Betty Buckley Set for Spring Song Workshop at Imaginantion Celebration

Legendary Broadway star, actress/singer Betty Buckley will continue her successful Song Interpretation and Communication Workshop hosted by Imagination Celebration in March and April 2009.

The Fort Worth native will share her singing and acting techniques in her master class designed for both dedicated students and advanced professional performers.

The Tony award winner has thrilled audiences for years with acclaimed performances in such Broadway shows as Sunset Boulevard, Cats, and 1776. Recently her highly praised starring role in the M. Night Shyamalan feature film The Happening, joins her other memorable film performances which include Tender Mercies, Frantic, and Carrie. She also has an extensive cabaret career, and has recently received rave reviews for Broadway by Request at New York City's prestigious Feinstein's at Loew's Regency nightclub. In recognition of her body of work and contribution to the Musical Theatre and the Arts, Ms. Buckley will be receiving the Texas Medal of the Arts Award from the Texas Cultural Trust in April.

In January, Ms. Buckley, directed a benefit concert for Imagination Celebration featuring workshop participants. Mark Lowry's review celebrates "Memories...Theater Jones was invited to a performance by students of Fort Worth's Tony-winning actress, Betty Buckley....The results, we must say, were heavenly. Buckley teaches meditation as a way to get inside the character and sharpen interpretation of the lyrics, and her influence was obvious in her apprentices. This was no mere recital, these students used props, blocking and costumes to tell of their characters' aching, joy and tipsiness."

The Song Interpretation Intensive class schedule consists of six sessions beginning on March 12. Classes begin at 6:30pm and last 4-5 hours. Prospective participants should call (940) 300-4944 or email: marjorie@unt.edu for further details and to arrange an interview. The class will be held at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, in the Museum District at 1300 Gendy Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76107.

An accompanist will be provided. For more information go to www.bettybuckley.com or www.icfw.org.

The class also welcomes auditors who participate in all aspects of the class except the individual singing coached by Ms. Buckley.

Buckley possesses one of the finest and most unique instruments in musical theatre - a versatile voice that pierces the soul both with its razor-edged belt and ethereal upper register. Her emotional connection to a song and to the audience is world-renowned, and that very connection is at the heart of the skill and knowledge she shares with students.

She is also an Emmy-nominated television (Eight Is Enough, Law and Order:SVU and HBO's Oz) and film star (Tender Mercies, Carrie, Frantic, Another Woman and The Happening).

The Actor-Singer works regularly in concert with her ensemble of musicians. Her solo CD, Stars and the Moon: Betty Buckley Live at the Donmar Warehouse, received a Grammy nomination. In 2007, she released a new CD Betty Buckley 1967, which hit the Billboard charts. Her newest recording Quintessence, with long-time collaborator Kenny Werner and her quintet was released by Playbill and Sony BMG Broadway Masterworks in Spring 2008.

The Betty Lynn Buckley Awards program at Casa Manana Theater honoring outstanding Musical Theatre for Tarrant County high schools were named for Buckley's outstanding contribution to the Musical Theatre.

The Imagination Celebration program, founded by Executive Director Ginger Head, began in 1977 as an outreach project of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It was created to develop arts awareness in school children and an arts alliance between educators, their arts counterparts, and the community cultural network.

It is their philosophy that the arts inspire and communicate ideas and give reality to the past and imagined future. The arts aid in the development of critical thinking skills, enhance every discipline of study, and most importantly, should be accessible to everyone. As a not for profit organization, ICFW is dependent on generous gifts and grants from Government entities, private foundations, corporations and individuals to continue its mission to provide programs which create learning in, through and about the arts and enhance the education of students from kindergarten through university, their teachers and their families.

 

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