First of all, in local news, Wilmington is getting it’s very own GLEE club!  Based on the show, Amy is creating a singing group that will perform around town at festivals, street fairs, and special events … entertaining the masses!   This is the opportunity for perform songs in the styles all styles of Broadway, Top 40, Pop, and Hip Hop, and get your groove on while doing so!  It’ll be divided by age groups, and there is no registration fee.  It’s for kids and teens alike, and the only requirement is that you love to SING, DANCE, and PERFORM!  I think it sounds great, and I kind of wish there was one for the big kids, like 30 plus.  Anyone with me??

Here are the details:

When: begins Sept 6th and runs through May

GLEE:  9th – 12th grades, Mondays, 6:30-8:30, $65 per month

GLEE Jr:  6th – 8th grades, Mondays, 4:30-6:30, $65 per month

Mini GLEE:  1st – 4th grades, Mondays, 3:30-4:30, $45 per month

Please call Amy Wright for more info at  910-232-5376

or

email wrightfam5@mac.com, and she’ll send you a brochure!

Up next, her husband Ben Wright is taking a more national approach with the Ben Wright Talent Project!

“BEN WRIGHT’S BROADWAY PROJECT is a talent search that connects exceptionally talented people with NYC-based AGENTS, MANAGERS, CASTING DIRECTORS, CHOREOGRAPHERS & DIRECTORS.”

Point blank.  Take it from me, who spent 10 years in New York City working my butt off, that this is a brilliant idea for anyone who is seriously considering a career in New York!  Connections are INVALUABLE (especially up there) in this business, and Ben has the great idea to put those who truly deserve it in touch with the people who can make things happen.  It’s 90% of the battle.  Even the exceptionally talented sometimes get very overlooked or don’t work because they don’t know the right people or don’t truly put themselves out there.  It’s all about that first break.  Read Ben’s story for proof.

Short version: submit a short video of yourself performing the best of what you have to Ben, and he’ll select the top 50 performers form the pool applicants and take them to NYC to introduce them to the best of the best (directors, casting directors, agents, managers, choreographers…you get the point).

This is brilliant!  So without me rambling anymore, check out his website!  Click above or HERE:)

Yay for Wilmington that the Wrights are here!

Ask About College Theater Programs

For students who want to pursue a life in the theater, picking the right college could mean the difference between thanking their parents at the Tony Awards or moving back to their parents’ basement with Broadway dreams defeated.

This week Mary Anna Dennard, the author of “I Got In!: The Ultimate College Audition Guide for Acting and Musical Theater,” is taking readers’ questions. Need the right song for your application video? Having trouble finding a head-shot photographer? Don’t know what to wear to your audition? Look for her answers to your questions on ArtsBeat later this week.

Since 2000 Ms. Dennard has been a college audition coach for programs in acting and musical theater. She began working as a casting director and acting coach in Los Angeles in 1980. More information is at her Web site.

But with all that said, Chase Brock, the guy featured in the article below, and I were there together way back when.  He now has a dance company, The Chase Brock Experience, in New York, and we don’t keep in touch, but I am super happy for this…  it’s nice when artists hit the jackpot:)  He’s now able to keep of his dancers employed and pay for his studio in Brooklyn, all thanks for technology:)  Thanks Wii!

A Video Game on Broadway, With Taps, Too

Damon Winter/The New York Times

Chase Brock has choreographed a Wii video game, Broadway Dance, in which players learn dance routines.

By REBECCA MILZOFF

A Broadway Dance version of a number from “The Sound of Music.”

Marissa Jaret Winokur, Mary Bond Davis and Harvey Fierstein in “Hairspray.”

The Broadway Dance version of a number from “Hairspray.”

Still, a year ago Mr. Brock was selected to choreograph a Wii game, Dance on Broadway, that has become a top seller, and members of his small troupe, the Chase Brock Experience, were enlisted as models for the game’s avatars.

Mr. Brock’s unfamiliarity with gaming was but one small bump of many on the road to creating Dance on Broadway.

“We didn’t have a lot of precedent to work off of,” said Jeff Lindsay, a producer at Longtail Studios, the game’s developer. “There were other dance games out at the time, like Dance Dance Revolution. But they were much more about fast execution and really extreme dancing.”

Aside from the lack of gaming experience, Mr. Brock had the credentials that Longtail sought: He has worked as a dancer or a choreographer on Broadway shows (the revivals of “The Music Man” and “Wonderful Town”), and, as he pointed out, “I have all this ridiculous Broadway trivia in my brain, and I thought, this could be an outlet for a part of my personality that I sometimes feel I have to hide in the concert world.”

Longtail wanted dance routines that would balance artistry — the feeling of a Broadway stage, moves challenging enough to keep repeat players interested — with an eye to a beginning dancer’s needs, like repeated steps associated with a bridge or chorus.

So Longtail and Mr. Brock worked from a straightforward premise: Players mimic the moves of their on-screen avatars for any of 20 musical numbers, ranked by difficulty. Based on how the Wii remote tracks movement, each player receives a score at the end of a number, showing the percentage of moves executed “great,” “O.K.” or “X” (wrong). There’s no ultimate winner, but it’s difficult to finish a round feeling there’s no room for improvement. The game is also remarkably inclusive; others can easily follow along and dance (and sing) without holding the remote.

The song list itself was another challenge for Mr. Brock. “The game is in four-player mode,” he explained, “so you have to pick songs that make sense for four players.” He continued, “There were many great ideas for duets, but suddenly if you want to do ‘You’re the One That I Want’ from ‘Grease,’ it becomes an awkward question” of who are the two avatars other than the main characters, Danny and Sandy?

The final list thus includes numbers for groups in unison (“Aquarius” and “Let the Sunshine In” from “Hair”); a pair of duos (two guys, two dolls in “Luck Be a Lady” from “Guys and Dolls”); and soloist with trio ensemble (“Roxie” from “Chicago”). An occasional exception sneaked in: “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” from “The Lion King” was a favorite of Mr. Brock’s, and he hoped the strength of the action among threecharacters (Simba and Nala, the rebellious lion cubs, and Zazu, their much put-upon hornbill teacher) would let him get away with adding a character, Zazu 2, to round out the foursome.

The game’s technical limitations influenced Mr. Brock’s choices as well. The remote is meant to be held in the right hand; if it was to track movement, his steps had to keep the right arm ticking quickly. Early testing showed that players found leg-arm coordination difficult, so Mr. Brock emphasized hand gestures while sticking to “step-touch, box-step, tiny kick lines” instead of more complex leg moves like développés. Against early expectations, play testers also showed a love of tapping, so three tap numbers were added. (Mr. Brock’s feet can be heard on the tap track.)

The Chase Brock Experience dancers were filmed in groups of four for the animators’ reference (Dance on Broadway has hundreds of animations, compared with 40 to 50 for a typical game). Then, after an initial round of play testing, one dancer would be filmed from three different angles, sometimes in a motion-capture suit. “I find it easier to remember long phrases of choreography and harder to remember the easier stuff,” said Ashley Eichbauer, a company member who also acted as Mr. Brock’s assistant. “And that’s exactly what this game is: doing a pattern of ABC, then CDE and then ABC again. There’s a lot of brain teasing that happens. You could rehearse all day, but if one person messes up, you have to start over.”

Mr. Brock, who was introduced to Longtail by his commercial agent, said: “I think of my whole job as being about looking and, more importantly, seeing, and I found my eye and my dancers’ eyes were actually far less developed than the animators’. They will watch two dancers side by side and within eight counts will say: ‘Oh gosh, she’s so sharp. Do you want it to be that sharp?’ ”

Mr. Brock and his dancers benefited in more concrete ways as well — namely, financially. When he was hired, Mr. Brock had just rented a studio in Brooklyn for the company but was unsure about how he’d cover the rent all year. Thanks to Longtail, which used the space for filming and rehearsal, the rent was paid for six months, and the dancers got an unexpected extra gig. “I’m thrilled that I’ve been able to keep a company employed for 38 weeks this past year,” he said, no small feat for a small, single-choreographer company.

His pop-inflected, tongue-in-cheek movement style has received mixed reviews; not so the response to his game. Dance on Broadway, which was released in North America and Europe this summer, is currently the best-selling Wii game in Britain. “There’s absolutely the opportunity for it to grow as a franchise and move beyond the initial Wii version,” Mr. Lindsay of Longtail said.

Mr. Brock said the game ultimately fits into the path that he hopes to take as a choreographer. “I’m totally not ashamed to say I’m interested in speaking to a wide audience,” he said. “The populist nature of this appealed to me,” he added later. “I was thinking, wow, this might be some kid’s first exposure to dance, or first exposure to Broadway and what live theater can be. It’s not a dying art — but maybe there are new ways in.”



Also, check out a couple clips from past productions, one from the most recent 2002 Broadway revival (ignore the subtitles) to the (televised) London production starring the very talented (and crazy good looking) Hugh Jackman.  Unbelievable.  Enjoy!

AUDITION DETAILS:

As you can see, he’s quite easy on the eyes and, from what I have heard from friends that have worked with him, a wonderful, generous, hysterical guy.  I thin he’ll be a killer addition to Glee in the fall!

Cheyenne Jackson to Lead Vocal Adrenaline on Glee

Cheyenne Jackson

Broadway favorite Cheyenne Jackson will join the cast of ‘Glee.’

Glee is adding yet another Broadway vet to its impressive roster of guest stars: Cheyenne Jackson will have a recurring role during the show’s second season, according to EW.com. He will play the newest coach of the Glee club’s rival team, Vocal Adrenaline, replacing Idina Menzel (whose character Shelby Corcoran will return without Adrenaline duty). Jackson was originally set to guest during the show’s first season, but had to withdraw due to an illness, he told Broadway.com in an interview earlier this year.

Jackson’s many Broadway credits include Finian’s Rainbow, Xanadu, Thoroughly Modern Millie, All Shook Up and Aida. He frequently appeared on the fourth season of the Emmy winning TV series 30 Rock and will join the cast of the currently filming eighth season of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Jackson joins many Broadway actors who have appeared on Glee, including Kristin Chenoweth (who will reprise the role of April Rhodes during season two) as well as Victor Garber, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris and others. The show recently received 19 Emmy nominations including Outstanding Comedy Series. The second season, which will feature episodes based on the music of Rocky Horror and Britney Spears, begins September 21 on Fox.

Everyone should make the trip to Durham if possible.  It’s one of my favorite shows, so infectious and inspiring and energetic, and I would bet you would all love it.  It has so much heart!!

And be on the look out for another 212 Audition Technique workshop to sharpen your skills and get a practice run through!

When:  Monday August 9th and Tuesday August 10th, 5-7:00, both days.

Where:  Hannah Block Bldg, 120 South 2nd St

No need to prepare anything!  They will teach you a selection from the show.  (so here’s a tip: get on ITunes and listen to the music!  I love love love this soundtrack.)

Some facts about the show:

Little Shop of Horrors is a rock musical, by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman. The music, composed by Menken in the style of early 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop and early Motown, includes several well-known tunes, including the title song, “Skid Row (Downtown)”, “Somewhere That’s Green”, and “Suddenly, Seymour”.

In addition to the original long-running 1982 off-Broadway production and subsequent Broadway production, the musical has been performed all over the world. Because of its small cast and relatively simple orchestrations, it has become popular with community theatre, school and other amateur groups.^[1] The musical was also made into a 1986 film of the same name, directed by Frank Oz.

It opened in 1982, off off Broadway and transferred later that year to the Orpheum Theatre and ran until 1987, becoming the third longest running musical and the highest grossing Off Broadway production at the time.  It was revived on Broadway in 2004 and went on to a national tour after that (and I saw both.  They were great!)

Here are two clips of the show below.  The first is from a Cameron MacKintosh concert, and Ellen Greene, who famously was “Audrey” in the movie with Steve Martin, KILLS it.  What a insane singer and actress.  Such terrific music.

This second one is snippets from a production at the very prestigious New Jersey theater, Papermill, which is pretty much full of Broadway talent.

Glee Garners 19 Emmy Nominations, Including Nods for Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison

Lea Michele & Matthew Morrison (center) with the cast of ‘Glee’

The hit series ‘Glee’ received 19 Emmy nods in its first year of eligibility.

Glee amassed 19 nominations for the 62nd annual prime-time Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Comedy Series. Broadway vets Lea Michele and Matthew Morrison received nominations in the lead actor categories as Rachel Berry and Will Schuester, with Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch cited for their supporting performances as Kurt Hummel and Sue Sylvester. Kristin Chenoweth received an Emmy nomination for her guest performance as April Rhodes, along with Mike O’Malley as Burt Hummel and Neil Patrick Harris as Bryan Ryan. The Emmy nominations were announced on July 8 and will be presented on August 29 in a ceremony hosted by Jimmy Fallon.

As usual, the list of Emmy nominees included many theater stars, including Jane Krakowski and Alec Baldwin (30 Rock), Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family), a second nomination for Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother), Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie), Tony Shalhoub (Monk), Glenn Close (Damages), Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Al Pacino (You Don’t Know Jack), Michael Emerson (Lost), Christine Baranski (The Good Wife), Patrick Stewart (Hamlet), Ian McKellen (The Prisoner) and Jonathan Pryce (Return to Cranford).

The guest actor categories were also a gold mine for stage vets. In addition to Chenoweth and Harris on Glee, nominees include John Lithgow (Dexter), Alan Cumming (The Good Wife), Dylan Baker (The Good Wife), Robert Morse (Mad Men), a second nomination for Christine Baranski (The Big Bang Theory), Elaine Stritch (30 Rock), a second nomination for Jane Lynch (Two and a Half Men) and Lily Tomlin (Damages).

Notably, every actress cited in the lead actress category for a miniseries or movie has a stage background: Maggie Smith (Capturing Mary), Joan Allen (Georgia O’Keeffe), Dame Judi Dench (Return to Cranford), Hope Davis (The Special Relationship) and Claire Danes (Temple Grandin).

The miniseries The Pacific led the total Emmy nomination count with 24, and Glee received the most nominations for a series, including two directing nominations and one writing nomination, plus nods for hairstyling, makeup, casting, costumes, art direction and sound mixing. Mad Men received 17 nominations, 30 Rock scored 15 and Modern Family received 14.

The 63rd Annual Tony Awards telecast received Emmy nominations for Outstanding Special Class Program and for Outstanding Writing (Dave Boone), and composer Marc Shaiman was nominated for Outstanding Music Direction for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.

I came across this blurb below in Vanity Fair a couple months ago about Stagedoor Manor, a theatre camp in Loch Sheldrake, New York, that is the most premiere in the country.    Each summer, Stagedoor Manor holds 3 three-week long sessions (starting in late June and ending in late August). Enrollment for each is approximately 280 campers, who range in age from 10-18. During each three-week session, the camp produces 8 musicals, 5 dramas, Dramafest (a one-act playwrighting competition) and two unique cabaret performances (the Our Time Cabaret and Player’s Ensemble).

The school’s impact on the careers and networking of child actors was described by film director Shawn Levy in the June 15, 2007 New York Post:

If someone plays that Stagedoor card. it’s like whispering the location of a party with a secret location…I could sing you that song from the camp’s yearly cabaret, and that’s the equivalent of the secret handshake.

Stagedoor Manor served as the inspiration for the 2003 independent film Camp written and directed by Stagedoor alumnus Todd Graff. Stagedoor was also a subject of a 2006 documentary by Alexandra Shiva.  It has a long history of “firsts” through its long-time partnerships with MTI (Music Theatre International) the American Theatre Wing, and other Broadway producers and composers. In 2004, Stagedoor produced Richard Maltby and David Shire’s “Starting Here, Starting Now.” Maltby and Shire conducted a special workshop with the cast during the rehearsal period and also attended the opening night performance. In 2006, Stagedoor produced the world-premiere of Disney’s High School Musical. In 2007, Stagedoor produced special workshop productions of Avenue Q and Rent in partnership with MTI (Music Theatre International). In 2008, in partnership with the composer, Stagedoor produced Andrew Lippa‘s Wild Party. Later that summer, Stagedoor became the first non-Equity stage to produce Mel Brooks’ The Producers.

Here is an impressive list of alumni…

• Zach Braff
• Josh Charles
• Jon Cryer
• Robert Downey Jr.
• Michelle Federer
• Todd Graff
• Bryce Dallas Howard
• Jennifer Jason Leigh
• Shawn Levy
• Mary Stuart Masterson
• Lea Michele
• Mandy Moore
• Julia Murney
• Adam Pascal
• Bijou Phillips
• Natalie Portman
• Amy Ryan
• Jeanine Tesori

….and that’s truly only to name a few.  I thought this essay Zach Braff (“Scrubs” and “Garden State”) wrote about being a theatre camp geek was a sweet love letter to the theatre or camp geek in all of us.  And if you are interested in more, below there is an article about the book THEATER GEEK, written by Mickey Rapkin, a senior editor for the magazine GQ (and self professed theater geek), who took a summer off and chronicled a group of kids through their time at Stagedoor Manor.  I haven’t read it myself, but want to, so if y’all do, let me know.  Could be a great gift…  Enjoy!

Where Bug Spray Meets Broadway

Zach Braff and Tim Sheaffer spotlight Stagedoor Manor, where many summer campers (including Braff, Natalie Portman, and Robert Downey Jr.) hit the trail to stardom.

The Happiest Campers
Stagedoor Manor Alums: Robert Downey Jr., Amy Ryan, Michael Ian Black.

I’m 12 years old. I’m in bejeweled leather pants, and I, Judas, am here for Jesus. We are in a tiny theater at the Stagedoor Manor performing-arts camp during the climactic scene of a performance of Godspell. And 23 years later, this remains one of the most exciting moments of my life. My roommate, Danny Goldstein, plays a lovable, cherubic Jesus. Danny and I both had crushes on Lacey Tucker, both of us had musical-themed Bar Mitzvahs, and both of us have lost track of how many times we’ve seen Les Misérables.

Q&A with author Zach Braff.

My mother used to say, “Camp is like being in love.” I didn’t understand her analogy until I fell in love for the first time and thought, This feeling I have for this girl—it’s a lot like how I felt at Stagedoor: accepted, loved for exactly what I was, and happy. For teenage theater geeks all over—including the former campers shown here—Stagedoor Manor is a Utopia. Like the giant green statue that welcomed forlorn masses to Ellis Island, the converted Catskill hotel in Loch Sheldrake, New York, calls out like a siren to lost teenage souls adrift in public-school systems that celebrate lacrosse over Sondheim: Give me your tired, your poor, your alienated, mildly depressed, bi-curious jesters yearning to sing the Original Cast Album of anything!

Shawn Levy, Todd Graff, and Mandy Moore.

In his wonderful new book about the history of the camp, Theater Geek, Mickey Rapkin recounts Stagedoor’s colorful history and takes us on a backstage tour of the lives of young, real-life drama queens. For the six weeks each summer that I was at Stagedoor, I was one. I sang, I danced, I made people laugh, and I discovered for the very first time that there was a place somewhere on earth for me. I would weep when I went home—it was like being yanked from paradise. And there are times, even today, when I see a great piece of theater—or my eyes tear up from some visual display of unconditional love—that I cannot help but daydream about going back. And Rapkin’s book took me there.

Theater Geek: The Real Life Drama of a Summer at Stagedoor Manor, the Famous Performing Arts Camp
By Mickey Rapkin
Published by: Free Press
Publication Date: June 1, 2010
List price: $25 hardcover; 224 pages, illustrated

In the summer of 2009, Mickey Rapkin took a break from his day job as a senior editor at “GQ” and trekked up to the Catskills to attend a three-week session at Stagedoor Manor, the renowned summer theatre camp in upstate New York that has been offering kids from ages 10 to 18 an intensive introduction to professional theatre since it was founded in 1975 by Carl and Elsie Samuelson. Rapkin’s empathy for the subject stems from his own background as a self-proclaimed “theatre geek” who remembers crying at the overture to Les Misérables when he was 16 or rushing into the NYC on the train to catch one of the final performances of Stephen Sondheim’s Passion or fantasizing about becoming a Broadway theatre usher. “I worshipped the people who could do professionally what I could only attempt in my earnest high school productions on suburban Long Island,” he writes in the Prologue of his warm and entertaining new book. “In those years, I never felt alive anywhere except in those cramped, worn-in Broadway seats.” Rapkin’s journalistic goal was to immerse himself in the ambience of the storied Stagedoor Manor where the pejorative term “geek” has been turned on its ear for decades, reinvented to embrace the positive and ambitious vibe of theatre-loving kids who come to act, sing, dance, paint scenery, and—every three weeks—produce 13 full-scale productions guided by theatre professionals. He lived with the kids, ate with them, went to rehearsals, and in particular, tracked a trio of talented and determined young actors—high school seniors Rachel Singer, Brian Muller and Harry Katzman—through their final session at the camp. Rapkin chronicles the hard work, heartbreak and joy of these young people as they performed in their final amateur shows and looked ahead beyond the sheltered environment of Stagedoor Manor toward the real world of industry competition and rejection. The camp, Rapkin reports, is regularly visited by talent and casting agents, scouting for fresh prospects, and the dream of every kid there is to be “carded,” the term Katzman used when an interested agent passed along a business card after one of his performances. Many names have emerged from summertime at Stagedoor, among them Lea Michelle (Spring Awakening, “Glee”), Robert Downey, Jr. (“Less Than Zero,” “Chaplin,” “Iron Man”), Natalie Portman (Oscar nominee for “Closer”), Zach Braff (“Scrubs”) and Jon Cryer (Brighton Beach Memoirs, “Two and a Half Men”). And many people in all phases of the industry have supported the camp, including performers as disparate as actress Glenn Close, director Ron Howard and rockers Steven Tyler and Courtney Love, who all sent their daughters there. Most of the kids, Rapkin points out, do not become the next great star. For them, though, there remains the experience afforded by three weeks in the summer, living and playing among peers whose boundless passion for theatre matches their own. “That suggests there’s something else going on here,” Rapkin says in the publisher notes. “Which is the heart of this story, really. These kids come to Stagedoor because they’re looking for a second home. Or rather, a better home. A place where they can be themselves, no questions aske