When nineteen-year-old Ali Murphy entered Prima Theatre as a summer intern for the first time, she was prepared to spend the next three months organizing costumes and tidying the theatre. She was excited to gain experience at a theatre she admired, but not expecting too much. Before long, however, Prima’s core staff recognized that Murphy had some invaluable skills. She wasn’t just a gifted performer— she was also great at reading, writing, and arranging music. Soon they entrusted Murphy with an important task: making cuts and adjustments to the musical score for their upcoming show, Jekyll and Hyde. Prima had been given permission to run a condensed 90-minute version of the musical, but they needed someone with a sharp musical brain to make the condensed version work. It was a big responsibility, as even a tiny mistake could ruin the musical cohesion of the show, and Murphy felt a little nervous when she realized this task was now her sole responsibility— but she also felt surprised and gratified by the confidence and trust being placed in her. She was determined to get it right.
Now, three years later, Murphy is the official music supervisor and arranger for Prima’s upcoming show Here Comes The Sun. After her precise, thoughtful work helped make Prima’s production of Jekyll and Hyde a success, her internship ended, but she’s become a core part of Prima’s team.
Murphy’s interest in music began in childhood, first messing around with her mom’s piano, then later learning how to actually play it. Her passion grew throughout high school, where she played in the pit for school musicals and performed in various ensembles at Penn Manor High School, exploring every style of music available to her. When the time came to select a college, she committed to the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami and went on to earn a B.M in Music Industry.
Ali Murphy
Today, Murphy lives in Nashville as a full-time musician, performing gigs and preparing to release her debut EP, A Long Time Coming. She’s found the musical style that feels right for her— a mix of R&B and pop with hints of rock— and loves collaborating with friends on her music and theirs. Although recording the EP has kept her busy, she also finds the time to collaborate with Prima because she loves the work. Arranging music for a Prima production is an exciting challenge, a chance to stretch her musical muscles, and Here Comes the Sun is no exception.
Here Comes the Sun is a Beatles tribute concert— but the Beatles like you’ve never heard them before. This timely show seeks to be a source of hope and light for all who see it, combining the comforting familiarity of the Beatles’ beloved music with the excitement of new arrangements, beautiful costumes, and powerful vocalists.
“You can expect the classics, but also that there’s going to be these new twists on songs and mashups that are unexpected,” says Murphy. Crafting the perfect arrangement for every single song on the setlist has been the work of several months, but she’s enjoyed the challenge. The process of arranging music, she says, is akin to playing dress-up: she begins with a song she may have heard performed the same way a hundred times and tries it on in an array of outfits until she arrives at the perfect combination.
One strength Murphy draws on when arranging is the diversity of her music knowledge. “I listen to so many different types of music, different genres, different decades,” she says. This wealth of knowledge makes it possible for her to pluck an element from one song and apply it to another, no matter how unrelated the two tracks might seem.
Sometimes, the most unexpected combination turns out to be the greatest. For example: while preparing the setlist for Here Comes the Sun, Murphy listened to “Across the Universe” and immediately thought of Billie Eilish’s 2021 single “Happier Than Ever”, a song that starts intimate and quiet before building into a powerful wall of sound. “I thought it would be really cool to do that with ‘Across the Universe’,” she says. “Who would ever think about Billie Eilish and the Beatles? But for some reason, that’s what my brain went to.”
The work doesn’t end once the perfect arrangement is crafted, however. From there, Murphy works on making charts for the band and the vocalists, creating the click tracks for the band’s in-ear monitors, and ensuring that all these individual components match each other. From there, songs are assigned to performers and some adjustments, such as adding harmonies, are made. Then the moment arrives when Murphy has to let go of her work and send it into the world, hoping that the performers can take what she’s given them and turn it into everything she imagined.
The final product is often even more powerful than she could have anticipated. Murphy recalls sitting in the audience for Prima’s holiday show, On the Naughty List, watching the performance of one of her mashups, and feeling overcome with joy, pride, and gratitude. “I was sitting in the audience crying because this is what I get to do as my job,” she says. “Hearing these incredible performers sing this piece that you’ve worked so hard on, and it fully came out exactly as you envisioned it, and even more… it’s definitely one of the best feelings.”
October will be a big month for Murphy. Here Comes the Sun opens October 14th— coincidentally, the same day her debut EP, A Long Time Coming, releases. A self-described perfectionist, it has indeed taken Murphy a long time to feel ready to release her original music. “The thought of having something so set in stone and permanent just always kind of scared me,” she says. “It’s definitely been a really good musical journey to get to this point, but also a personal journey… of being confident in myself and being okay with something so permanent.”
Looking back, one crucial part of that journey was Murphy’s internship with Prima. “Being so young, people think we’re incapable of doing anything,” she says. But even at nineteen, she believed that she could do intense, important work on her own— and at Prima, other people thought she could do it, too. “It was a good boost of confidence that I needed,” she adds. “They’ve been nothing but absolutely amazing to me and have helped me tremendously.”
Although Murphy has some nerves about everything October holds, they’re good nerves. “I’m just excited for people to come see the show and have a good time and listen to this incredible music that these four incredible musicians gave to us so long ago,” she says. Prima has become another home to her, and this October, it promises to do the same thing for its audience, offering Here Comes the Sun as a warm, welcoming, uplifting experience for anyone in need of a little sunshine.
Here Comes the Sun runs October 14, 15, 21, 22, 28 & 29 (8pm) at Prima Theatre, 941 Wheatland Ave. in Lancaster. Visit primatheatre.org/sun for tickets or call the Box Office at 717-327-5124.
