster features several other notable Broadway performers:
• Alex Brightman, who plays Boq in Wicked on Broadway.
• Carrie Manolakos has played the leads in both Mamma Mia! and Wicked on Broadway.
• Adam Kantor was in the final company of Rent, playing Mark.
• Morgan James is in The Addams Family.
• Matt Doyle who has performed in Spring Awakening and Bye Bye Birdie.
• Jay Armstrong Johnson was in the Hair revival on Broadway.
• John Eric Parked is in Memphis on Broadway.
• Katie Rose Clarke currently plays Glinda in Wicked on Broadway.
• Pauline Pisano, now a singer/songwriter, started in Beaver’s Class of 2001 but left after freshman year to pursue her musical theater career in NYC; Will recalls acting with Pauline in a production of Strange Borders in the Rogers Room at Beaver.
• Danica Dora, a NYC-based singer-songwriter.
Writer-performer Josh Halloway, Will’s college friend from NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts, wrote the album’s lyrics. Halloway lives in Los Angeles, where he writes for Cougar Town on ABC.
Chasing the Day, due out on October 19 on the Sh-K-Boom label, is available to pre-order at: http://www.sh-k-boom.com/willvandyke.shtml