Before composing for “SNL,” and for the Emmy-award-winning show “30 Rock” and for the new musical-adaptation of the “Mean Girls” film, Jeff Richmond was a theater kid at Kent State. 

Richmond, who graduated in 1988 with a degree in musical theater, grew up in Garrettsville, Ohio and said he frequently visited Kent growing up.

“Kent was that city that when I was in high school, you would go visit,” he said. “It’s one of the places where you would go see ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ at the [The Kent Stage] theater on Main Street, so it was already a cultural destination.”

Richmond enrolled in Kent State’s music program in 1981, majoring in music.

“It was easy for me,” he said. “I didn’t come from a family that had a lot of money, and so a state school was going to be the best avenue for me at that particular point in my life.”

Richmond switched his major to musical theater during his second year of college after the Division of Theatre separated from the School of Speech to become its own School of Theatre in 1983. The school began offering Bachelor of Arts degrees in the field of theater that year.

During his time at the university, Richmond had originally produced Lobo-a-Go-Go, a musical he described as “musical horror” which was in “the same vein as ‘Rocky Horror Show’ and ‘Little Shop of Horrors’,” in a 1988 article from The Kent Stater. The production is a spoof of werewolf films which were popular at the time.

The big leagues

After graduating from Kent State in 1988, Richmond and his three roommates had the choice of moving to Chicago or New York to start a theater company.

“We decided to go to Chicago,” he said. “We packed everything up and we moved to the loop in Chicago and we produced our first show that I had written called Lobo-A-Go-Go.”

Richmond said Chicago had a rising late-night theater scene that allowed him to break into the industry. 

This is around the time Richmond entered the comedy scene as a musical artist, playing piano for various organizations, including the improv group i0 Chicago, as well as Second City. He says he met his wife, Tina Fey, who went on to perform in and write for ‘Saturday Night Live,’ create and star in ’30 Rock’ and write ‘Mean Girls’.”

Richmond went on to compose music for many projects across the country.

“You start writing, and you start working with comedy writers, and eventually you get a job at ‘SNL,’” he said.

Richmond worked as “Saturday Night Live’s” musical director from 2001 to 2006.

“Jack Black, Kate Winslet, Queen Latifah, Robert De Niro — every week was a new person,” he said.

The host Richmond spoke about the most was Tom Brady, who hosted “SNL” in 2005.

“The people that rehearsed the most were the sports people who came in,” he said. “Tom Brady is the first one that comes to mind because they know what it’s like to drill and drill and drill. They want to get it right in front of millions of people.”

Richmond said the sketch comedy show “30 Rock,” which he composed the theme song for, was one of the productions he enjoyed the most.

The show, which was inspired by Fey’s time on “SNL,” follows the writer for a comedy show while she navigates through work stresses, friend situations, new coworkers and love troubles. Richmond won three Emmy awards while working for “30 Rock.”

“Having to score a full score episode every week was a big deal,” he said. “It gave me a chance to have a new kind of sound that was on TV, which was kind of this quirky, old school, New York kind of kitschy sound, lots of saxophones and woodwinds and ukuleles and what not.”

He added “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” a Netflix original comedy series, was another project he enjoyed working on the most. 

Recently, Richmond has composed for the “Mean Girls” franchise, including a film, Broadway musical and a musical adaptation of the film that released January 2024. Richmond was up for the “Tony Award for Best Original Score” for his work with Broadway musical, which debuted in 2018.

Along with having acted in several works, he also composes for the Netflix series “Girls5eva,” which follows a one-hit wonder pop group from the 90s’ attempting a comeback in the 2020s’. 

Richmond returned to Kent State in spring 2013 as the commencement speaker for the graduation ceremony, earning an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the university “for his extraordinary contributions to the arts and popular culture,” according to a write-up about the event. 

Even with his travels and experiences in musical composition for film, Richmond said Kent still holds a special place in his heart.

“I loved it,” he said. “It is kind of where you first find all your true kind of friends and your true kind of cohorts.”

Michael Neenan is a beat reporter. Contact him at [email protected].