Reagle Music Theatre Summer Camp Now Enrolling

 Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston, in collaboration with the Waltham Public Schools, is now enrolling youths for its annual Broadway Summer Camp, an intensive four-week summer program that features Broadway stars sharing their musical theater experience with local students 8-15 years of age.  The program runs July 2-27 in sessions Monday through Friday, 9am – 4 pm, at theKennedy Middle School, 655 Lexington Street, Waltham. Students do not need to be Waltham residents to register.

According to veteran Camp Director Sheron Thorp Doucette, the Summer Camp provides training in acting, voice, dance, performance fundamentals and techniques. Daily classes taught by some of the area's top performing professionals and educators develop a variety of skills including improvisation, teamwork, role playing, scene work, and character exploration. Master Classes conducted by visiting Broadway veterans may introduce students to more specialized techniques or behind-the-scenes skills needed to mount a show.

"Our staff of 18 teachers, teaching assistants, counselors and counselors-in-training provides superb small-group instruction and support," says Doucette, a theater professional and experienced drama teacher with a Masters in Education in Creative Arts and Learning from LesleyUniversity. "Students in the regular program are grouped by age. Those in the Advanced Program are grouped by ability. All perform at the end of the session in our Campers' Showcase. It's truly remarkable to see how much skill and confidence these students develop in just four weeks. The energy, enthusiasm and camaraderie generated by 100-plus campers are also pretty amazing."

The theme of this year's Summer Camp is The Broadway Journey. Throughout the session campers will be encouraged to identify their goals and become empowered to take the steps needed to achieve them. In the Showcase production, participants will perform songs from Broadway musicals that move their characters through life on a personal journey of growth and discovery. By identifying with and enacting these characters' stories, campers may perhaps explore their own lives and paths to the future – maybe even Broadway.

Reagle's Summer Camp is staffed by professional educators as well as singers, actors, dancers, directors, choreographers, vocal instructors, music directors, and stage managers. They are assisted by college students majoring in theater arts and/or education as well as camp counselors who have literally grown up in the Reagle Summer Camp and on the Reagle stage. Staff members include choreographers Rachel Bertone (IRNE Award winner) and Jessica Azenberg (daughter of Broadway producer Emanuel Azenberg, an honorary Reagle Board member who recently received a Special Tony Lifetime Achievement Award); music director Dan Rodriguez, a multiple IRNE Award winner and nominee, and graduate of Oberlin College; Joey DeMita, founder and artistic director of the F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company and a music and drama teacher for the Community Music Center of Boston; Ianthe Marini, a music educator in the Boston area and graduate of Penn State University; and Scott Abreu, Philip daCosta and Connor Fallon, all Reagle performers and camp alums featured in this season's main stage production of A Chorus Line.

This year's Master Classes will be led by true Broadway luminaries. Kenny Raskin, the original Lefou in Broadways' Beauty and the Beast, will instruct the art of physical comedy. A former lead clown in the world-famous troupe Cirque du Soleil, Raskin will share and demonstrate what it's like to take pratfalls and dodge roundhouses from Gaston eight shows a week. The husband-and-wife team of Rick Hilsabeck (Billy Elliot, Phantom of the Opera) and Sarah Pfisterer (Phantom of the Opera, Show Boat) – starring as Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in Reagle's August 10-19 production of My Fair Lady – will conduct a class on "Acting the Song." This interactive workshop will have the on- and off-stage couple sharing techniques for expressing a song's intention through music and lyrics and relating to your song partner. Todd Olsen, the artistic director of American Stage, will discuss audition dos and don'ts. As part of his Master Class, he will conduct a mock audition and provide feedback and constructive criticism.

Additional Tony Award-winning actors, producers and directors will be announced once their participation is confirmed.

For more information or to register, parents may download a Summer Camp brochure at www.reaglemusictheatre.org, visit or call Reagle Music Theatre at 781-891-5600, or email reagletheatrecamp@gmail.com. Reagle Music Theatre is located in the Robinson Theatre at 617 Lexington Street, Waltham, Mass. Box Office hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and performance days, 9 a.m. to curtain.

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