Published in
on July 21:
Mr. Show Busy
Michael McKelvey's just a guy who cain't say no (to musicals)
by Robert Faires
You gotta figure that in Austin's arts community there must be a quintet of McKelvey brothers, all of them, like the sons of George Foreman, boasting the same first name (in this case, Michael). How else to explain the fact that at any given moment in a season you can have a Michael McKelvey directing a musical here, a Michael McKelvey music directing a musical there, one composing music for some play, another performing in a concert, and yet another conducting a choral program?
Well, as difficult as it may be to believe, no band of brothers is shouldering all these musical responsibilities, nor has Dr. McKelvey figured out a way to clone himself. He's doing all this all by his lonesome. An octuple threat (you can add educator and producer to his credit line of singer/actor/director/music director/composer/conductor), McKelvey has for years been making use of his copious talents in, I kid you not, dozens of projects per season, across the length and breadth of the community: St. Stephen's Episcopal School, St. Edward's University, Austin Playhouse, Austin Shakespeare, Zilker Theatre Productions, TexARTS, Penfold Theatre Company, his own Doctuh Mistuh Productions, and the youth theatre training program he co-founded with Ginger Morris, Summer Stock Austin.
This summer provides a classic case study in just how crazy busy McKelvey keeps himself. In June, he directed and music directed Penfold's charming chamber musical I Love You Because. He then directed and music directed the Zilker Summer Musical, Footloose, which opened July 8. Since then, he's been hard at work on the three Summer Stock musicals that open this week and the next: Urinetown: The Musical and A Year With Frog and Toad, both of which he's directing and music directing, and The Producers, which he's just music directing (unless, that is, you factor in that he's co-producing all three shows).
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