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T HE ENVELOPE LOS ANGELES TIMES THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019
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for orchestrating three Broadway jugger-
nauts: “In the Heights,” “Hamilton” and
“Dear Evan Hansen.” A core member of
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brain trust, La-
camoire is one of the premier stage music
directors working today.
Miranda was the “catalyst” for “Fosse/
Verdon,” according to Lacamoire. The
“Hamilton” creator read the Sam Wasson
biography “Fosse”and handed it to “Ham-
ilton” director Thomas Kail. “He was, as
usual, just our eye and our barometer,” La-
camoire says of Miranda, who also made a
cameo in the final episode. “He would make
sure we were heading in the right direc-
tion.”
Lacamoire, who has loved Fosse since
he was a kid and considers “Pippin” one of
his favorite musicals, also composed some
original score for the first time — chiefly a
theme for Fosse and Verdon that feels like it‘F
osse/Verdon” threw a spot-
light on one of the most sig-
nificant duos in musical thea-
ter history: choreographer
Bob Fosse and his wife and
creative partner, Gwen Verdon. So, natu-
rally, the Emmy-nominated creatives be-
hind the FX limited series are two of today’s
most significant musical men.
Alex Lacamoire is nominated for out-
standing music direction. This was his first
foray into television, after winning Tonysbelongs in the world of “Cabaret” and “Chi-
cago.”
“I wanted to write something that felt
like it could be danced to,” he said.
“There are moments where these two
melodies kind of intertwine and dance
around each other — there’s even a mo-
ment where they kind of go together, paral-
lel, but then split apart the way Fosse and
Gwen did.”
“I also wanted it to have a little bit of
melancholy,” he added. “Yes, there were a
lot of things that went right, careerwise, but
there was a lot of stuff that felt like it went
wrong, emotionally. So I wanted there to be
a kind of hunched-over, slouched-shoulder
quality — much like Fosse’s dance.”
Lacamoire is used to wearing all of the
musical hats on a show, but he quickly real-
ized that, for his first TV rodeo, he needed
help.Enter Steven Gizicki, the Grammy-win-
ning music supervisor of “La La Land.” The
former head of music at Lucasfilm, Gizicki
oversaw every aspect of the Oscar-winning,
candy-colored 2016 film that brought musi-
cals back to the multiplex.
As the Emmy-nominated music super-
visor of “Fosse/Verdon,” Gizicki selected
and licensed all of the songs heard on radi-
os and turntables throughout the show —
even consulting Nicole Fosse on what re-
cords her parents would have played at
home. But also, for a show that promi-
nently features dance rehearsals and on-set
performances of famous, Fosse-choreo-
graphed numbers like “I Wanna Be a
Dancin’ Man,” Gizicki was a “soup to nuts”
conduit between the music team and all of
the other departments.
“We’re known as the people that pick the
songs,” he said.
“But for a show like ‘Fosse,’ the bulk of
the job is about execution. It’s about help-
ing to stage these numbers, and essentially
being a line producer or a stage manager
for these numbers. It goes beyond just
choosing the songs and licensing the songs.
It’s being on set, it’s managing all the pre-
records in the recording sessions, and the
mixing, and the soundtrack.”
“Fosse” was a very meta project to over-
see: rehearsing and choreographing scenes
about people rehearsing and choreo-
graphing scenes.
Lacamoire savored that aspect of it.
“I love that we all worked together to
make it really feel like the way it could have
felt in the day,” he said. “Those of us who
are working on it know what it’s like to be in
those rooms, and know the repetitive na-
ture of it, the precision of it, the discipline of
it.”
This was the first time Lacamoire and
Gizicki worked together — but not the last.
They were on their lunch break on the set of
the film adaptation of Miranda’s “In the
Heights,” due in 2020, when they gave this
interview. “Fosse,” aptly, paved the way for
their newfound partnership.
“Bob Fosse is sort of in our DNA, and his
works are part of the reason that we’re in
this career line to begin with,” Gizicki said.
“He’s part of why we’re driven to make mu-
sicals, because of the groundwork that he
“BOB FOSSEis sort of in our DNA,” says music supervisor Steven Gizicki, left, with music director Alex Lacamoire. laid.”Michael NagleFor The TimesTHE CRAFTSOUNDS YOU WANT TO DANCE TO
The music director and
music supervisor of FX’s
‘Fosse/Verdon’ feel moved
by the Broadway duo.
By Tim Greiving