{"id":1192,"date":"2020-03-11T19:12:39","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T02:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/?p=1192"},"modified":"2026-08-30T22:45:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T05:45:03","slug":"keith-thompson-the-history-of-the-composers-showcase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/keith-thompson-the-history-of-the-composers-showcase\/","title":{"rendered":"Keith thompson & The History of the Composers Showcase"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/span><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>

This article was printed in the<\/em>
\n Spring 2020 issue of Chic Compass Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\"Keith<\/span><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>

Keith Thompson & The History of the Composers Showcase<\/h1>\n

BY JONATHAN SCOTT<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div>

Keith Thompson is the \u201cSon of a Preacher Man\u201d from down South in Alabama. Encouraged by his High School choir teacher, Keith went on to college, graduating with two music degrees from William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. College friends introduced young Keith to the music of Broadway through show business luminaries like Ethel Merman, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland and Liza Minelli.<\/p>\n

Keith quickly turned his direction from writing religious songs to writing Musical Theatre. A tiny local theater group wrote and produced a show, believe it or not, called, \u201cCleavage \u2013 A Titillating New Musical Comedy\u201d or, the more PC, \u201cA Musical Close to Where the Heart Is.\u201d It must have been the comedic influence of Keith\u2019s friends that provided him with his hilarious on-stage persona, \u201cHonest and Real!\u201d-real funny that is!<\/p>\n

Staying in NYC after \u201cCleavage\u201d closed, Keith worked the Dinner Theater circuit until he landed a job in \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d on Broadway as a \u201csub\u201d on and off for three years while also teaching at NYU. In New York, Keith got to work with a lot of very funny people like Buddy Sheffield.<\/p>\n

Keith and Buddy worked on \u201cRoundhouse,\u201d a show on Nickelodeon, for which Keith moved to L.A. for a short while. He went back to NYC where he worked on various shows such as, \u201cJoseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat\u201d with Donny Osmond and the first national tour of \u201cMamma Mia,\u201d before moving to Vegas for \u201cWe Will Rock You\u201d the Musical, and the chance to work with Brian May of Queen.<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
\"Keith<\/span><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>

JS: How did Composers Showcase start?<\/p>\n

KT: While I was working on \u201cWe Will Rock You\u201d I was writing songs and putting together demos using the people I worked with in the show. I was getting to know the Las Vegas theatre community. Then \u201cHairspray\u201d opened. The female lead actress had been one of my students at NYU and had performed in one of my original musicals Off-Broadway. Michael Brennan, Wayne Green, Richard Oberacker and I were all writing musicals in Las Vegas. The group suggested getting together and sharing three or four of our original songs each month and The Composers Showcase was born.<\/p>\n

The Composers Showcase started at a tragic little bar called, \u201cSuede\u201d and the president of the Liberace Museum came and saw us and said, \u201cHey, we have a little Cabaret room, why don\u2019t you do the showcase there?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Composers Showcase was at the Liberace Museum for three and a half years. The Theatre community in Las Vegas was thriving with shows like \u201cPhantom,\u201d \u201cAvenue Q,\u201d \u201cHairspray,\u201d \u201cThe Producers\u201d and \u201cSpamalot\u201d. \u201cJersey Boys\u201d opened in 2008 and I was hired to be the Musical Director. The theatre community was healthy and ALIVE!<\/p>\n

Then the Liberace Museum closed in 2010 and the Composers Showcase had no home. We floated around for about a year and a half, looking at different venues and trying to keep the idea of the Composers Showcase alive. When I say \u201cwe,\u201d I mean \u201cme!\u201d I was the one-man driving force. But anytime I reached out, people would say \u201cYES\u201d and support the effort.<\/p>\n

Then the Smith Center opened in 2012.<\/p>\n

JS: I am often amazed at how quickly the crew changes the set around and how well the show is paced and orchestrated. How much of the musical arranging do you do?<\/p>\n

KT: If a composer comes to me with their band, great! But, if someone has a song that needs a string quartet, or a horn section, I will agree to write the charts and make it happen.<\/p>\n

JS: Composers Showcase is a bit of an incubator with songwriters like Daniel Emmet almost winning \u201cAmerica\u2019s Got Talent\u201d and Richard Oberacker\u2019s show, \u201cBandstand,\u201d going to Broadway and winning a Tony Award. How does that make you feel?
\nKT: It makes me very happy. When we became a non-profit organization, we had to focus on our mission which is to provide a platform for writers who are seeking to get their music out there and to support their efforts the best we can. We now offer a scholarship at UNLV for young writers who major in composition or jazz composition. We\u2019ve just started that and it\u2019s the beginning of a four-year journey for us.<\/p>\n

JS: Your performance as jovial host of The Composers Showcase is pretty consistent each month, but are there similarities to each show?<\/p>\n

KT: Each Composers Showcase is very different. We know our audience likes to laugh and enjoy funny songs so we invite back songwriters like Mark Wherry from the College of Southern Nevada (CSN), Danny Roque from L.A. and comedian Dennis Blair who is a brilliant stand-up comedian, but who writes some of the saddest songs you\u2019ve ever heard. Vita Corimbi, (Menopause, The Musical), was one of our original songwriters in 2006 and she has always been one of my favorites. I am crazy about her.<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
\"Keith<\/span><\/div><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>

JS: Do you get a lot of celebrities at The Composers Showcase looking for new material?<\/p>\n

KT: We\u2019ve had a lot of very successful and famous songwriters and performers join our fun. Stars like Olivia Newton John, Debbie Gibson, The Righteous Brothers (Bill Medley & Bucky Heard), Susan Anton and even Priscilla Presley have participated in our showcase.<\/p>\n

JS: What advice would you give to a young songwriter?<\/p>\n

KT: My advice is simply to keep writing. If you\u2019re a songwriter, then you write every day about everything that happens to you. You have to listen to other people\u2019s music and take that into account. Don\u2019t be afraid to take the advice of other writers, but also, don\u2019t be afraid to ignore it.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re celebrating our 8th year at Myron\u2019s Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center in April. The Composers Showcase is a \u201cMust-See\u201d show that brings together songwriters, singers and an audience, many of whom are experiencing the Smith Center for the first time.<\/p>\n

JS: Keith Thompson\u2019s favorite lyricists are Alan and Marilyn Bergman, fittingly the writers of \u201cHow Do You Keep The Music Playing\u201d.<\/p>\n

To watch videos from past shows and purchase tickets to The Composers Showcase, visit their website at:
\nwww.thecomposersshowcase.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Jonathan Scott is the Host of #VegasNonStop, listen in on Saturdays at 8am on 920AM, Las Vegas and find him at #VegasNonStop on Social Media<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4520,2463],"tags":[2787,2783,2781,267,2784,2782,2788,2785,2786],"class_list":["post-1192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-issue-5","tag-cabaret-jazz","tag-composer","tag-keith-thompson","tag-las-vegas","tag-liberace-museum","tag-the-composers-showcase","tag-the-smith-center","tag-theater","tag-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10736,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192\/revisions\/10736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}