Alisa Bucchiere has held many titles, NECC music professor, chorus director, madrigal singer, and doctoral student. Now she can add another to her résumé – music director of Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals annual production.

She is still flush from the excitement of serving as music director for this year’s production, Kashmir: If You Can, which, like all Hasty Pudding productions, is student written and composed.

Alisa was noticed while serving as music director for Camp Broadway at the North Shore Music Theater in Beverly.

Hasty Pudding Theatricals, known for its burlesque musicals, is the oldest collegiate theatrical organization in the United States.

The production ran for five weeks in February and March. Alisa directed the nine-piece band and traveled with the troupe when it performed in New York City and Bermuda.

What was your reaction when you were approached to be music director for the Hasty Pudding production?

“Pure shock, surprise, elation, and a little bit scared.”

What would surprise most people about the production?

“Three things: that the cast are men in drag and their voices are phenomenal; that the band accompanying the cast is just as talented – but they don’t have to dress in drag; and that I get to conduct one song with a parrot umbrella.”

If forced to pick, what is your favorite musical?

“Every single production I have worked on. I love them all for different reasons, but the first one that I fell in love with when I was growing up was West Side Story.”