Transport Group, the winner of 2007 Drama Desk and Obie awards, will offer the Diva Master Classes, its second series of master classes taught by some of the biggest divas in Broadway musicals. Jack Cummings III, the company's artistic director, announced that classes begin June 30.
The Diva Master Classes will meet each week for four weeks beginning June 30 and running through July 22, 2008. Session A meets Mondays, 6pm – 9pm and Session B meets Tuesdays, 6pm – 9pm. Participants may elect to enroll in either one or both sessions. The intimate, co-educational classes of ten students will be taught by a different Broadway diva each week. Topics covered include: song interpretation, ballads, up-tempos, audition material, comic songs, and career guidance.
Classes take place at 520 Eighth Avenue, between 36th and 37th Streets. The cost per student for one, four-week session will be $450.00, and for both sessions, the cost will be $750. To apply (and for any questions), please e-mail
Jack Cummings III at jackcummings3@transportgroup.org with a brief cover letter and resume. Phone inquiries may be made by calling (212) 560-4372. Applications are due June 20, 2008.
Actresses scheduled to teach in the course are:
Judy Blazer – Drama Desk Award nominee for Hello Again. Most recently starred at New York City Opera in Candide.
Julie Halston – Drama Desk nominee for White Chocolate and Red Scare on Sunset and has appeared on Broadway in
Gypsy, The Women, and
Hairspray.
Dee Hoty – three-time Tony Award nominee for The Will Rogers Follies, The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, and Footloose.
Celia Keenan-Bolger – Tony Award nominee for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, currently starring in Saved at Playwrights Horizons.
Julia Murney – Drama Desk Award nominee for
Andrew Lippa's The Wild Party; recently appeared on Broadway as Elphaba in
Wicked; currently in Saved at Playwrights Horizons.
Michele Pawk – Tony Award winner for Hollywood Arms, Drama Desk Award nominee for Crazy for You, Cabaret, and The Paris Letter.
Mary Beth Peil – currently on Broadway in
Sunday in the Park with George and Tony Award nominee for The King and I with Yul Brynner.
Barbara Walsh – Tony and Drama Desk Award nominee for Falsettos and most recently appeared on Broadway as Joanne in Company (Drama Desk Award nomination).
Founded in 2001, Transport Group, under the leadership of
Jack Cummings III, artistic director, and
Lori Fineman, executive director, is a not-for-profit theatre company that develops and produces work by American playwrights and composers with the aim of exploring the American consciousness in the 20th and 21st centuries. Transport Group presented its premiere production in 2002: Thornton Wilder's Our Town, which featured older actors in the roles of Emily and George and a twelve-year-old girl as the Stage Manager. Its second production, Requiem for William, an evening of seven seldom produced plays by William Inge, that featured a cast of 26 as well as original songs, premiered in 2003. In 2004 the company presented the first New York revival of
Michael John LaChiusa's First Lady Suite, which received rave reviews, played to sold-out houses, and earned two Drama Desk Award nominations including outstanding revival of a musical. Recent productions include the world premiere of the musical The Audience, which featured a cast of 46 actors and earned three Drama Desk Award nominations, including outstanding musical; Normal, a new musical about a mother's battle to save her daughter from anorexia; cul-de-sac, a new play by Tony Award nominee
John Cariani; the first New York revival of Tad Mosel's Pulitzer Prize play, All the Way Home; the 50th anniversary, Obie-winning production of William Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and the world premiere musicals Crossing Brooklyn and Marcy in the Galaxy. Transport Group is the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award for its "breadth of vision and its presentation of challenging productions."
For more information about Transport Group, and the Diva Master Classes visit
www.transportgroup.org or call (212) 560-4372.
Photo by Genevieve Rafter Keddy.
