{"id":14875,"date":"2018-04-26T19:41:26","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T23:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=14875"},"modified":"2018-04-26T19:42:18","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T23:42:18","slug":"up-in-lights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/up-in-lights\/","title":{"rendered":"Up In Lights"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 2018 | view this story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

From homeschool to Hamilton<\/em>: Gray-native Sam Bagala<\/strong> takes us on his journey on tour with the world\u2019s biggest musical.<\/span><\/h3>\n

By Sarah Moore<\/span><\/p>\n

\"MAY18-Hamilton\"How do you land the role of a lifetime before you\u2019ve even passed a quarter century? If you\u2019re Sam Bagala<\/strong>, you start young. At 13, the precocious musician from Gray had his first paid gig playing keys for Lyric Theater\u2019s production of Beauty and the Beast<\/em>. By 17, he was thrown before a cast of Broadway stars as the teenage Musical Director at Maine State Music Theater. Less than a decade later, he was \u201criding a tour bus somewhere through the Midwest\u201d when a voicemail across the airwaves delivered the news he\u2019d been waiting for: Bagala had won his spot on Hamilton<\/em><\/strong>\u2013the Broadway Box-office-smashing hip hop musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda that tells the all-singing, all-dancing, all-rapping<\/em> story of the birth of our nation through a culturally diverse lens. <\/span><\/p>\n

A graduate of the Boston Conservatory and USM\u2019s Early Study program, Sam Bagala is now on the road with the Hamilton<\/em> troupe for the play\u2019s first excursion beyond Broadway. This month alone, he\u2019ll bounce from California to Georgia and on to Nevada. After that? \u201cI\u2019ve lost track,\u201d he says. Bagala is the show\u2019s full-time musical associate, splitting his talent between the orchestra pit and backstage. \u201cI love the diversity of my job,\u201d he says. \u201cOnce a week, I\u2019ll conduct the entire evening performance.\u201d With his back to the vast audience, Bagala\u2019s baton steers the 10-piece orchestra and cues the singers through the play\u2019s 46 soaring musical numbers. On other days, \u201cI play first or second keys.\u201d Outside of performances, he \u201cmight lead music rehearsals with new cast members, teaching them the scores and lyrics.\u201d Five months into the role, Bagala knows the Hamilton<\/em> playbill like a first language. Behind the scenes, he\u2019s been every character on the cast. \u201cI play five to six dance rehearsals a week, performing the number for the dancers to follow.\u201d The genre-bending Hamilton<\/em> score features a musical spectrum that ranges from show tunes to hip hop. A one-man rendition takes vocal gymnastics to a new level. \u201cI can be playing the piano while simultaneously rapping three different parts. Watching as I play the keys and cover the three-part female harmony and rap in \u2018The Schuyler Sisters\u2019 is particularly funny to experience.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Early Inspirations<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Childhood in Maine sounds like \u201cMarley, Springsteen, Buena Vista Social Club\u2013and plenty of world music,\u201d Bagala says. \u201cMy parents aren\u2019t musicians [he outstripped his mother\u2019s piano tutelage at five], but our family loves music. I remember plunking away on my grandma\u2019s piano in Rumford every Christmas. I actually played the Hamilton<\/em> score on her out-of-tune keys last holidays after I learned I\u2019d landed the job!\u201d Homeschooled until 13, Bagala\u2019s cacophony of influences left its mark on both himself and his brother, Marcus\u2013a score-writer for TV and film. A classically trained pianist, Bagala was regularly playing paid gigs at community theaters, and later professional theaters like MSMT and Ogunquit Playhouse, throughout his young years. \u201cIt was a great feeling to be a teenager and get paid for playing the piano. I realized I wanted to make a career out of this.\u201d During this time, the limelight called out for a moment\u2013\u201cI starred in the ensemble at the Lyric, Portland Stage, and Hackmatack\u201d\u2013but Bagala ultimately decided his destiny would be below the footlights. Unlike Anna Kendrick, his Maine musical theater peer, Bagala didn\u2019t shoot off to New York and LA at a young age. By his twenties, he\u2019d become a seasoned veteran of summer stock theater across the state. \u201cI feel so lucky to grow up in such a small and supportive community where I had so many opportunities to learn,\u201d he says when asked if he felt he grew up far from stage school. Bagala\u2019s personal bio ballparks around 800 performances with Maine State Music Theater between high school and his early twenties from 2009 to 2015. <\/span><\/p>\n

On the snatched moments he\u2019s not on the road with Hamilton or the shows that preceded it, Rent<\/em> and Elf: The Musical<\/em>, Bagala lives in New York City. He tries to escape to Maine whenever he can. \u201cThe Hamilton<\/em> tour comes to Boston in September. I\u2019m hoping to get a week off to come back and see my family in Gray and visit Ogunquit Playhouse and Maine State Music Theater.\u201d Then it\u2019s back on the highway bound for North Carolina and a new state every week thereafter. Can he conjure a dream beyond touring with the world\u2019s musical-of-the-moment? \u201cIt\u2019s funny, someone on the cast said that the other day: \u2018What do you do after you\u2019ve done Hamilton<\/em>?\u2019 It could tour for another 20 years. I\u2019d love to write my own shows and work with other musicians. I spend most of my time at the piano composing. It\u2019s the most rewarding and organic process, and I want to continue to be as creative as I can.\u201d n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 2018
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