Music Prep
Music Prep
Alongside our Artistic Coaching for our Musical Theater students, MTCA is thrilled to offer Music Preparation services, led by our Music Supervisor, Will Reynolds. Will headlines a team of professional Accompanists, Music Directors, and overall expert musicians, who can help you take your own musicianship game to the next level. Your MTCA Song Coaches will help you select audition Songs that show you off best, and will help you make a cut of those songs, and the Music Prep team will do the rest! They can make you a professionally recorded Track, arrange Sheet Music for you, and offer you many opportunities throughout the year to practice with Live Accompaniment. Something we’ve noticed since Covid is that our students have fewer and fewer opportunities to practice working with a pianist, and we have seen students struggling more and more in the live audition process because of this. At MTCA, we offer many opportunities to practice with giving tempos, how you explain your cuts, and how you lead your piano player to maximize your success in the room. We offer these opportunities at our Mock Auditions and throughout the Fall/Winter to make sure students are fully ready for their In-Person Auditions.
Meet Our Music Prep Coaches
Will Reynolds
Music Supervisor
BFA in Musical Theatre, Carnegie Mellon
AEA
He/Him
Will Reynolds is a writer, performer, teaching artist, and the recipient of the Fred Ebb Award for Musical Theater Writing with collaborator Eric Price. Acting credits include: Daddy Long Legs (Off-Broadway, directed by John Caird), Passion at Classic Stage Company (directed by John Doyle, cast album on PS Classics), and the North American Tour of Mamma Mia! Film: “Emma” (streamingmusicals.com), “The Good Shepard” (directed by Robert De Niro.) Will’s musicals include The Violet Hour (based on the play by Richard Greenberg), Radioactive, Around The World, The Greenwood Tree, and his song cycle Poems & Moon Songs. He can be heard on Season Two of “Central Park” on Apple TV+, on Audra McDonald’s album Go Back Home, as well on the Broadway Records benefit album Artists In Residence with “When I See You Again,” sung by Laura Osnes.
His sheet music can be found online at Music Notes and New Musical Theatre (NMT). Will grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently on faculty at Pace University as well as Hussian College in LA, and is co-founder of the musical theatre online learning platform This MT Space. www.willreynoldsonline.com @willcreynolds
Andy Collopy
Music Prep Coach
BM in Piano, Ithaca College
AFM
He/Him
Andy Collopy is a New York City-based music director and pianist. His credits include The Lightning Thief on Broadway, the national tour of the Daniel Fish-directed revival of Oklahoma!, the Off-Broadway production of Daddy Long Legs, and Take The Lead at Paper Mill Playhouse. He is particularly passionate about the development of new musicals and has worked extensively as a music director of readings, workshops, and festival presentations of new works. Andy is on the music team of the Jimmy Awards and can be heard each year accompanying the finalists on the stage of the Minskoff Theatre. He is a proud native of Cleveland, Ohio and a graduate of Ithaca College.
Mason Griffin
Music Prep Coach
AFM
He/Him
Mason Griffin is a musical theater accompanist, coach, conductor, and music director. He studied music at LSU with Dr. Pamela Pike, Dr. Jeffrey Perry, and Terry Patrick-Harris. In NYC, he has worked with LaGuardia High School, Amas Musical Theatre, MTCA, Jen Waldman Studio, The New York Film Academy, Applause NY, Broadway Classroom, NYU, CCNY, Stella Adler Studio, Sing for Your Seniors, and UNIS. As music director, highlight shows include: Naked Boys Singing! (Off-Broadway), RENT, Les Miserables, The Addams Family, Spelling Bee, A Funny Thing…Forum, Little Shop of Horrors, I Love a Piano, Company, and Dreamgirls. A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Mason was the guest conductor of Louisiana State University’s annual spring musical theater showcase Singo de Mayo for six years. He has had the pleasure of working with industry professionals such as: Taylor Negron, Steve Martin, Edie Brickell, Patti Murin, Baayork Lee, Mrs. Kasha Davis, Jeremy Jordan, and Andrew Rannells. He has performed throughout NYC at 54 Below, The Duplex Cabaret, Don’t Tell Mama, Green Room 42, Red Eye, Theatre Row, The Laurie Beechman, Uncle Charlie’s Piano Bar, Haswell Greens, The 13th Street Repertory Theater and The Triad Theatre. Mason created the cabaret shows No Blue Monday, Bosom Buddies, and Hello, Jerry!, all elebrating the music and lyrics of Jerry Herman. He is currently the minister of music at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church on Long Island and associate music director at the Institute for American Musical Theatre in Washington Heights.
