Interview: Music Director Dan Lipton Rocks Out Weekly at The Friki Tiki

Music director Dan Lipton has been in the business a long time, working as a music director on cabaret shows like Santino Fontana’s BY REQUEST and Kelli O’Hara’s concerts.

We spoke in mid-October about the behind-the-scenes of what goes into music directing, and Lipton’s weekly show Wednesday nights at the Friki Tiki in Manhattan's Theater Row, which he does with Matthew DeGroat on "guitar and grungy vocals." They just played their last show of the year last night with guest Rebecca Kasper (Mamma Mia). Catch them back in 2025 after the holidays for plenty of hits from the 80s, 90s, 00s and beyond, plus exciting drop-in guests.

How did you get into working as a music director?

Oh, wow. Okay, so it deep and it goes back to summer camp. I went to this performing arts summer camp called French Woods where a lot of people in show business went. And in fact, I've known Jason Robert Brown since I was a kid. He's about five years older than me, but he was at the camp at the same time.

And he was definitely an early role model for me because I saw this kid who was 15, 16, just running stuff musically, you know? [laughs] And it was at that camp that I first started following in his footsteps, starting to music direct my fellow campers and accompanying really talented young kids at French Woods.

And so, when I ended up then at Northwestern University, I just continued to do that. And it's what paid me, really. That was my job through college, playing voice lessons, and coming into acting class whenever someone did something musically.

And when I was there at Northwestern, my classmates were future Broadway stars at that point. So Heather Headley and Katrina Lenk and Kate Baldwin were the people whose voice lessons I was playing at Northwestern. And so I think just over the years, I just naturally fell into this position of always being there musically supporting the great singer, performer. I'm always right there, and that continued into life.

And so, I’ve played a lot of Broadway shows in my time, but it's much more satisfying at this point to do concert work where I'm onstage in full view of the audience at a concert hall playing on a Steinway baby grand, not playing a synth unseen in the pit where I'm really playing the instruments that they can't afford to hire anymore. All that kind of stuff makes it more gratifying musically, and sure, a little ego-wise too. But that's my arc in this work.

Tell me about your Friki Tiki show.

So, it would seem very opposite of what I do. And that's kind of the point. It also, in a way, it goes all the way back to when I was a kid at that camp. Because French Woods is one of the few places where you can actually sign up for rock band as an activity.

And when I first went to the camp when I was ten years old, that's why I went. I actually got sucked into musical theater and stuff once I was there, but I went initially because there was no other camp where you could sign up for rock band. And even though I got sucked into theater because I recognized that every show needed a rehearsal pianist, whereas not every rock band even wanted a keyboard player, I still always played in a band. I always played in a rock band, even though I was accompanying singers and music directing musicals more. And again, it continues into adulthood and then ends up feeding both ways, because one of the Broadway shows that I ended up working on was Sting and that's clearly a rock-pop artist coming to theater and that's when my really deep training in all this and just natural instinct for all this... it does go all the way back to playing in a rock band when I was 10, 11 years old.

And at the same time, learning how to read Sondheim and accompany singers on Kander & Ebb. I was doing all that all at once when I was a kid.

And so to come around to the gig that I do every Wednesday night at the Friki Tiki, it's the one fun gig that I know I have every week, no matter what else is going on. And it has nothing to do with theater. It has nothing to do with reading music. I don't have to practice anything. It's just me and my buddy doing largely 80s and 90s hits for the fun of it.

Increasingly, we're getting fun guest stars to come sing their favorite songs, too. And I want it to turn into that kind of thing where people can just stop by and pop up and do a song or two, just a pop song that they love.

For me, it's what I get out of it is it's just fun. It keeps my chops up and keeps my brain sharp, because every week we're learning new songs and you get requests, and we have to play things in different keys, and it's really good for my brain and for my hands.

It's a good way to stay in the game, but it's mostly just fun. And it happens to be a really great room, too. It's just a fun tiki bar atmosphere crossed with a piano bar. They have good food, they have good drinks. The staff is fun. So we have a really good time.

It's every Wednesday night from 9 pm to midnight.

Do you do you have any future plans for your Friki Tiki show?

I mean, the real dream is to start getting actual artists from the 80s and 90s to come and do their song with us. That's the dream.

Because it's in the theater district and because I do have one foot, obviously in theater, I do wish it was the place where Alicia Keys would stop by and do a song. Where Anaïs Mitchell can stop by and pop in and do a song. Like, whoever has a show running should be able to stop by and do something from it. I hope we get to that point.

Or just when some random 80s pop star happens to be in town, has a gig down the block, that they can come and get up and do their song. That's what I hope it turns into. But you know, we're building slowly. [laughs]

What goes into music directing? What back and forth do you usually have talking with artists about planning arrangements for shows?

First of all, great question. I think [it’s] an underappreciated art that a lot of us music directors do. A lot of these collaborations with singers who are musical theater stars of some caliber, there's a lot that goes into it.

There's a lot of brainstorming and texting and emailing and talking and trading of playlists and talking about macro ideas, sometimes up to a year in advance of a large gig. And then talking very small quick ideas of like, we have a two-song gig next week at a private event, what should those two songs be?

So I'm constantly consulting with all the main singers that I work with over the gigs coming up and what we're doing at each one. And then each gig can also maybe have a totally different instrumentation where, one gig with Kelli O'Hara coming up is just me on piano, but then I have something coming on with Mandy Gonzalez that's a full band. That one happens to be a holiday show. And so, there's a few holiday charts that we've never done before that we need to rehearse.

The fun of it is that it's always different. There's always something different coming up. But yeah, it can get to be a lot on the plate at once. I mean, I just did this gig at 54 Below with Santino [Fontana], which was this all-request show that he had dreamt up where he was learning stuff that he's never done before. And so, we had to learn a lot of music that we only did once.

And he's a fan of these request shows where again, we learn 30 songs but we only do half of them. So that's specific to that gig and how he's doing it. But there's a lot of Kelli O'Hara gigs that I barely have to think because I basically know what the setlist is, and I know what we're going to do at this certain event, you know?

But then when we do something like Kelli O'Hara and Sutton Foster together with the New York Pops orchestra at Carnegie Hall, like, that's a year-long process. And then especially the two months leading up to the gig, it's almost a full rehearsal process with a stage manager and a choreographer and backup dancers. Sutton's music director Michael Rafter and me and there's a writer and there's a director. That's almost like a full production.

But then there's like the gig that's next week that's just like two songs at a private dinner or something where we'll just be texting about that.

So anyway, I'm probably talking too much, but I'm trying to just paint the picture. It's an ever-evolving cornucopia of musical tasks and decisions and programing decisions and musical arranging decisions and stuff like that, that always needs to happen at once.

Can you describe the process of doing song mashups? Like, let's say pairing “Tomorrow” and “Cockeyed Optimist.”

That's a great example, really. She just had the notion of these two songs go together for me, at least right now, and is there a way... These things are often positioned as questions like, “Do you think there's a way to put these together?” Do you think there's a way for me to do this type of song?

So that's how this was. It was like, do you think there's a way to combine these two songs?

And I guess one thing that I maybe go to is can the groove of one song work for both songs, essentially. That's a pretty typical starting point for me. Like, okay, what if “Cockeyed Optimist” was done in the groove of “Tomorrow”? Let's try that. Does that work? And vice versa.

And then it's like, okay, you already have two things to choose from. Do either of them work? Is one of them better? And that's kind of what happened there. It was like, oh we'll pop up “Cockeyed Optimist,” you know? But we're doing that [in] the groove of “Tomorrow” is what it essentially is.

And once you get that main thing, the rest of it is just fun dressing. The rest of it is like, oh, we can do this theme from one song here when we’re in the other song, or we can do a key change here. Whatever it is... repeat this phrase here. Whatever we end up with. It's like a challenge. It's like, “do you think this is possible?”

Has a singer requested a mashup that you couldn't make work?

Oh, no. No, no, of course not. Well, I'm not going to own up to it anyway.

No, I mean, the thing with Kelli and Sutton last year, we did a whole 90s medley, because their whole show was partly in tribute to Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett and the old shows that they used to do at Carnegie Hall. They always did a ridiculous medley of songs of the 60s or songs or the 70s.

And so, we did this thing that ended with them doing a medley of songs from the 90s and that was like the ultimate mash up challenge because it was like, we're going to hit something like 18 songs in seven minutes. Which songs are those?

Again, it started with this big brainstorm list and asking them, “What are your favorite songs from the 90s?” Even if you can't picture yourself ever singing them, what are they? And that's how they end up singing a little bit of “All-Star” by Smash Mouth with an orchestra at Carnegie Hall. [laughs] So no, I think I rise to any mashup challenge. I think I'm pretty good at making it all work somehow, even when it's ridiculous. [laughs]

Is there anything that you wish more people understood about music directing?

I don't really expect people to understand everything about music directing. [laughs]

Is there anything else you’d like to add about your show at the Friki Tiki?

I would love if people just valued live music and live musicians. I think that's what you get when you come to a place like the Friki, is you see people live doing it right in front of you. It's not AI. It's not a DJ. There's enough of that everywhere else. So there's that, you know? Support live music and live musicians.

And live performers in general. It's exciting to stumble into a basement speakeasy and then all of a sudden there's some pro from a show around the corner who just stopped in to sing a 90s hit.

That's the vibe that we're going for. So if you come and check it out, you're supporting live music, live musicians, live performers while you're having fun.

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Dan Lipton plays weekly on Wednesday nights at the Friki Tiki in Manhattan’s theater district at 357 W 44th St from 9 pm to midnight with occasional drop-in guests.

Follow Dan Lipton on Instagram @liptongram.

Check the Friki Tiki's Instagram to check this week's current performance lineup.

Header photo features Dan Lipton at the piano with Kelli O’Hara. Photo credit: Richard Termine.

Headshot courtesy of Dan Lipton.

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