<p>dramadad, “not the actual Nanny!” LOL</p>
<p>Yes, well I am told i need to set the record straight by my d if i must post stuff about her…</p>
<p>ELLEN Green & Thom CHRISTOPHER were in Oliver with her (or VSVS) duh, this is why I am not a good stage mom…</p>
<p>That and the fact that I would have to google most of the theatre names listed above to maybe know who they were! Oh well. It’s really great that our kids have been exposed to so many great experiences like these tho!</p>
<p>ps. one song…I guess we have batten down the hatches again this weekend, good luck!</p>
<p>last December, D2 and several members of her high school show choir got to provide back-up vocals for Kenny Loggins in concert.</p>
<p>I work concessions at a big regional theatre, so yes, I’ve worked with a few big names. ;)</p>
<p>David Coffee came to see my school fall play last year and this year. That was pretty awesome.</p>
<p>You are all so fortunate. If we work with a teacher from another county that has a real fine arts program we think we’re working with a famous person! Bet you don’t have kids that drive farm tractors to school, though, and you probably don’t know what cow tipping is! HA!</p>
<p>In the past year at Syracuse, my D has done workshops with Jason Robert Brown, Betty Buckley, Elizabeth Franz, Rita Gardner, and Vanessa Williams. Less recently, she performed with Judy Collins’ Children’s choir.</p>
<p>i’ve been in a show with andrea ross… she is pretty popular in the UK and also now has a CD out in the UK signed by ALW. but i was in sound of music with her @ Wheelock family theatre in boston when she was discovered by ALW. it was wicked awesome.</p>
<p>OK, I think I’ve made a connection, Terrence Mann & Betty Buckley in Cats! That’s one show we did see on Broadway, twice. Is that one degree of separation?</p>
<p>[BlueGobo.com</a> | Cats (Broadway Production, 1982)](<a href=“http://www.bluegobo.com/video/_production.php?var=10025]BlueGobo.com”>http://www.bluegobo.com/video/_production.php?var=10025)</p>
<p>I didn’t respond earlier because as someone else said, a lot of those in theater who are very successful are not necessarily “famous.” My D has performed in shows and worked with people who have been on Broadway, quite a few actually. I won’t list all of their names. I don’t think of them as famous. It was always thrilling for her to perform with them though, or to be directed by them. </p>
<p>motter, I’m smiling at the mention of Andrea Ross. I never think of my daughter’s peers as “famous” but actually come to think of it, she has been in shows such as West Side Story with Andrea, as well as with kids on Broadway that I wasn’t thinking about when I mentioned she has performed with people from Broadway, as I was thinking of OLDER people, LOL. She has quite a number of peers either currently on Broadway, National Tours, or in the past, that I wasn’t even thinking about! I have to remind myself that she is of age where her friends fit this category to.</p>
<p>By the way, if you were in Wheelock Family Theater’s Sound of Music (we don’t live near Boston but I know of it), my daughter’s very close friend played Rolf (she has been in many shows with him too) in your production and he is now at Yale. She was in a show with him in NYC this past summer, in fact. He is very talented, as is Andrea. </p>
<p>A cool experience was freshman year, in a workshop at school, Anthony Rapp coached D on a song and then D played piano to accompany Anthony when he sang. She thought she was dreaming accompanying him as she idolized him in elementary school. </p>
<p>Besides all the actors from Broadway D has performed with, there are those she has just connected with being at school at NYU and all. Just his past week, she was over the apartment belonging to a Tony winning Broadway director/composer. She also was in the recording studio as pianist and musical director for a Tony nominated composer this past week. She just sent me an email a few minutes ago that the actress she shared a house with the summer of '06 and did a musical with in summer stock is understudy for Claire Danes on Broadway right now. </p>
<p>While I am not going to list all the actors my D has performed with who have been on Broadway, this one actress she did several performances with around the country when my D was younger and she had been in several Broadway shows and then we invited her and her boyfriend (also from a favorite Bdway show of ours) to come visit us in Vermont and go skiing. My kids were young and were just so enamored having these actors from Broadway staying with us and telling us stories. Now, it likely would not be as big of a deal as they know several people from Broadway and have worked with them but it was a cool thing at the time.</p>
<p>PS…MTMan…just so you know, there are lots of farms in my town and horses and cows on my road, etc. I don’t know anyone who does cow tipping but have heard of cow chip tossing events! I live in Vermont where the cows likely outnumber the people. Even a professional show my D was in was in a barn and the head of the theater company who owns this barn (who also directs our HS shows) has been on Broadway and several Broadway performers have performed there (it’s up the road from my house…on a dirt road with cows right by the barn).</p>
<p>Our town has a cow chip raffle every year for project graduation, I guess that counts as being somewhat country, too! Goodness no, we would not want to list every person that is on Bdwy that our kids have been involved with, that would mean going through a lot of playbooks wouldn’t it? And my D was just in muscials PRIOR to HS, so I could imagine the list if she kept going, no way that would just be silly. Big names are big names however, and not all Bdwy performers are so…yet. It does make the kids feel special to collaborate with anybody that has made a living in theatre, and to build that all important network.</p>
<p>soozievt, yes i do know jacob l. i actually haven’t talked to him in a while but he was a pleasure to work with. we did a valentines day version of secret santa durring the run and leigh barret (famous boston actor) had to leave the show due to throat conditions, and i had had her for my secret valentine, she had had jacob, so i took him over as my valentine buddy. he is so nice and so funny, i miss being able to work with him alot. i do hope he is enjoying yale which if you look him up on facebook he has some beautiful shots of him doing some wicked awesome ballet jumps (and he is really really good at them).</p>
<p>motter, J.L. is very talented and a really nice young man. He loves Yale and has had some great MT opportunities there. His voice teacher there is Victoria Clark. My D was happy to get to work with him again this summer in NYC, after spending many summers doing shows with him in the past. I don’t know who you are and don’t post your name but if you ever mention the role you played in S.O.M., I’ll try to remember to tell J (or his mom who I am in touch with) that I “met” you online! By the way, I am not on facebook and just let that be a place for my kids to connect with their friends. </p>
<p>I have never been to Wheelock Family Theater as I do not live in Boston. It so happens by coincidence, however, that the mainstage musical coming up at NYU/Tisch, Only Children, in which my D plays the lead female role, supposedly is going to be performing excerpts of this new musical at Wheelock Family Theater in Boston in April. My D has never mentioned this to me and I haven’t had a chance to ask her about it (I’ll see if she even knows about it as she will be home for one week starting tomorrow night), but on the site for Only Children, I saw that they will perform at Wheelock. It says:
I also saw something about this on the Wheelock Family Theatre site. So, if you can’t go to NYU to see this show (I don’t know if you are an applicant?), apparently excerpts will be performed at the professional theater you have worked at. Look into it.</p>
<p>My D is a part of an amazing educational arts program here in Bham, Red Mountain Theatre Company, that, besides its professional mainstage shows, also has concerts each year. The kids in the auditioned youth ensembles get the opportunity to perform with the artists. My D most recently sang as Queenie in Wild, Wild Party in the Andrew Lippa concert, and last year in the Jason Robert Brown concert was one of four kids singing “A New World”. Amazing opportunities to say the least. She has also worked with Rebecca Luker, who was also a student in the youth program here in Birmingham, Marcy and Zina and David Friedman. Birmingham is so lucky to have this youth program!!</p>
<p>soozievt tell JL that the laughing yoke nun says hello. he’ll probably know you are talking about. or tell him his secret valentine after leigh says hi too. either one and he should know who you are talking about.</p>
<p>ChellyBelly, I loved seeing a comment on the talented David Coffee, who is a gem and lives in our area! He was FDR in my D’s first Annie production many years ago. He is very versatile and I love that he can successfully divide his time between the Northeast and Tx.</p>
<p>My S’s best experience with someone famous was probably when he was chosen as the juvenile lead in the world premiere of Robert Schenkkan’s (Kentucky Cycle) play for young audiences “The Dream Thief.” Schenkkan worked with S and his female co-star extensively on their character development and because the characters were based on his 2 kids, S got to spend time with his son and daughter. A very special experience. </p>
<p>Last year, he had a lot of opportunities to work with the more mainstream “famous.” During his stint with Disney he got to work with many of the High School Musical “stars” like Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, Lucas Grabeel, Monique Taylor, etc. Plus he got to be the entertainment for Chris Rock’s daughter’s private birthday party (we have a great picture of S with Chris Rock and his family!) So much fun!</p>
<p>Ive been in a movie with Bronson Pinchot</p>
<p>LOL–these are great! My D’s have worked a bit in various things. With: Mel Gibson, Keanu Reeves, Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, George Clooney, Ethan Hawke, Michelle Pfeiffer, Anthony Clark, Dan Adkroyd, David Letterman, Matthew Broderick, Kelly Preston, Janeane Garofolo and a bunch of other people I can’t think of. The younger one was directed by Michael Attenborough in a Royal Shakespeare company play. That was her most exciting thing, I think. Neither works anymore (it really was fun while it lasted). The younger one sings now, but not professionally. (as an aside—I was picked to be a nun in a Mel Gibson movie one time, because I fit the costume and my D was already working in it! What a hoot!)</p>
<p>Well it has been fascinating reading, but maybe because we aren’t snowed in here in Texas, I am getting cold feet for my D. She will be transferring to a university in NYC in the fall hopefully in MT or Theatre. We made the choice during her middle school and high school years for her to stay a student and not pursue professional type work. Her resume looks quite plain and simple next to your children’s work history. I am not a performer but I have spent time with some famous names such as Austin Pendleton, Anthony Zerbe, Lillian Hellman, Yogi Berra, David Hyde Pierce and Michael York and these professionals really prefer not to be considered “famous”…performing (or writing) is what they do, not who they are. So I am now wondering if my D will be walking into situations at these NYC auditions looking like a total neophyte even though she has worked hard at her craft all these years?</p>
<p>Blank slate…I venture to say that the majority of applicants to BFA programs do not have professional experience (let alone with famous actors). The background of applicants and those admitted varies. Some will have professional work. A few may even be Equity. Most will have done school shows. Many will have done community theater or local youth theater. Some will have gone to performing arts high schools. Some will have gone to summer programs. Some will be from large urban areas with many theater opportunities and some will be from rural areas of the country. The level of experience varies. </p>
<p>I think the common link is that they have an area of passion and have been exploring and training in it for at least several years. Most will have had voice lessons. Ideally, an applicant will also have training in dance and acting. Most will have been in some shows. Many will have been cast beyond ensemble. Some will have garnered awards locally, regionally, or nationally. None of those things get someone into college. As long as your child has developed her skill sets, has some theater production experiences, etc., she can be competitive. (not to mention good academics)</p>
<p>Sometimes there are benchmarks that help you to know if she is competitive…achievements of note or casting in your region, or faring well amongst a strong talent pool from around the country in a summer program, self-evaluating your skill set against any peers you know who have successfully gone onto BFA programs, getting feedback from professionals in the field, etc. But working professionally, or with anyone famous is not the norm necessarily and in any case, surely not required to get into a BFA program. Most of the kids I know who are accepted haven’t necessarily done those things. However, most I know who are in BFA programs have been in shows beyond their school setting (that is NOT required, however) and have some training.</p>
<p>Lastly, the resume is not what got the kids in. It is the development and growth through training, production, and many auditions that got them ready. The credits are not the thing. But experience/training helps one develop skill sets that are needed.</p>