House down… Curtains opening… Go! Cue 634… Go!  Showtime!!!

This past Friday, we reached the end of our journey with Bye Bye Birdie! I know we will all miss being a part of this wonderful show, but we were so happy to share it with great audiences all three nights! Running a show is truly so different than the rehearsal process, because there is no room to restart and everyone is giving a 100% to their character that we normally don't see in rehearsals. 

Hello. My name is Aimee and I will be your tour guide to anything and everything Millbrook Playhouse. I am super excited to share my experiences this summer with you.  Millbrook Playhouse is a unique theater that used to be a barn. It has been open for over 50 years, and I have been with the barn for 11 of those years! (Including this summer season) This summer I will be in Peace Love and Cupcakes, The Little Mermaid, and the Teen Performing Arts Academy's production of Into The Woods Jr. I will write about performances, rehearsals, and the fabulous adventures with my wacky friends. 

Performers love the stage. Actors love every single second they get onstage, every moment under the spotlight. It's the best feeling in the world for us. But the worst thing to be in this highly competitive theatre world is specialized in only one aspect of theatre. For instance, only being trained in one style of dance isn't going to help you out in the long run when you audition for a dance company. The same is for performers. Stop performing. Quit thinking that it's okay to only be an actor, a singer, a dancer. Learn every aspect of theatre, every talent you can. This may seem annoying, but as an artist, it will help you in the long run to be knowledgeable about as much as you can. 

Hello!  It has been a long while!  These last few weeks I have been studying, stressing, and screaming.  Four AP tests,  one standardized test, and Annie auditions later, I'm back and ready to discuss all things theatre with you guys!

I'm still in high school and as a junior we just learned about the perils of sex and parenting. As a health class project, we were assigned electronic babies to care for over the course of two days. So how does this correlate to performing? … Responsibility!

Performing in musicals definitely has its perks. You can earn money, spend time with friends, strengthen skills, make audiences happy, and of course do what you love! But there is one serious challenge that all actors/actresses are all too familiar with: sore throats. Sore throats are very common, especially with the tentative weather patterns and sudden temperature changes happening now. So to help you cure a sore throat and go back to jamming out to Broadway each day, here are a few tips of my own, along with some other facts I learned after doing some research.

In a tight-nit community like that which I am from, the members of the town are all very close. Adults and children alike collaborate during sporting events, stream clean-ups, and fun-runs. This dynamic within the community also means that the members of the town play an important role in our school's drama department. Schools with less money in the theatre budget are often prone to do-it-yourself projects and community outreach, telling a story with minimal financial input. Coming from a small, rural community, myself and my fellow actors are accustomed to assisting in most if not all aspects of the high school drama program. However, we would not be able to create our productions without the help of friends and family. Through experience, I have learned that making a production is often so deeply rooted in the community you have supporting you. 

Every year towards the end of spring, Bay Shore High School puts on an annual Cabaret Night. Cabaret is basically just a talent show, with each performer doing their own act with piano, drum, and bass accompaniment. There's one catch: you can only perform a song from a musical or movie.

The Last Five Years is one of the most creative concepts for a musical I have ever seen. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to see this amazing show presented by the Short North Stage celebrating their fifth year since the start of this production company.

High Schoolers hold a wide range of responsibilities.

As the audience walks into the lobby of the performing arts center, we are greeted with glittery visions of teacups and saucers, large animated flowers, and welcoming oversized characters beckoning us with which to take a photo-op. Life is good and happy...just like a Disney Parade.

As a regular participant in theater throughout my community, I rarely get a break. Often, I audition for a role before the show I am currently cast in finishes running. In March, I somehow managed to pull off being in two shows at the same time; further exemplifying my self-titled and extremely suiting phrase 'High School Theater Addict'. I would not doubt for even a fraction of a second that I can be found stating, 'I can't...I have rehearsal,' more often than anything else. And while my weekend and afterschool schedule differs from most people my age, it affords me the benefit of having the most diverse medley of friends, along with the ability to learn skills that are absolutely priceless to me, as I am absolutely in love with performing.

Auditions. The thing theatre kids hate most. Auditions cause massive anxiety, stress, sleepless nights. They are hellish and terrifying. Regardless of the hate we all feel for auditions, this blog is dedicated to advising theatre kids to love auditions. Wait… is that even possible? Anything's Possible! Loving auditions can be the best thing theatre kids learn. Even though every person in the theatre world seems to hate them with a passion, learn to be different: love what everyone else hates.

Instead of a written final, our teacher has made a compilation of monologues, raps, and a play that brings Shakespeare's Hamlet to a modern day understanding. 

"Oh, the thinks you can think when you think about...SEUSS!!" Dr. Seuss, as most of us know, was one of the most iconic children's book authors. From One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish,  Blue Fish to There's a Wocket in my Pocket, Dr. Seuss never did fail to amuse children. In 2000, Seussical the Musical debuted on Broadway. Written by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, the musical incorporates all the memory-making Dr. Seuss stories such as Horton Hears a Who, Gertrude McFuzz, The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and Oh, The Thinks You Can Think! Seussical the Musical was written to carry on the legacy of Dr. Seuss and to grant good times to anyone who sees it, and Susquehanna Stage Company located in Marietta, Pennsylvania, hopes to do just that.

In every show, there is a force behind the scenes that is never acknowledged--and I don't mean techies. Some of us are lucky enough to have supportive moms, and it makes a world of difference. It's a thankless job, and sometimes even disrespected. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you.  

Divas are a classic theatre troupe that have appeared in productions for decades. So often divas come off as brazen, brash, and dramatic, having a shallow personality and the constant need to acquire attention. Earlier in April my peers and I began work on "Hay Fever" by Noel Coward, a play that puts a dramatic family under the microscope and examines the interactions between relatives that don't fit the standard definition of "normal." I was thrilled to have been cast as Judith Bliss, the matriarch of the Bliss family and an ex-starlet herself. Through the process of this show, and using Judith as a lens, I have found the "diva" to be so much more than the dramatic figure he or she is often portrayed to be, but rather a complex and insecure character that can be challenging to decipher. 

 Many people think theatre is a temporary thing for themselves. Just an enjoyable hobby to pass the time, because it is very frequent that someone who indulges in the theatre does not pursue it as a career. This is why many people don't take theatre as a big part of their life. They may say, "Oh, I was a part of the drama club way back in high school." But what do they not know is that the theatre becomes a part of you that never dies.

For my school's spring play, New Albany High School presented a production of the classic Shakespearean tragedy, Macbeth. The director and teacher of the drama department at the school, Elliott Lemberg, decided to stray from the typical setting of late 1500s Scotland and put a Kabuki twist on it.

Standardized tests already put unnecessary stress on students. 

The Arts & Culture Trust will be awarding 17 performing arts scholarships this year to Grade 12 learners and individuals under the age of 25, as well as first- and second-year students in acting, singing, dancing and musical theatre. Aspiring performing artists are reminded that the deadline for registration is Tuesday, 31 May 2016.

Way back around October and November, a class of eighth graders started writing their very own musical. And I am proud to say that I was in that class! At first, it started off very small. All we had were notebooks and pens and little ideas in our minds that sounded very stupid at the time. We had no idea that such small efforts put together would end up making such a big production.

?Your craft is only good with continuity over time. - Me. just now. But seriously, continuity is important, especially when it comes to theatre and the arts. As actors, we grow with every performance, every note, line, and count a step building stairs that only go up. In theatre news, there is never an actor who talks about not pushing themselves for years to be their best before getting their big break. Big breaks come with practice and dedication, not sheer luck and ability. For high school students, theatre can seem like a school year activity, summers spent relaxing. I mean, I get it: high school is the high note and the summer is the needed catch breath. Yet, this industry and profession finds itself with more of a willing supply than demand. For this reason actors need to, more than ever, develop their craft to be the best it can be any chance they get, especially high school actors. 

Hello hello hello, fellow theatre fans! My name is Daniella, I'm 17 and I'm new here today. The small town in New Jersey that I come from seems so far away. Actually it doesn't, as I am writing this from my school library and unfortunately do not live in New York City yet. But I digress. Through this blog, I plan to document the life of what it's like as a teenager obsessed with musical theatre. Due to my passion for this art form, there aren't many times in the year when I'm not working on a production in some capacity. However, every year since I have begun participating in local theatre, I have not performed much during the spring beyond my school's spring musical, which usually has performances in March. In the beginning, I found it unfathomable to not be involved with productions during this time, but as the years go by, I continually discover that it can be helpful to take time off from performing. Here are some of my tips for dealing with not being in a show: