ABOUT
"Brad [rose to] the challenge of making a musical from damn-near-impossible source material."
- The Winnipeg Free Press -
Brad Torres has been writing music and lyrics, and penning plays since he was 15. All through high school, Brad was part of the improvisational comedy troupe, Mental Floss. As part of the quickstep program, Brad was taking college tonal composition and theatre classes as a sophomore in high school, and his repertory theatre class saw him writing his first one-acts. His senior English final, a creative writing assignment, spurred Brad to write his the text of his first musical, Nurtured - a modernization of Frankenstein.
The following year, upon graduating high school, Brad attended the music conservatory at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, where he studied music theory and composition and finished composing the music to Nurtured. From then on, Brad was hooked. He wrote a series of piano compositions, Spacetime and Heroes & Villains, while singing in a local cover band, for which he wrote his first original rock pieces. Brad would join the university's improv troupe, UTA, as well as a local professional troupe, Full Frontal.
He was heavily involved in the Kansas City theatre scene, performing in plays, musicals, and even in staged readings for the Crossroads Playwright Festival. Brad soon became involved in both the Kansas City Renaissance Festival and the Kansas City Fringe Festival, authoring comedy scripts and original musicals such as: I love the 1490s, Take my Breath Away, The First Annual Quill-o-Thon, We Am Legend, and Milton Milton Bradley: the Unclean Annals of a Licensed Fool.
Brad joined a comedy folk group, the Beerside Scoundrels, as the primary lyricist and contributed to 2 recorded albums: Duel and XXX. Several
additional albums of material were written, but never recorded. Working with this band, however, opened the doors to the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival.
From 2012, Brad served as the co-producer, technical director, and resident playwright and composer for Cirque du Risqué, a burlesque circus and variety arts troupe. In tandem with the circus, Brad staged 5 more shows for the Kansas City Fringe Festival: Burlesque Bloodbath, Clockwork Coquette (an original musical), Madhouse, Tease the Rainbow, and Questus: a Zero's Journey (another original musical).
Brad performed for 2 years with a Shakespearean comedy troupe, The Lord Mayor's Company at the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival. Brad returned to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival to produce and perform in their adult shows: The Bawdy Beer Show and The Royal Happy Hour. During this time, he participated in a song-a-day challenge and wrote half of the unfinished work, The Return of Dracula: the Musical.
In September 2016, Brad moved to Houston. By October 2016, Brad was an entertainer with the Texas Renaissance Festival and at Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano bar. By November, Brad had also become an instructor at School of Rock in Sugar Land.
February 2018, Brad was promoted to the General Manager of School of Rock Sugar Land, and that summer, he internationally toured his brand new show, Cast Away: a Musical Parody. In September 2018, Brad became a show director at School of Rock, assisting in teaching large classes and private lessons in every instrument the school offered.
In the summer of 2019, Brad internationally toured a new radioplay-style musical, The King in Yellow: the Mask. His latest projects have included writing more original rock music, and preparing for his next musical to be released sometime later this year.