Class InformationCreating a Stand-Out Self Tape Audition
Auditions are different now! Whether auditioning for a College/University Program or a Professional Role, the ability to produce a strong Audition Self Tape is an essential skill...especially post pandemic. Recording an acting or musical theatre audition can be overwhelming, different from auditioning in person, and will present new sets of challenges for even the most experienced performer. In this workshop, taught by New York Film Academy's Chair & Creative Director of Acting for Film and the Director of Musical Theatre Recruitment (Josephine, Amy and Joey), you will learn what colleges prefer to see in a digital submission, key concepts, tips and techniques, and how to create a professional self recorded audition to make a lasting impression to stand out from the rest. Instructors: Amy Van Horne is an actor, teacher, professional on-camera audition coach, and Creative Director at the New York Film Academy. She holds an MFA from Rutgers University-Mason Gross School of the Arts where she studied under the tutelage of Master Teachers William Esper and Maggie Flanigan. Amy has been a professional film and television actress for over 20 years, working in both LA and New York. Selected film/TV credits include:Cost of Living, The City, The Big Easy, Hitz, Two Guys a Girl and a Pizza Place, Push, Veronica’s Closet, Family Rules, The Beach Boys: An American Family, Judging Amy, Strong Medicine, Cold Case, and Final Sale. She has also appeared in dozens of national network commercials. Having firsthand knowledge of the many technical challenges actors face working in front of the camera on professional film/TV sets, Amy developed and led on-camera acting technique and scene study classes that she taught for over 10 years in LA. Teaching actors to find freedom on camera became Amy’s passion, and she returned to New York in 2013 to train as a master teacher under her mentor Maggie Flanigan. Josephine Wilson is the Chair of Acting for Film at the New York Film Academy. She is a company member of the nationally-acclaimed Shakespeare & Co in Lenox, MA where she spent nearly 10 years acting, directing and teaching. While there, she studied under Tina Packer and had in-depth training in Kristen Linklater's work. Josephine has taught for and helped develop Lincoln Center Theatre‘s Shakespeare program. She is a member of The Humanist Project, a theatre company that devises new plays rooted in the classics. In New York, she has recently been a part of a five-person Macbeth, was a part of the Shakespeare Society's exploration of Richard III, and co-created a physics themed clown show called Quantum Fairy Tales. She has also written and developed her own show, Psyche, that she recently performed at Dixon Place. Regionally, she has performed as Annie in Table Manners, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Miss Jean Brodie in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She holds an MFA in Acting from Pennsylvania State University and is proud member of Actors Equity. Joey Zangardi-Dixon has been in the entertainment industry for decades; he has worked in Casting for MTV, FOX, Nickelodeon, and NBC, as well as an Agent, Director, Teacher, and Performer. He now uses his industry experience to scout talent, teach audition-based workshops, and adjudicate acting and musical theatre auditions around the globe. He is the New York Film Academy's Director of Musical Theatre Recruitment and has been working in Admissions and Recruitment at NYFA for over eleven years. Performance Credits include: Les Miserables, The Wizard of Oz, Mame, 1776, Make Me a Song, On the Town, Follies, The Immigrant, and The Who’s Tommy. Casting Credits include: VH1 / Vogue Fashion Awards, Say What Karaoke, Nickelodeon Live, Jail Bait, and MTV 2 Large. Joey has been fortunate to work on projects featuring celebrities, such as Madonna, Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani and Jay-Z. 
Healthy Belting: Finding the Right Mix
Wondering how to help your students approach belting with a healthy, mixed voice? With a mix of lecture, demonstrations, and student masterclass we will walk through some techniques and tricks to help your singers approach their Broadway belt. Instructor Meg Test is a choral music teacher at Harrison High School. Meg earned her Master’s degree in Music Education from the University of Hartford, Hartt School of Music in 2015. She graduated from Mansfield University in 2006, with a dual major in Music Education and Vocal Performance. Some of Meg’s favorite roles include Cathy in The Last Five Years, the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods, and Adelaide in Guys and Dolls. In her role as musical director/producer at Harrison, she has worked on productions of Guys and Dolls, The Addams Family, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Urinetown, and more! Meg attended the NYSTEA student conferences as a high school student, accompanied for workshops throughout college, and has been teaching at the Student Conference for the past 5 years. She is also the current NYSTEA Secretary and Membership Chair. |
Basic Details
Friday, September 23 to Sunday, September 25 In-person professional development Seven CTLE hours Schedule of Events and Classes Friday, September 23 5:00 P.M. Cocktail Hour in the Fashion District - 27th Street Show on your own. Saturday, September 24 Workshops at SAGE Edie Windsor Senior Center, 27th Street) 10:00 A.M. Theater Tour of the Belasco Theater 12:00 P.M. Keynote speech by Daniel Goldstein 1:00 P.M. Workshop Creating a Stand-Out Self Tape Audition 2:00-5:00 Workshops Healthy Belting: Finding the Right Mix Tips and Tools for Helping Your Students Navigate Self-Producing Their Passion Projects Staging Students Spoken Word Poetry: Devising Who We Are Making Your Students Look Good Through Improv Structures, Stories, and Songs: Teaching Songwriting to Students Sunday, September 25 9:00 A.M. NYSTEA General Meeting and Awards at the Drama Book Shop Broadway Cares Flea Market follows the meeting Keynote Speaker: Daniel Goldstein
Breaking Eggs: Using Theater Education to Break Boundaries and Foster Empathy
The theater is a place where artists are able (in three dimensions, breathing the same air as their audiences) to engage in unified storytelling - allowing artists and audiences alike, a glimpse into another human’s world, engendering empathy and a deeper sense of our shared humanity. When art plays it safe, in an increasingly sensitive world, theater loses what it does best, its ability to confront our deepest secrets and issues as a society, and force us to face the difficult questions we all face. DANIEL GOLDSTEIN (Director) is the director of the Broadway revival of GODSPELL. His directing credits include ANYTHING GOES (Goodspeed Musicals), DAMN YANKEES (Goodspeed Musicals) VENUS IN FUR (Huntington Theater Company) – 4 IRNE Awards including Best Production, HELLO, DOLLY! (Goodspeed), GEKIDO (New National Theater, Tokyo), TAMAR OF THE RIVER (Prospect Theater, NYC), SNAPSHOTS (Goodspeed, Village Theater, Arizona Theater Company), ANNA CHRISTIE (Old Globe), GOD OF CARNAGE (Huntington Theater Company), …SAMANTHA BROWN (Goodspeed Musicals), GOLDEN BOY (Juilliard), ANNIE (St. Louis MUNY), ARITFICIAL FELLOW TRAVELER by Ethan Sandler (Williamstown Theater Festival, Black Dahlia Theater Open Door Theater), CLEAR (O’Neill National Music Theater Conference), TRUE WEST (Williamstown Theater Festival), MISS MARGARIDA’S WAY (Bay Street Theater, with Julie Halston), A NEW BRAIN (Toho Theater, Tokyo), MARY’S WEDDING (Two River Theater), GODSPELL (Papermill), (Huntington), LOWER NINTH (Flea & SPF), WALMARTOPIA (Minetta Lane), INDOOR/OUTDOOR (DR2 & SPF), FALSETTOS – IRNE Award for Best Production, LES LIAISONS DANGEROUSES and THE CRY OF THE REED (Huntington), BUT I’M A CHEERLEADER (NYMF) and LIVING ROOM IN AFRICA (Gloucester Stage). He has served as the Associate Director for ALL SHOOK UP! and FULLY COMMITTED, and the Resident Director for the First National Tour of MAMMA MIA!. He currently serves as the Associate Director for COME FROM AWAY on Broadway, Australia and the North American Tour. He has also created two immersive and multi-media shows for the Harry Potter section of Universal Studios Japan, “Death Eaters Attack” and “Flight of the Dementors.” Daniel has also developed the work of writers at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, PlayPenn, The Lark, The York, Roundabout and elsewhere. As a writer, Daniel is the winner of the 2016 Kleban Prize for Most Promising Musical Theater Librettist of the year. He was the recipient of an inaugural Calderwood Commission from the Huntington Theater Company, for which he wrote an original musical with Michael Friedman entitled UNKNOWN SOLDIER, which was developed at the O’Neill National Music Theater Conference, and Manhattan Theater Club and had its world premiere at the Williamstown Theater Festival and a New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons (closing the day after opening due to the Covid-19 pandemic). The original cast album is available on Ghostlight Records. He is the recipient of a New York Voices commission from The Public Theater, with singer/songwriter Dawn Landes for which they wrote a musical called ROW, adapted from A PEARL IN THE STORM, the memoir of Tori Murden McClure, the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. ROW was scheduled for a summer 2020 production at The Williamstown Theater Festival, which was cancelled due to the pandemic. It was recorded as a full musical audio experience for Audible and was seen as an outdoor workshop production in the Williamstown 2021 season. His play ORANGE CRUSH, about Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal” was commissioned by Roundabout Theater Company. BLACK DRESS WHITE PEARLS, a play about Joan Rivers, was commissioned by Melissa Rivers and Mills Entertainment. He is also the author of THE SONG OF SONGS, an adaptation of the Sholem Aleichem novella. He also wrote WINTER BIRDS, an adaptation of the Jim Grimsley novel. CELEBRATION, the one person show he created with Ethan Sandler and Josie Dickson, was seen Off-Broadway as well as in New Haven, San Francisco and the HBO Aspen Comedy Arts Festival. Mr. Sandler’s solo play ARTIFICIAL FELLOW TRAVELER, a new solo play about The American Exhibition in Moscow in 1959, was developed by Williamstown Theater Festival and The Public Theater (New Work Now). He has directed two award winning short films, NO SHE WASN’T starring Katie Lowes, and W4M starring Reed Birney, Billy Magnussen and Meghann Fahy. He is a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in Performance Studies. |
Tips and Tools for Helping Your Students Navigate Self-Producing Their Passion Projects
It is common knowledge how much rejection and frustration those of us working in the arts face. So many give up hope after experiencing setback after setback. It can be particularly frustrating both artistically and financially when you're a writer or composer and need to bring your work to a professionally produced level to better market yourself. In this workshop you will learn about some tips, tools and resources you can share with your students to empower them to take their future into their own hands and help bring their art to life. You will hear my story of how I navigated the New York City hussle and bussle and the tricks I learned to end up self producing my own mini musical shorts and just managed to end up working with Broadway actors/ singers and dancers to help pro-form my work. Don't dream. Do. Instructor Patrick Flanagan is a composer, writer, director and producer whose primary focus has been on creating original musicals. His work has been featured in a variety of different festivals and venues in New York City. He has been focusing on self-producing twenty minute short film musicals mostly recently finishing "A Minute to Midnight" about the fall of the Berlin Wall. 
Staging Students
How do you teach students how to move on stage? In this workshop, director and theatre educator Rachael Langton will lead exercises designed to teach students ages 5-18 how to move on stage as an individual and as a group. Learn how to incorporate staging into your work and how movement on stage can help students explore the text in new ways, and learn how to collaborate as an ensemble. Instructor Rachael Langton is a New York based director and theatre educator. Select New York credits include A Shot Rang Out by Michael Hagins at Theatre Row; East Side Stories, Actually, an evening of five original short plays at Metropolitan Playhouse. Rachael has led theatrical workshops for students of all ages at various institutions in the tri-state area including Julliard, Sandbox Theatre and Seat of Our Pants Theatre Company. Rachael is also the Digital Marketing Associate at Classic Stage Company, and Off-Broadway Theatre in New York City. Education: BA Theatre Studies, Ithaca College. RachaelLangton.com. @Rachael_Langton. 
Structures, Stories, and Songs: Teaching Songwriting to Students
This workshop will explore the various techniques and tricks to helping students develop and write their own musical theatre songs. Join Elspeth Collard & Sam Rosenblatt, alums of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU Tisch, as they break down basic song form, story structures of musical theatre, and the little quirks that students will latch on to with ease! Instructors Elspeth Collard (she/her) & Sam Rosenblatt (she/her) are alumni of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU Tisch, prior to which Collard received a BA in Music at University of Cambridge and Rosenblatt received a BS in Educational Theatre from NYU Steinhardt. The musical theatre writing duo have written three full length works (Like the Wind, A Princess Story, and The Girl with the Rose-Colored Eyes) in addition to two albums (Little Love Notes from Collard & Rosenblatt and Collisions). The pair have received multiple staged readings and concerts at various NYC cabaret venues, such as Feinstein’s/54 Below, Green Room 42, The Brick, and York Theatre, as well as regionally at The Ferguson Center for the Arts. They are both members of the Dramatist Guild, ASCAP, and Maestra. www.collardandrosenblatt.com |
Class Information (continued)
Spoken Word Poetry: Devising Who We Are
An introductory workshop for theatre teachers on how poetry can be used to explore identity, create community, and devise original scripts. Instructor Megan Kemple is a multidisciplinary performance & teaching artist. She recently graduated from NYU Steinhardt’s MA Drama Therapy program, where her writing & performance were showcased in the student film, The (Fun)eral of 2020. While in school, she assistant directed the therapeutic film, 9___ , a collaboration between Lotus Collective of Sanctuary for Families, Big Dance Theatre, and NYU. She is currently the Arts Programming Coordinator at The Door: A Center for Alternatives in NYC. She has a BFA in Theatre Performance from Niagara University. As a slam poet, She placed 3rd at the Rookie Slam at the National Poetry Slam 2017, & 3rd in the NUPIC Slam at NPS 2018, where her team placed in the top ten. She has been published in The Drama Therapy Review, Preposition: the Undercurrent Anthology, & other publications. Her first chapbook, American Blasphemies, was released through Ghost City Press (2017), & was staged as an immersive dance piece. Her plays have been professionally produced by Buffalo United Artists, ART of WNY, and her alma maters. In 2022, she founded Omnipresent Magic Productions, a theatre company producing new works by marginalized playwrights. Her play, Accidental Intimacies, was produced at the 2022 Fresh Fruit Festival in NYC. She has facilitated drama therapy workshops for Write About Now Poetry, TodayTix, EdTA, and the International Thespian Society. 
Making Your Students Look Good Through Improv
There’s a coaching phrase in improv classes - “make your partner look good,” which aims to takes the ego out of the scene and place the emphasis on the improviser’s scene partner. In practice, this re-framing helps a scene grow organically and makes it easier to come up with material spontaneously. The philosophy applies to any collaborative project, certainly any theater experience, and of course the theater classroom! This improv workshop for theater educators focuses on fostering group trust, connection and support, bold choice-making, and positive, effective coaching techniques using a variety of improv warm-ups, focused exercises, and scene work. Instructor Marisa Caruso is a multi-hyphenate theater practitioner and has a decade of experience teaching improv students of all ages and experience levels. She is a graduate of SUNY Fredonia with a B.A. in Theater Arts. She has taught workshops for NYSTEA Youth Conferences, community centers, high schools, libraries, in public parks and for the pure fun of it wherever people gather. NYSTEA is a certified professional development provider in New York State.
The New York State Theatre Education Association is proud to offer professional development for educators. Are you interested in professional development in your area? Please contact us at info@nystea.org. |
