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SPRING 2010 The Signature School offers a variety of classes in singing, acting, and dance. There are opportunities for students of all ages and experience levels. Instructors are members of the Signature staff or artistic associates closely associated with our programming. Creating musicals is what Signature does best. The Signature School provides community access to the craft of musical theater that encompasses dancing, singing, and acting. Class size is limited. Register soon. Click here to download and print the registration form.
VOCAL TECHNIQUE Explore the process of healthy singing. This workshop will allow you to identify your singing “habits” and to confront your personal hurdles to developing your vocal potential. Break out of your comfort zone and find your true vocal range. Work under the guidance of Tracy Lynn Olivera, an instructor in the Rome School of Music at The Catholic University of America and a multiple Helen Hayes Award nominee who appeared in the recent Broadway production of Ragtime. VOCAL TECHNIQUE # 1 Individual and group exercises will help you to personally explore your vocal capabilities. You will learn techniques to enable you to protect your voice and use it more effectively. This workshop will provide tools vital to any serious young performer. The class is a prerequisite to more advanced vocal technique classes offered in the signature school. THE ART OF CABARET Cabaret is more than singing a few songs. It’s a special art form, a combination of song and theater that requires careful planning and preparation. Bring your ideas and develop your own cabaret under the guidance of one of the DC area’s premiere cabaret performers Judy Simmons. Craft your own cabaret and have an opportunity to showcase your material in the Mead Lobby at Signature Theatre. Friends are welcome to attend. DANCIN’ Love musical theater and wish you could perform some of those fantastic dances? Well this class is for you. Dynamic choreographer and director Matt Gardiner, Signature’s Assistant Director and a Helen Hayes Award winner, will lead you through a variety of choreography from Broadway favorites like Chicago, Urinetown, and A Chorus Line to alternative routines such as Michael Jackson’s Thriller. If you’ve taken this class before, try it again to improve your technique and learn some pieces of choreography. AUDITION TRAINING FOR ACTORS Selecting and performing an effective monologue are skills that all actors need to develop. The material and its execution can either enhance or detract from the talent an actor naturally possesses. Be sure that you show the most and get the desired effect at every audition—even if you don’t the job, you can make an impression that can guarantee another audition in the future. Work with Signature Theatre’s Associate Director and casting director Michael Baron to build a reserve of audition pieces that work for you. APPROACHES TO ACTING This workshop will explore the craft of acting. Focus on the basic fundamentals—goals, intentions, objectives, beats. Learn to work with text—the language and the subtext. Explore your physical awareness through relaxation, observation, and listening exercises that will help you to stimulate your creative imagination and increase your sense of possibility in creating a character. Signature’s Associate Director Michael Baron and Education Director Marcia Gardner will approach the craft of acting through a variety of techniques involving individual and group work. ACTING IN THE REAL WORLD A six-session workshop designed to build your communication awareness and boost your confidence in the work place. Learn acting skills and techniques that can be applied to a variety of situations faced in the business world. Become a more effective communicator while you enjoy exploring the world of acting under the direction of Signature’s casting director Michael Baron. Registration deadline: March 29
Michael Baron is the Associate Director and Casting Director at Signature Theatre. Directing credits at Signature include The Little Dog Laughed, December Divas, The Lost Song of Broadway: Vol. I, Songs for a New World (Signature at the Music Center at Strathmore), Ricky, Joe, and Michael John, and The Sex Habits of American Women. This fall Michael directed A Christmas Carol for Ford's Theatre. Off-Broadway, Michael directed Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad and Modern Living. He also wrote and directed the comedy The Whore of Sheridan Square, based on the life and works of Charles Ludlam and produced at La Mama, was published in the anthology Plays and Playwrights 2006. His regional directing credits include Ford's Theatre (The Civil War, Associate Director), Washington Savoyards (The Music Man), Lincoln Theatre (Julia Nixon: Live in Concert), Adventure Theatre (Stuart Little, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown), Trinity Rep (The School for Scandal, A Christmas Carol), Perishable Theatre (Lamarck), SpeakEasy Stage (Hot Star; Nebraska), and The Ensemble Studio Theatre (Give Me Space), and the national tour of Miss Richfield's High Hair, High Hopes, Hygiene. He has taught directing at American University, Brown University, Holy Cross College, and Rhode Island College. Michael received a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Wake Forest University and an MFA in Directing from Trinity Repertory Conservatory. Matthew Gardiner is the Assistant Director at Signature Theatre, where he has directed See What I Wanna See and Singing Shakespeare and served as assistant director for The Little Dog Laughed, Les Miserables, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, ACE, The Visit, Witches of Eastwick, Allegro, One Red Flower, and the world premiere production of Nevermore, and the Signature and Broadway productions of Glory Days. In addition to his work at Signature Theatre, Matt has worked as a director/choreographer at Studio Theatre: Jerry Springer the Opera and Reefer Madness (2008 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical)His choreography credits include Dog Sees God, Hello Again, Edges: A New Song Cycle, Myths & Hymns, Lysistrata, The Last Five Years (DCAC), Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Marry Me A Little, and the ballets Jungle Alley Stomp and Dis-joint. He has also worked on productions at the Kennedy Center (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring George Grizzard and directed by Mark Lamos), MetroStage (The Last Five Years), a workshop of the latest Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman musical at the Public Theater in New York, and assisted John Carrafa on the Pittsburgh premiere of Urinetown. This season he will be directing [title of show] at Signature. Matt holds a BFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon University. Marcia Gardner is the Education Director at Signature Theatre and is responsible for programming the Signature School, Overtures: Musical Theater Institute, Signature in the Schools, and free community events. Signature’s educational and community outreach programs have received the Washington Post Award for Distinguished Community Service, the Arlington County Board of Education Outstanding Partnership Award, and the 2009 Elizabeth Campbell Award for excellence in education. Marcia has taught acting and directing at The University of Minnesota, Minnesota State University, and Hamline University, and has performed in regional theatres including The Guthrie Theatre, Berkeley Rep, Magic Theatre in San Francisco, Cleveland Playhouse, Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. She received a Mary Goldwater Award for direction, Helen Hayes nominations for her acting work, and was named a WETA Hometown Hero in 2008 for her work in education. A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Art in NYC and the University of California at Berkeley, she holds MFA degrees in directing and playwriting from the University of Minnesota. Tracy Lynn Olivera is a professional actress and an instructor at The Catholic University of America’s Rome School of Music. A classically trained musician, she has appeared in many musicals. At Signature she has been seen in Les Misérables (Helen Hayes nomination), Anyone Can Whistle, ACE, The Happy Time, Merrily We Roll Along (Helen Hayes nomination), Allegro (Helen Hayes nomination), Follies, Mack ‘n’ Mable. She has also performed at the Kennedy Center in Sunday in the Park with George, Passion, Merrily We Roll Along, an d Ragtime, at Ford’s in Meet John Doe, at Olney Theatre Center in West Side Story, Grease, and Carousel (Helen Hayes nomination), and at MetroStage in The Last Five Years. She recently completed a Broadway run of Ragtime. Tracy is also a member of Rorschach Theatre Company. Judy Simmons is an actress, cabaret performer, director and teacher. She is also the Executive Director of the DC Cabaret Network. She most recently appeared as Mrs. Paroo in The Music Man and Mrs. Dilbar and Mrs. Fezziwig in A Christmas Carol at Ford’s Theatre. Both were directed by Signature’s own Michael Baron. Her cabaret shows include: A Date With Judy, Sondheim Tonight, Cockeyed Optimist, Not In Kansas Anymore, Here And Now, Get Happy, The Eccentrics, What Were We Thinking?and Much More.Ms. Simmons was the director ofThe Cabaret series at Signature Theatre for 7 years.
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4200 Campbell Ave. Arlington, Virginia 22206 | Box Office 703 820 9771 | Administration 571 527 1860 | Fax 703 845 0236 |