Today we’d like to introduce you to Aaron Alon
Hi Aaron, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up performing as a musical theatre actor in south Florida, but when I left for college, I tried to leave the arts behind and focus on STEM. During my freshman year at the University of Chicago, while majoring in math, I took a music appreciation class and realized I had been kidding myself; the arts could never be at the periphery of my life, so I started double majoring in music in my sophomore year, and by my junior year, I was strictly a music major. I moved to Cleveland to pursue my master’s degree in composition and then came to Houston in 2005 to start the doctoral program in composition at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. After 10 years in higher education writing contemporary classical music, I earned my doctorate in 2009 and refocused on my passions for teaching and for theatre.
As a teacher, after working as an adjunct at a number of places in the greater Houston area, I got a full-time job teaching for Lone Star College-CyFair in January 2012. In 2017, I left the CyFair campus to start the music program at Lone Star College-University Park, where I am still working as a professor of music and chair of the Visual & Performing Arts. I’m really proud of the programs we’re building there.
As for my work in theatre, I had long been interested in writing plays and musicals and started doing so in earnest in 2009, beginning with 10-minute plays for short play festivals. My short plays have been performed in Houston, Galveston, New York, and elsewhere in the US and the UK. In 2010-2011, I helped found a nonprofit focused on producing new and under-recognized plays, musicals, and screenplays in the greater Houston area. I remain president of the board of Thunderclap Productions (thunderclapproductions.com), which has produced numerous award-winning plays and musicals in Houston for well over a decade. Around 2011, I started writing my first feature film, the musical BULLY. Thanks to the support of the Houston Arts Alliance and the John Steven Kellett Foundation, as well as dozens of individual donors, we were able to produce this film, which premiered in Houston in September 2017. This film (bullythemusical.com) went on to be included in over 30 film festivals around the world and won over 20 festival prizes.
I also launched a YouTube channel with humorous shorts about language and songs from my musicals. The first video went viral, amassing over 9 million views. (https://www.youtube.com/c/AaronAlon)
In 2020, I founded Aaron Alon Productions, LLC, through which I create content for my YouTube channel, along with Concept Cast albums of my musicals. In 2022, I completed work on two large stage musicals: THE GREAT WHITE WAY: THE BERT WILLIAMS MUSICAL (bertwilliamsmusical.com) and MAD! (madthemusical.com; co-written with fellow Houston-based composer Russell Sarre). While the recording for MAD! is still underway, the recording of THE GREAT WHITE WAY was released on all major streaming platforms in August 2022. THE GREAT WHITE WAY was one of three international finalists for the 2023 Stanley Drama Awards. Using 4 songs from that musical in my application, I was also one of 6 international finalists for the 2022 Fred Ebb Award.
My latest musical, THE CHOSEN ONES (thechosenonesmusical.com), tells the story of six LGBTQ+ youth in a conversion therapy summer camp. The show was written in 2023 and had a preview performance of the first 7 songs at the MixMATCH festival in Houston through Thunderclap Productions in January 2024. The concept cast album is nearly completed and is slated to be released by early 2025. A full production of the musical, produced by Thunderclap Productions and directed by Aisha Ussery, will premiere in Houston on Aug. 28, 2025 at the Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston (MATCH), and will run for two weeks (thunderclapproductions.com/thechosenones).
Other current projects include new content for my YouTube channel, a new nonprofit dedicated to the art and science of singing, and some new musicals and plays that are in their early stages. I also started a web design business in March 2024 and have already had the opportunity to design websites for several composers and artists, including the celebrated opera composer Ricky Ian Gordon.
To learn more about me, please visit aaronalon.com.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
While I consider myself mostly fortunate and happy in life, I’ve certainly had challenges along the way. My biggest personal challenge has been chronic health conditions. I was diagnosed with migraines in 2000, small fiber neuropathy in 2016, and ineffective esophageal motility disorder in 2019. Along the way, there were numerous other subsidiary diagnoses, surgeries, procedures, and misdiagnoses. This was psychologically and financially challenging, especially before I secured a full-time job, but I’m fortunate to have my health conditions under relatively good control now. I’m currently working on a project for my YouTube channel called the Chronic Illness Project. I hope to engage other chronically ill artists in this work over time.
Professionally, I’ve dealt with the same challenges that most other writers for theatre do: it’s incredibly difficult to get your work “out there.” The work to secure producers, grants, and donors, along with having to do many things yourself to keep budgets down, can be exhausting, and it sometimes leaves precious little time for the creative work itself. That struggle is hardly unique, though. I know many incredible writers and composers who haven’t yet gotten the attention that their beautiful work deserves. Houston, fortunately, has a spectacular arts scene with many wonderful people in it, so I’m grateful to be here.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
The work I’m most proud of is my recent work in musical theatre, specifically the 3 full-length stage musicals I’ve written in the past few years. If I had to pick just one that I’m most proud of, I think it would be THE GREAT WHITE WAY: THE BERT WILLIAMS MUSICAL. That musical hasn’t been staged yet, but the full recording of the Concept Cast is available on major streaming platforms.
As for what I’m best known for, it would probably be work that explores social justice issues and other social ills through storytelling. That’s been true in my classical music, my plays, my feature film, and in my recent musicals. I never want to be didactic and I’m allergic to two-dimensional villains, so I hope to tell honest stories and let audiences respond to them, rather than asking them to grapple with some abstract notion of a social ill.
I’ve also worked hard at developing the skill of effectively mixing drama and comedy in my recent work. I hope audiences leave my shows having felt deeply and broadly. I also hope they leave eager to sit down with their friends after the show and talk about what they’ve just seen.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
Especially as my work is so often inspired by social justice issues, I really appreciate media that helps me become better informed and more aware. In the last year or so, I’ve really gotten into podcasts. My favorite is probably “The Daily” from the New York Times. Along with podcasts, I also really appreciate late night shows that combine well-researched news with comedy. My favorite is “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” I’m also very fond of Jon Stewart’s shows (and podcast). Two other favorites of mine have sadly already been cancelled: “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj” and “The Amber Ruffin Show.” I also just started listening to audio books, beginning with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, which was exquisite and important. The last novel that I read that really floored me was Ocean Vuong’s ON EARTH WE’RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS. My favorite work of nonfiction might be Robert Cialdini’s INFLUENCE: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSUASION. I’m a behavioral science nerd and love books that get me to see the world differently. Every time I read Cialdini’s book, I feel like I have a temporarily clearer view of the levers of influence in marketing, politics, and the world at large.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://aaronalon.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alon.aaron/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aaronalonproductions
- Twitter: https://x.com/Aaron_Alon
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AaronAlon
- Other: http://www.thunderclapproductions.com/
Image Credits
Courtesy of Thunderclap Productions and Aaron Alon Productions, LLC
