Christopher Castanho - Page 3

Julia Hoffmann is currently swinging her way across the United States in the national tour of 'Once' understudying Girl, Ex-Girlfriend, and Reza. Based on the Academy Award-winning film, the Tony Award-winning musical 'Once' shares the story of how music not only composes melodies but also love between different people from around the globe. With an incredible score by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and book by Enda Walsh, audiences have been falling (slowly) in love with this beautiful and honest production since its first performance on Broadway in 2012.

Shenandoah Conservatory's popular web series The Dream Team returns for a second episode this past week. Picking up where we left off: we follow all of the kooky and familiar faces, like Freya Falkenstein's Nora and Emma Benson's eccentric Sierra Farris, but also discover new characters, like Will Westray's Chad. Set at the big Halloween party of the year, things are bound to get a little crazy.

I'm often a very positive person, being able to see the silver lining of every situation, and do not like to admit or submit to hardships in my life. But to be completely honest, 2016 has been a difficult year. As life can be tumultuous sometimes, it can also be magnificent. Alas, here we are, at the conclusion of our year, and I thought I'd do a little 'Year In Review' of my 2016.

Currently spooking audiences as a ghostly apparition and other ensemble roles is performer Spencer S Lawson. Being in his senior year at The Hartt School at The University of Hartford, Spencer joins fellow Hartt students in the production as well as veteran ensemble members, many of whom have been performing in the annual production since its conception in 1998. While donning his Hartford Stage 'A Christmas Carol' apparel and flashing a charming smile, Lawson expressed his sadness that the run is coming to an end, but also thankful that he was able to be a part of it.

Katie Davis, a recent graduate from Belmont University's Musical Theatre program, is portraying the featured ensemble member 'Star To Be', a young and optimistic actress who just moved to the dazzling 'NYC'. Davis has been noted as being a 'standout' ensemble member from the Chicago Theatre Review. I was lucky enough to sit down and check in with Katie on how her experience being on the Annie National Tour is going.

In October of 1998 Matthew Shepard, a twenty-one-year-old University student was kidnapped, beaten, and left to die on a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. The reason for his killing: he was gay. One of the first murders to be labeled a hate crime, it brought attention the lack of 'hate crime protection' several states possessed. Five weeks after his death, Moises Kaufman and other members of the Tectonic Theater Project traveled to Laramie and interviewed its citizens for a whole year after the event. This is the true story of how residents in Laramie, Wyoming reacted to the murder of Matthew Shepard.

This past weekend I was lucky enough to attend a pre-screening audition at the Virginia Theatre Association (VTA) in Norfolk, VA. The audition determinates your eligibility to take part in the South Eastern Theatre Conference (SETC), where you are able to audition for hundreds of theatre companies. I'm tryna #book summer stock theatre this summer, so here's hoping I get passed through to SETC.

Shenandoah Conservatory students have been creating a lot of their own art and content, one of the most successful projects is a web series called The Dream Team. Created by two theatre students, the original series tells the story of a class of theatre majors, living out their first year of college at the fictional Betsey Bell Conservatory. Founded in October of 2015, the show has garnered more than 8,000 views on YouTube, over 150 subscribers, and upwards of 300 FaceBook likes. I was lucky enough to connect with the show's co-creator and star Emma Benson, a third year Musical Theatre student at Shenandoah and hear about what's in store for Season 2.

Shenandoah Conservatory's production of Spring Awakening runs this weekend only, from Friday, September 30th through Sunday, October 2nd in the Ohrstrom-Bryant Theatre on the campus of Shenandoah University. Stephen Sater and Duncan Sheik's Tony award-winning musical led by two Broadway veterans and now Shenandoah educators: Kevin Covert (Direction and Choreography) and Rick Edinger (Music Direction).

This production is a perfect example of why I am enamored with Theatre and Art, and why I am proud to be part of this community. The show not only shared a historical event but gifted us with sharing the power of empathy. The love and selflessness the citizens of Gander and Newfoundland had for all of the foreign travelers is astonishing. The locals 'took in' and fed 6,579 stranded passengers, which was half the size of the town's population.

Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Virginia will be mounting the award-winning rock musical: SPRING AWAKENING this September, directed by Broadway veteran and new musical theatre program coordinator Kevin Covert. I was lucky enough to sit down with Kevin, hear about his experience at Shenandoah so far and learn about his process working on the rock musical with current theatre students.

The resonance of an orchestra warming up before a performance is a very comforting sound for me: reminiscent of the nights at the theatre with my Meme. But there is something very special regarding the cadence of my first Broadway orchestra in preparation, that sound I will never forget.

Every artist has a way of working, whether it's using 'counts' in choreography, or being an auditory learner, the list goes on and on. We all have ways that we learn and function as a creative individual, and I have discovered, as you probably have, that we don't all work the same way.

Striving to be a Musical Theatre performer often means striving to be a triple threat. (For definition of triple threat see: Sutton Foster) As I have been training to be a performer since I was young, there is one particular...threat...that I would feel threatened by

I think that as actors, who are so eager to work, we tend to tend to disassociate a 'performance' with 'an audition' because there's no microphones, lights, or contract. But by singing your 32 bars you are PERFORMING. Fill that minute with everything you've got: that is your time to shine.