Caden Marshall - The Musical Dealer

Every musical theatre aficionado has a gateway drug. For many, it is the blockbuster national tours that sweep through cities, enticing young fans to look deeper after experiencing, say, the second national tour of Wicked. For others, it is libraries, where dusty CD’s and brittle bound librettos open portals to new worlds. From there the passion grows, and a hunger develops for new songs, new stories, and critically, new perspectives.

Caden Marshall, TikTok’s resident musical dealer, is bringing new heights to the idea of accessible art. With carefully curated spreadsheets, a devoted following, and hundreds of show recommendations under his belt,  he has harnessed the power of the digital algorithm to connect theatre fans with undersung shows, ranging from the forgotten hits of yesteryear to newly developed productions on the rise. His recommendations hold weight - one only has to glance at the comment section on any of his videos to see a vibrant, thriving community of theatre fans whose horizons broaden each time Marshall posts a video, both through his recommendations and the shared knowledge of his other devotees.

This past summer, I had the pleasure of speaking with Caden about TikTok, the burning curiosity of young theatre fans, and the importance of accessibility.

Margaret Hall: How would you describe what it is you do?

Caden Marshall: I phrase it a whole lot of ways in different videos. I want to be able to give obscure musicals that could use more love, that are doing great things, a wider platform. I can pretty faithfully say that that has happened with one show so far -- I think it’s still the biggest video that I’ve ever posted. I recommended Islander, which is a musical from Scotland -- do you know it?

MH: Yes. I covered Islander around the same time as your video.

CM: I have a bunch of documents of all kinds of things about musicals, and I realized, “I don’t really know where this is taking place, or when this is taking place,”, so (Finn Anderson, the composer) and I had a small email exchange. He emailed me later, saying “I saw your video, thank you so much, a lot is happening, can’t really tell you about it.”

(Following the groundswell of online interest, Islander is now being adapted into a film, and has numerous international productions in the works, including a recently announced Korean production. You can listen to the full cast album here.)

MH: And how viral, relatively, would you say that video went?

CM: I wouldn’t quite call it “viral.” 218.1 thousand [views]. It has 50,000 likes and 600 comments. I think it did so well because it was right at the time of sea shanty popularity, and I used the sound and I used the hashtag and it did me all of the good in the world because it was something people were looking for, I guess.

MH: What month did that come out? Because you didn’t start the musical dealing until late in 2020, correct?

CM: Yeah. This was January 17th. This is a pretty recent thing and I already have a substantial platform, which is --

MH: I think you’re at 23.5 thousand?

CM: Exactly! You have your data.

(Since this interview, @themusicaldealer has blossomed to 33,000 followers, and nearly 25 million views)

CM: There’s something just like, personally fulfilling about being able to say, “yeah, I found that really early on.” Which is a little -- I don’t know what to call it.

MH: That hipster instinct?

CM: Yeah, yeah. It’s a bit self-serving.

MH: Everyone has some facet of that, wanting to feel like you’re ahead of the curve.

CM: I love that “ahead of the curve” feeling. And when I found this musical In the Green, I was like, “I really want to tell people about this, but no one in my current circles really cares or wants to listen to stuff with me” except for my boyfriend and he already listened to it with me. So I was thought, “maybe I’ll start this TikTok thing.”

MH: When did you start making the spreadsheet for your own personal use? Because it seems to have been pretty robust before you started the TikToks.

CM: Oh, yeah. I call myself a compulsive list-maker. My Google Docs is overflowing with all sorts of lists of God knows what. I started making documents listing stuff about musicals when I started listening to them religiously. I think that must’ve been… I think it was 2017, so that’s four years. I wanted to know all of the musicals that I already knew. I wanted to have a count. I think I was under 100 at the time, and I realized I could fix that really easily.

I started a list where I categorized the different titles of musicals, in terms of “is it a location, like Motown or Chicago?” “Is it a name, like Annie or Dear Evan Hansen?” “Is it a lyric, like Ain’t Too Proud?” “Is it an iconic line,” is it some other weird reference or a parody, and then I got really bored of that one and I don’t work on it anymore. There’s a bunch of documents that I’ve created and scrapped, but all of the ones that are up on my linktree, plus a few more that I don’t have up there for my own reasons, are the ones that have stayed and that I’m pretty dedicated to keeping up. The most recent one that I started is the “Recommendations of Musicals” one, which I did start during the TikTok thing.

MH: What are the sort of demographics of your audience at this point? Mostly under 18, over 18?

CM: I would guess that theater college students and grads are the majority of my audience, but I don’t click on people’s profiles when they comment, so I’m not really sure.

MH: What is your age? Are you currently in college or have you graduated now?

CM: I’m in college, I’m 21, I have two more years because I’m double majoring in American Sign Language and musical theater.

MH: Do you plan on sort of blending your theater background with your interpreting background, or is it something that you keep separate, personally?

CM: I want to interpret for the stage but I’m certainly not going to limit myself to that, especially because it’s really hard to get that kind of work and make sure that the accessibility is properly there. That’s a big part of why I care about my platform. Albums are the most accessible form of musical theater that we have.It costs money to get scripts, if they’re even available; getting sheet music is difficult; seeing shows, you know, bootlegs are a whole industry, but that’s not accessible for people. People don’t know where to find it, it’s very secretive --

MH: It’s very underground.

CM: It’s very underground, and so I explore musicals through albums because that’s how I can access this art form that I really love.

MH: What is the musical that first brought you into the fold -- that, I’m assuming, as a kid, made you fall in love with this art form?

CM: Seussical.

MH: What was it about Seussical?

CM: I think I first heard Seussical when I was like, two or three. My mom found it and thought it was a nice kids’ album. So I saw multiple local productions of Seussical when I was little, I was in it, it was my second show. It forever be somewhere in my heart.

MH: Based on Seussical, then: if you had to recommend three shows like Seussical, what would come to mind for you?

CM: For Seussical I’d probably recommend Pippin and The Wizard of Oz, and say, Tuck Everlasting. And then for my other favorite Come From Away… I could talk about Come From Away all day. I’d recommend Allegiance, Islander, and From Here To Eternity. And for Ragtime, which is my second favorite musical, I’d recommend Parade, The Scottsboro Boys, and Rags.