TADA! Youth Theater to Present Original Musical UP TO YOU, 4/16-5/21

The Drama Desk Award-Winning TADA! Youth Theater will present UP TO YOU, an original Off-Broadway musical, performed by the talented kids from TADA!'s Resident Youth Ensemble, for kids of all ages. With book & music by Drama Desk Nominee ERIC ROCKWELL & Lyrics by JOANNE BOGART, UP TO YOU opens on April 16th & runs through May 21st at TADA! 15 West 28th Street.

Who will be elected as the Student Council President at Hamilton High in 1977, the cheerleader who promises a disco homecoming, or the girl who wants to stop the pirate pranks?

Audience InterACTive: Want to perform on the TADA! stage with some of the cast members? Now you can! Following the show on May 14th, learn a song & dance from the show with members of the cast, the choreographer & the musical director. Get in on the ACTion! $10 per participant.

JANINE NINA TREVENS, Executive & Artistic Director of TADA! directs the production, which stars TADA!'s RESIDENT YOUTH ENSEMBLE (ages 8-18). Associate Artistic Director & Resident Choreographer, JOANNA GREER, will choreograph & MATTHEW GREGORY serves as Musical Director.

STEVE O'SHEA, TADA! Resident Scenic & lighting Designer, does set & lighting design, KEIKO OBREMSKI designs the costumes & JULIA NICHOLS production stage manages, assisted by HANNAH E. SPRATT. Assistant Director is CHRISTINA FRANKLIN. JACOB PLATT is the Technical Supervisor.

TADA! original musicals are approximately one hour long & are intended for family audiences. Bring the whole family to TADA! for less than the price of one Broadway ticket!

ERIC ROCKWELL (Book & Music) created several musicals for TADA!, including Golly Gee Whiz, Up To You, The History Mystery, Everything About School (Almost) & Princess Phooey. A 2004 Drama Desk nominee for Best Music, Eric composed the score & co-wrote the book to The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) which, after two years of performances in New York, went on to have success on London's West End. Eric was a member of the BMI-Lehman Engle Musical Theater Workshop, where in addition to creating Musical of Musicals, he developed the score to A Little Princess, which received its world premiere in 2013 at the Sacramento Theater Company. At the Rockwell Music Studio, Eric teaches piano & voice to some of New York's most talented performers.

JOANNE BOGART (Lyrics) co-wrote & appeared in the Off-Broadway hit The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) (2004 Drama Desk nom. Best Musical, Best Music & Best Lyrics; the 2004 Lucille Lortel nomination for Best Musical & the 2005 Drama League nomination for Best Musical), which she co-wrote with composer Eric Rockwell. It has since been produced in several American regional theaters, as well as internationally, including London. She has also written for television on the Disney Channel. Other shows for TADA! include The Trials of Alice in Wonderland & Golly Gee Whiz, which won the 2009 National Youth Theatre Award for Outstanding New Musical. She & Eric Rockwell wrote the score for the TYA musical David & Goliath at the Kaufman Center & are currently working on a new musical.

JANINE NINA TREVENS (Director & Executive & Artistic Director) co-founded TADA! in 1984 with Linda Reiff. She has served as the Artistic Director for all of the works produced by TADA!, many of which she commissioned specifically for the company, including Everything About A Family (Almost). For TADA!, she has written Heroes, The Little House of Cookies, Sweet Sixteen, History Mystery, as well as Odd Day Rain & The Perfect Monster with composer/lyricist Deirdre Broderick. She directs many of TADA!'s musicals, numerous staged readings & Ensemble appearances at various locations & events in & around NYC. Nina was selected as one of 10 Parenting Leaders by Parenting Magazine & was one of only five women nationally to receive Family Circle's First Annual Halo Award for women who make a difference. Nina is honored to have been chosen as part of One World Observatory - Inspired, the inaugural event celebrating artists, innovators & leaders at One World Observatory at the newly opened One World Trade Center. She has served on funding panels for NYSCA, DCA, ART/NY & TCG & is a member of the League of Professional Theatre Women.

JOANNA GREER (Choreographer) is a Director-Choreographer & Teaching Artist who has had the pleasure of working with numerous award-winning organizations, such as The American Ballroom Theater (featured in the 2005 Documentary Mad Hot Ballroom), YANY, City Lights Youth Theatre & the acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Current TADA! director &/or choreographer credits include over 25 main-stage musicals as well as 365 Days/365 Plays by Suzan Lori-Parks at TADA! & The Public Theater. Most recently, she choreographed Alienne: The Musical Adventures of My Little Martian at the 2014 New York Fringe Jr. Joanna is also the Co-founder of NYC-based Kinetic Dance Theater, an artistic collective driven toward innovating dance theater, cabaret & musical theater performance. Currently, her choreography can be seen across North America in 50 SHADES! The Musical.

STEVE O'SHEA (Resident Scenic & Lighting Designer) Recent Designs include Unsung/Heros, Samantha Spade, Ace Detective, The Gift of Winter, The Little Moon Theater, The Adventures of Ezra Jack Keats, Sleepover, Everything About School (Almost), Up To You, The History Mystery, Odd Day Rain, Rabbit Sense, The Magic Pot, Wide Awake Jake, B.O.T.C.H., The Perfect Monster, They Chose Me! (TADA! Youth Theater), God of Carnage (St. Louis Rep), Macbeth, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Chaos Theory, Ladies In Retirement (Pulse Ensemble Theatre), Blade to The Heat, Aloha Say The Pretty Girls, 12 Ophelias (Baruch College), Murder In The Cathedral (University of CT), Last Easter (Drew University), Late (Clubbed Thumb), Carmen, Tristan Und Isolde, Magic Flute, Norma, Le Nozze di Figaro (Teatro de la Opera, San Juan PR), End of the Rope (Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Romania) & the Spring Fever Festival, NYC (breedingground).

MATTHEW GREGORY (Musical Director) is working on his second TADA! musical, having previously collaborated on the winter show, The Gumball Gang: Crime-Solving Kids. Since graduating from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, he has worked as a composer, musical director & actor, particularly passionate about theatre for young audiences. In addition to working with the Resident Youth Ensemble, Matthew is also a Teaching Artist with TADA! He has performed at Radio City, Joe's Pub & regional theaters across the country. As a composer, his work includes Pajama Sam, a musical adaptation of a popular 90's point-and-click computer game & Where the Sidewalk Ends, a song-cycle devised from the poems of Shel Silverstein. He is one half of the pop-country duo Halcyon Days, as well as a solo artist.

KEIKO OBREMSKI (Costume Designer) is originally from Japan & performed with a Japanese musical theater both in Japan & the USA. After raising two boys, she went back to the theater as a costume/wardrobe designer, working with the Metropolitan Opera, ABT, Broadway shows & NBC "The Wiz Live." Costume Design credits include Sayonara (Pan Asian Repertory), Hitting Bedrock, Dark Night Bright Star (Yara Arts), Everything About School (almost), Odd Day Rain, The Magic Pot: Three tales from China (TADA!)

JACOB PLATT (Technical Supervisor) Founder & Principal Producer for Platt Productions, providing 15 years of production, management & lighting services, as well as the award winning production Tar Baby. Jake is also an Associate Designer & Project Manager for Sense Lighting Design where he manages & executes high end architectural installations, corporate events & other unique experiences such as Audemars Piguet & Peabody Essex Museum exhibition of Theo Jensen's Strandbeest for Art Basel Miami; art installations for artists such as Tavares Strachan, Craig F Starr Gallery, Audemars Piguet & Galerie Perrotin "Curiosity" for Art Basel Miami, ICFF off-site installations for designers including Tom Dixon, De La Espada & Neri & Hu, Martha Stewart's American Made Awards 2012 (Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal) & Audemars Piguet: Royal Oak (Park Avenue Armory). Jake has been working on TADA! productions for more than 4 years & has been on staff since May 2014.

CHRISTINA FRANKLIN (Asst. Director & Assistant Stage Manager) recently received a BFA in Directing, Playwriting & Production from the University of The Arts. Previous credits include Eclipsed (The Public Theater); Aristocats Kids (Ogunquit Playhouse); Godspell (UArts); Ordinary Days (UArts Home Series); We Are Proud to Present... (Philly Fringe); Long Live the Boy Bands! (Blurring Edges); The Tempest (The Public Theater); Rapture, Blister, Burn (The Wilma); Peninsula (NYC Fringe).

JULIA NICHOLS (Prod. Stage Manager) is happy to be returning to TADA! after recently stage managing The Gumball Gang: Crime Solving Kids. Her regional credits include Judith (PTP/NYC), Vinegar Tom (PTP/NYC), Junie B. Jones & No Dogs Allowed (Grand Rapids Civic Theater & School of Theater Arts). She has also been a teaching artist for Grand Rapids Civic Theater & led their traveling theater company for three years. She earned her BFA from Western Michigan University.

HANNAH E. SPRATT (Assistant Stage Manager) is a Midwest transplant, based in New York. Select NYC credits include Rimbaud in New York (BAM), Lazarus (New York Theatre Workshop), Le Problème (The Araca Project), Paisieu, Stein-Drag (Target Margin Theatre), Old Paper Houses (Piehole), Bones in the Basket (The Araca Project), A Walk on the Moon (PA, New York Stage & Film), The Light Years (New York Stage & Film & The Debate Society), SeaWife (New York Stage & Film). Upcoming project: Troilus & Cressida (The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park).

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