Biography

Billy Thompson is an adjunct lecturer, musical director and accompanist in SDA’s Musical Theatre programs (BFA & BA-emphasis).

Billy is a prolific performer and award-winning composer, musical director and pianist for stage and screen. He has music directed for such respected companies as Ars Nova in New York, The Walnut in Philadelphia and the Old Globe in San Diego; served as Composer-in-Residence with San Diego Opera’s Words & Music; and guest lectured at AMDA, The Strasberg Institute and youth theatre programs across the country. His first full-length musical collaboration, Invasion!: The Musical (which began at USC MTR) garnered the 2007 LA Weekly Theatre Awards for Best Original Score and Best Musical Direction. From 2012-2020 he toured nationally with It Gets Better, a theatrical performance and outreach campaign for bullying awareness and suicide prevention designed to empower communities to make it better now for LGBTQIA+ and other marginalized youth. His forays into film culminated in a 2018 Audience Choice Award for The Thin Line, for which he served as co-producer and composer.

Billy is a Resident Artist at Broadway Rose Theatre Company in Portland and at Cygnet Theatre in San Diego, where his collaboration with artistic director Sean Murray, A Christmas Carol: a little musical ghost story, is presented annually. He holds a BM in Composition from USC Thornton, an MFA in Musical Theatre from SDSU and is a proud member of AEA.