WEEK 3

Greg Kotis with the Wingspan Ensemble

How is it possible that we have already finished 3 WEEKS of Conservatory?! There is so much amazing work happening that it is hard to sum it all up here, but most of you will see the evidence of that hard work in just a couple of weeks at our shows!

Here are some highlights from Week 3:

– JUST SO did their first run through of Act One this week and it looks SO GOOD!

– Greg Kotis, one of the writers of URINETOWN, came to speak with our High School students on Monday and it was such a great experience! He shared some really cool insight into the show and told fun stories about the writing process. The students also performed the opening for him and he was totally wowed and had great feedback for them!

– We took a trip to see VIOLET on Broadway on Wednesday evening and it seems the consensus was that everyone loved it! Some of our students waited at the stage door and got to meet Sutton Foster and Joshua Henry!

– At our Company meeting on Wednesday we opened up the discussion to talk about what we were noticing this year at Conservatory. Some of the things the students said were: ensemble, caring, focus, energy, community, fun, and creativity. I think those words sum up the Wingspan Summer Conservatory pretty well! We also talked about what we are going to work on going forward and some of those things were: gaining focus quicker, taking better care of our space, and being more mindful of our volume and behavior in the hallways. All good things to work on now and even after Conservatory ends!

– I couldn’t narrow down the shout outs this week, so we have 3 😉

1. “I would like to shout out Zoe for always bringing positivity and great ideas to the Laramie rehearsals”

2. “To Olivia S– You have lots of energy and go into ‘try-hard’ mode all the time. You are mad fun!”

3. “[Shout out to] Alyssa + Maggie for being great leaders in the JUST SO cast!”

Photos from the week:

Meeting Joshua Henry after VIOLET!

Acting Through Song Class

Musical Theatre Dance Styles Class

JUST SO rehearsal

Week 2!

I figure that since there is so much going on over here, it would be nice to try to recap every week on the blog. So here goes…

– All of our rehearsals are in full swing and the students are doing such amazing work!

– The classes that I have observed have been so fun and inspiring–I want to take all of them myself… I went into the puppetry class yesterday and my cheeks hurt for the rest of the day because I had been laughing so hard at their skits!

– We had a photographer, Caroline Sinno, come this week and shoot headshots for some of our students. I can’t wait to see them!

– Featured shout out of the week:

“SHOUT OUT TO THE URINETOWN CAST FOR FINISHING THE OPENING NUMBER!”

I also wanted to feature the following shout out this week as well:

“SHOUT OUT TO NAYAH FOR BEING SUPER COMMITTED EVEN WHILE INJURED!”

I second that shout out and thought Miss Nayah deserved all the shout outs she can get for her unending amount of energy, enthusiasm, and focus all while in a cast and on crutches! I’d also like to personally shout out all of the students for helping her out whenever/wherever they can!

– Many of our middle school students went to see their fellow cast-mate, Jackson, in AS YOU LIKE IT this week and everyone agreed that it was fantastic! Go check it out before it closes.

– Also, on TUESDAY JULY 22 at 9pm tune into the USA Network to see our student, Max, on Royal Pains!

Below are some photos from the week!  Have a great weekend everyone 🙂

Students making props in Tech Class!

Caroline Sinno shooting headshots!

Puppetry class!

Puppetry class!

Week One is (almost) over…

Well it is true that time flies when you are having fun… The students and I all agree that this week has simultaneously flown by and felt like an eternity!  In the past week we have made new friends, cast our shows, hit the ground running in our classes, had our first ever ALL CONSERVATORY Theater Company meeting, and have begun our rehearsals. Phew!

I want to send a HUGE congratulations to all of the students for their hard work, focus and bravery this week. Auditions and callbacks are not only scary, they are emotionally draining and these guys handled it with such poise! True professionals!! So again, congratulations on jobs well done. I can’t wait to see these shows!!

I also would like to feature our first SHOUT OUT! A shout out is recognizing someone for doing something great that deserves special mention. Teachers, students, observers, can write one (or several) on a card and submit them in our “shout out” envelope. Every week I will pick a “highlighted” shout out to both present on the Shout Out board itself and here! So here is week one’s:

SHOUT OUT TO ALL OF THE NEW WINGSPANNERS!

–Submitted by Anonymous

I second that shout out–we are so excited to welcome all of these new faces to our community! Though it already feels like we have known them forever!

And finally, I just want to put a couple of really exciting announcements here. This week I finalized plans with both Greg Kotis (one of the writers of URINETOWN) and Stephen Belber (one of the writers of LARAMIE PROJECT) to come speak with our high school students later this month! We are so excited and feel incredibly honored that they are kindly lending us some of their time so we can even further connect with the material this year! I will be sure to share all about those visits after they occur!

Here are a couple more shots of this week in action:

High School students in auditions

Middle School students in Dance Class

Cast Lists posted!

CONSERVATORY STARTS TOMORROW!!!

We are just a little excited over here 😉