Matt Dahan

Graduated from University of Southern California with a Certificate in Film Scoring

## Pulp Musical Roles

### The Great Moon Hoax

Writer
Narrator

## Other Shows

### StarKid Shows

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals- Music Director
Black Friday- Music Director
Nightmare Time- Music Director, Underscoring
Nightmare Time 2-Music Director, Underscoring

**Matt Dahan** (born March 12) is an American composer, songwriter and music director. He is best known for co-creating the musical Starry and his work with American musical theatre company Team Starkid. He is the writer of Pulp Musicals and features in the episodes as the Narrator.

## Early Life and Education

Matt's music career started with an abandoned upright piano and a Talkboy tape recorder in the suburns of Boston.

He went on to study at the Berklee College of Music where he graduated with a Bachelors degree in songwriting. He also studied film scoring at the University of Southern California.

## Work

Matt made his professional theatre debut in 2015 with his musical written alongside writing partner Kelly D'Angelo: The Count of Monte Cristo at the Lounge Theatre, Los Angeles. Matt created the music and orchestrations for the show as well as acting a music director for the show. He then went on to provide music and act as music director for the off-broadway musical The Babies in 2016. He also provided music and orchestrations for The Adventures of Peter Rabbit at Theatre West, Los Angeles which ran from October 5, 2019 until it was closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

After being in development since 2017, in 2018 Matt and writing partner Kelly D'Angelo debuted their original pop-rock musical Starry. The show told the story of two brothers, Vincent and Theo van Gogh and told a transcendal story about the power of expression. The show ran at Rockwell Table and Stage, Los Angeles featuring fellow Team StarKid members: Mariah Rose Faith Casillas and Jeff Blim. The show went on to have two sold out concerts at Feinstein's 54 Below in 2019 featuring many members of the original cast as well as adding new cast members. The shows concept album was released on January 31, 2020 and has amassed over 1 million streams. On March 24 2022, Starry was announced to have a workshop in London with a world premiere production also taking place in London in 2023.

Matt has served as composer for a number of films. In 2013, Matt served as the composer for the film How Sweet It Is. The film was well received being listed as a semi-finalist for the 86th Academy Awards in numerous categories. Matt has since composed the score for a number of films including Lonely Boy (2013), The Bus Driver (2018), Break: The Musical (2016), The Muse (2016), Hipmen: LA (2017). He also wrote the original song Beyond the Shore for the 2021 film CODA.

Matt released his first album Love Sick in 2008 and has since released four more: Shadowboxing (2010), Sighseeing Through Whiskey (2014), Angels for Angeles (2018) and Dahanthology, Vol. 1 (2020).

## StarKid

After meeting members StarKid through working on his musical Starry, Matt was invited to be music director for StarKid's Los Angeles debut musical The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals in 2018. He also featured in the show's band as Keyboard 1. Matt returned to StarKid in 2019 to act of music director and feature once again as Keyboard 1 in Black Friday. Matt also acted as music director for both Nightmare Time and Nightmare Time 2 alongside underscoring both seasons of the series.

## Pulp Musicals

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic Matt found his theatre community plunged into a time of uncertainty and slowly began to adapt to a world without live venues. It inspired him to create Pulp Musicals, a radio-musical series based on the Pulp genre. The first part of Pulp Musicals episode 1: The Great Moon Hoax was released on November 15, 2021 with the final part and the episodes album being released on November 19, 2021. Matt featured in the episodes as the Narrator as well as creating all of the music. The second episode is currently in development.

## Personal Life

Matt currently resides in Los Angeles. He greatly enjoys the sci-fi genre especially Star Trek. He and his girlfriend, Jackie Franco, have a pug named Frodo.