Broadway Theater Project

Last updated

The Broadway Theatre Project is an intensive training program held on the campus of the University of South Florida, USA, for high school and college-aged students who want to hone their skills in musical theatre. It was founded by the Tony Award winner Ann Reinking, [1] under the name The Musical Theatre Project of Tampa. Students accepted into the program are referred to as "apprentices" and are divided into groups reflecting their dance experience, vocal/acting experience and age for more individualized training. Classes are taken every day of the project, typically from 8:30am to 5:00pm with an hour lunch break, and block rehearsals for numbers within the final showcase are from 6:00pm to 10:00pm. Students not in block rehearsal continue with group classes for that time period.[ citation needed ]

Throughout the project, guest artists often visit to have a question-and-answer session with apprentices and usually give a master class during the day to share their knowledge of the industry. Guest artists have included Terrence Mann, Ashley Brown (former apprentice), Charlotte d'Amboise, Ben Vereen, Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, Julie Andrews, Patrick Wilson (former apprentice), Phylicia Rashad, Stanley Donen, Frank Wildhorn, Neil Patrick Harris, Jonathan Groff and Tommy Tune.[ citation needed ]

Students are housed in suite-style dormitories for the length of the project and are not permitted to leave. [2] The project concludes with a Broadway-themed revue at The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. The performances are notorious for being presented minimalistically, as students dress completely in black and perform on a bare stage with a cyclorama.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bob Fosse</span> American actor, choreographer, dancer, and director (1927– 1987)

Robert Louis Fosse was an American actor, choreographer, dancer, and film and stage director. He directed and choreographed musical works on stage and screen, including the stage musicals The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), Sweet Charity (1966), Pippin (1972), and Chicago (1975). He directed the films Sweet Charity (1969), Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1975), All That Jazz (1979), and Star 80 (1983).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Sokolow</span> American dance artist (1910–2000)

Anna Sokolow was an American dancer and choreographer known for the social justice focus and theatricality of her work, and for her support of the development of Modern Dance in Mexico and in Israel.

Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre (UFOMT) is an opera company based in Logan, Utah. The company performs four fully staged works with orchestra in repertory every July and August at the Ellen Eccles Theatre on Logan's Main Street. The works performed range from operas to operettas to musicals. Singers, performers, technicians and orchestra come from all over the United States, including artists from Broadway and the Metropolitan Opera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Reinking</span> American actress, dancer, and choreographer (1949–2020)

Ann Reinking was an American dancer, actress, choreographer and singer. She worked predominantly in musical theater, starring in Broadway productions such as Coco (1969), Over Here! (1974), Goodtime Charley (1975), Chicago (1977), Dancin' (1978), and Sweet Charity (1986).

<i>Fosse</i> (musical)

Fosse is a three-act musical revue showcasing the choreography of Bob Fosse. The musical was conceived by Richard Maltby Jr., Chet Walker, and Ann Reinking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Straz Center for the Performing Arts</span>

The Straz Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts venue in Tampa, Florida, United States. It opened in 1987 as the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, and was renamed in 2009.

Broadway by the Bay, is a community-based musical theatre company located in the San Francisco Bay Area and performing in Redwood City. It also provides a "Theatre Arts Academy" offering performing arts experiences to local children. After beginning in with productions of three annual Gilbert and Sullivan productions, the company shifted its focus to modern musicals in 1966. Since then, it has produced musicals continuously in San Mateo County. In 1983, the group changed its name to Peninsula Civic Light Opera, and again in 1999, to Broadway by the Bay.

Gus Giordano, born August Thomas Giordano III, was an American jazz dancer, teacher, and choreographer. He performed on Broadway and in theater and television. Giordano taught jazz dance to thousands around the world. He founded the Gus Giordano Dance School in 1953, Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago in 1963, created the First American Jazz Dance World Congress in 1990 and is the author of Anthology of American Jazz Dance (1975). He taught at institutions around the world including American Ballet Theatre, The American University of Paris, Duke University, Joffrey Ballet, New York University, and hundreds more. Giordano was one of the founders of theatrical or Broadway jazz dance styles, not to be confused with African American vernacular jazz styles that he drew upon.

The Theatre Development Fund (TDF) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to assisting the theatre industry in New York City. Created in 1968 to help an ailing New York theatre industry, TDF has grown into the nation's largest performing arts nonprofit, providing support to more than 900 plays and musicals and returning upwards of $1.5 billion in revenue to thousands of Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway music and dance productions.

Theatre Under the Stars (TUTS) is a year-round, professional, non-profit musical theatre production company. It is located in Houston, Texas, performing mostly at the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts. Theatre Under The Stars’ season generally includes both self-produced shows as well as national touring productions. While best known for their main stage shows at the Hobby Center in Downtown Houston, and their annual free summer shows at the Miller Outdoor Theatre, it also offers educational programming through their training branch, education programs for children with special needs through The River, and a wide array of community outreach projects. Founded by Frank M. Young in 1968, TUTS is currently under the management of Tony Award-nominated artistic director Dan Knechtges and executive director, Hilary J. Hart.

The Governor's School for the Arts is a regional secondary arts school sponsored by the Virginia Department of Education and the public school divisions of Chesapeake, Franklin, Isle of Wight County, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Southampton County, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach. It is one of the nineteen Virginian academic-year Governor's Schools and provides intensive educational opportunities for identified gifted students in instrumental music, vocal music, dance, musical theatre, theatre & film, and visual arts. Housed in the newly renovated, historic Monroe Building in downtown Norfolk, students attend afternoon classes at the magnet school during the academic year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rialto Center for the Arts</span> Performing arts center in Atlanta, Georgia


The Rialto Center for the Arts is an 833-seat performing-arts venue owned and operated by Georgia State University and located in the heart of the Fairlie-Poplar district in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The venue is home to the Rialto Series, an annual subscription series featuring national and international jazz, world music, and dance. The Rialto also routinely presents Georgia State University School of Music performances, the annual National Black Arts Festival, and many others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York State Summer School of the Arts</span>

The New York State Summer School of the Arts (NYSSSA) is a series of summer residential programs for New York State high school students. It provides intensive pre-professional training. It is open to all New York State high school age students who qualify through audition. Seven component schools offer training in the specific disciplines of ballet, choral studies, dance, media arts, orchestral studies, theatre and visual arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Morrison</span> American actress (born 1956)

Ann Morrison is an American actress, best known for her Broadway debut as Mary Flynn in the Stephen Sondheim/George Furth musical, Merrily We Roll Along directed by Harold Prince for which she won the 1982 Theatre World Award. Off-Broadway she played Lizzie in the highly acclaimed Polly Pen/Peggy Harmon musical Goblin Market which garnered her a 1986 Drama Desk Award Nomination as Best Actress in a Musical and a Best Plays Theatrical Yearbook Citation as Best Actress in a Musical.

The Kearsarge Arts Theater (KAT) Company is a long-established, non-profit summer program for children interested in the arts. It is based in the New London area of New Hampshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Theatre Conservatory</span>

The National Theatre Conservatory was a three-year graduate acting school that in its last three decades was part of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Founded in 1935 as the only congressionally chartered MFA program in U.S. history, it began in New York and was essentially the national theater company of the United States.

J Dakota Powell is a multidisciplinary artist, writer/producer, and the founder of XR Lab and TimeWave, a transatlantic organisation that gathers creative media artists and technologists to explore the use of technology in storytelling and to invent new forms of media and entertainment. She was the Producing Artistic Director of Brave New World on Broadway, which gathered the American theatre to respond to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charleene Closshey</span> American actress

Charleene Closshey is an American stage and screen actress, musician, composer, and producer known for her starring roles in the romantic-comedy feature No Postage Necessary (2018) and the holiday film An Evergreen Christmas (2014). Closshey made her Broadway debut in the musical Once. With writer-director Jeremy Culver, Closshey also produced No Postage Necessary, the first film released via blockchain technology.

Music Theatre Wichita is a summer musical theatre, which has produced over 200 Broadway-scale productions since its founding in 1972. Founded as Music Theatre of Wichita in 1972 to provide summertime entertainment inside the 2100-seat Concert Hall of the newly built Century II Complex in downtown Wichita, Kansas, the organization has had only three artistic producers to date: founding producing director Jim Miller (1972-1979), John Holly (1980-1987) and current producing artistic director Wayne Bryan (1988–present). The organization adopted its current name and logo in May 2014.

Ensemble Español Spanish Dance Theater is an American Spanish-dance company in residence at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. The Ensemble Español consists of the professional dance company, touring nationally and internationally throughout the year, as well as the youth company. The Ensemble Español provides arts education programming to students across Chicago, runs community outreach programs/workshops, offers college level dance courses at Northeastern Illinois University, and produces the annual American Spanish Dance and Music Festival.

References

  1. "Ann Reinking". Goodman Theatre . Retrieved July 3, 2017.
  2. Wilmath, Kim (July 29, 2011). "Students at USF's Broadway Theatre Project dream of a life onstage". Tampa Bay Times . Archived from the original on August 10, 2011. Retrieved July 3, 2017.