The MT Family 🎭 Feature 🎵

Hi, MT Families!

As we've entered the month of Thanksgiving, I want to express that I'm so grateful for all of your children and the time we get to spend together creating and impacting our community through art!

Marketing by Senior MT

The senior Musical Theatre majors will present their student-led Senior Showcase on Thursday, December 5th and Friday, December 6th at 3:30pm and 6:30pm each day in the J.R.E.C Auditorium. The purpose of this production is to allow students to demonstrate mastery of the skills they have acquired over the last four years AND to take ownership over ALL aspects of production. This ensures that they have an understanding of their craft - inside and out. Seniors will tackle writing, direction, choreography, stage management, marketing, publicity, costumes, props, set elements, lighting, sound and playbills. Come witness the magic that occurs when you allow students to lead the way!

The senior MT majors performed their Open House selection, "Magic to Do" from Pippin for full houses on October 18th and 19th. The students represented Musical Theatre with their electric student-directed, student-choreographed piece, encouraging prospective 9th graders to "Join Us"!

On October 31st, seniors Isabella Macias Severino and Kel Vargas performed a beautiful rendition of "A Boy Like That / I Have a Love" from West Side Story at the school-wide Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration in the J.R.E.C auditorium. The duo closed the show and wowed the school community with their powerful performances. Brava!!

Audreana Espinal - November 12

Zaidy Guerrero - November 13

Tanya Vite - November 15

Caroline Itskov - November 17

Remy Rusconi - November 19

Harold Benjamin III - November 24

Amirah Cabrera - November 9

With Senior Showcase just around the corner, it's time to plan ahead for our mandatory after school rehearsals. It is imperative that your children attend all mandatory rehearsals, as with an ensemble piece like this, if even one student is missing it causes spacing issues in the intricate formations (and safety issues in the dance pieces). HERE is a detailed calendar stating all after school rehearsals and mandatory after school rehearsals / performances. This will be updated daily so you will be able to revisit this link weekly for our schedule. After school rehearsals begin Monday of next week (November 18th) and will run from 3-6pm each day your child is called.

ACTING AND VOCAL: The seniors are heavily into rehearsals for the upcoming Senior Showcase. They have finished staging and choreographing all of the large ensemble pieces and are now staging and coaching all of the solos. We will begin to stumble through the first act at the end of this week.

At home, you should expect to see your child rehearsing the ensemble numbers (choreography, notes, rhythms, lyrics) as well as their individual solos. Please encourage them to perform the solos for you, as it will help them to get used to an audience.

I am starting to finish up the bulk of the college recommendation letters that have been requested. Please check in with your child to make sure that they have asked me for a letter and that they have followed this procedure if a letter is needed:

1) ask me - in person or over email

2) hand me a hard copy of their brag sheet

3) hand me a hard copy of their resume (especially those going on into performance, so I know where you have trained any any performances outside of TU)

4) MOST IMPORTANTLY, Enter their requests and deadlines HERE. This document shows me what they need in great detail, with deadlines and pre-screen requests (if applicable).

For a WEEKLY BREAKDOWN OF HOMEWORK AND ASSESSMENTS click HERE.

For a complete list of Senior Units of Study for Semester 1, click HERE.

ACTING: The juniors are nearing completion on their first Master Class series of the year. They selected contemporary solo pieces and implemented Tactics into this performance. This means that students chose different ways of trying to get something they wanted from an imagined "other" in their song. The next step will be our Monologues unit. The juniors will select pieces that they can connect to on a personal level and will work to apply all of our former units of study, but this time on spoken text, as opposed to a song.

The students are also finishing up their unit on the most important and influential productions in Musical Theatre History. Each student was assigned a show and presented a slideshow of their findings for the class. This unit will culminate with a quiz on Monday that tests their knowledge of the significance of each show, as well as where they fall on the Musical Theatre timeline.

For a WEEKLY BREAKDOWN OF HOMEWORK AND ASSESSMENTS click HERE

For a complete list of Junior Units of Study for Semester 1, click HERE.

ACTING AND VOCAL: The sophomores completed their first round of solo performance assessments and are already preparing for their second song performance. This time they are exploring the music of Irving Berlin and then working to implement a strong Actor Neutral (neutral physicality for singing a song) and Gesturing with Purpose (using their arms and hands to get what they want from their imagined "other").

Sophomores have also been diligently working on their trip-fold posters, after determining the most important and influential productions currently open (or soon-to open) on Broadway. This creative project comes to a close today, as we present the information and posters to the class and then display them in the room for all of the Musical Theatre department to enjoy!

For a WEEKLY BREAKDOWN OF HOMEWORK AND ASSESSMENTS click HERE.

For a complete list of Sophomore Units of Study for Semester 1, click HERE.

Current Freshman Curriculum

ACTING: The freshmen are continuing to explore what it means to work as ensemble. We have completed several trust-building activities, such as running the Gauntlet and Trust Leans in circles. Our next step is the Blind Walk (exactly as it sounds, trusting another person to lead you blindfolded through the classroom).

VOCAL: Students completed their first performance assessment singing in groups last marking period. This marking period, we are delving into what it means to use proper Breath Intake when singing. We will also explore another round in small groups to continue practicing singing as an ensemble, this time adding movement.

For a WEEKLY BREAKDOWN OF HOMEWORK AND ASSESSMENTS click HERE.

For a complete list of Freshman Units of Study for Semester 1, click HERE.

Broadway Star Aaron Lazar made an album with the collaboration of many other Broadway stars and friends to raise funds for ALS (a very personal mission for him). Two students were chosen from the Institute of American Musical Theatre (present and past) to participate in this amazing collaboration. Gianee Martinez, TU MT Class of 2020 was one of those incredible students and now she has her name on the credits of a Grammy Nominated Album!