Fine Arts Library 
Room DFA 3.200, University of TexasLyn Koenning, vocal coach & musical director in the Department of Theatre and Dance, discusses developing storytelling through song and dance, as in popular TV shows “Glee” and “Smash.” Her students demonstrate with a live performance of some their spring musical theatre revue Curtain Up! Hats Off to Broadway.
UT and Texas State Offer New Musical Theatre Workshop June 10 - 30
The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with Texas State University-San Marcos, is offering the inaugural Texas Musical Theatre Workshop, a three-week, pre-professional summer intensive for high school students exploring a potential career in musical theatre. This unique program brings New York’s Broadway talent to Texas, providing students the very best in musical theatre training by industry professionals. Teaching artists include Tony Award-nominated composer Andrew Lippa, director Matt Lenz, Broadway performer Joyce Chittick and university faculty members.
Texas Musical Theatre Workshop (TMTW) was founded by university faculty members Lyn Koenning, Kaitlin Hopkins and Jim Price. As a collective, these artistic directors bring more than 75 years of industry experience to the workshop. Head of the Texas State University playwriting program, Price is a veteran Broadway performer (Les Miserables, The Civil War). Hopkins, a Broadway performer and director, heads the nationally renowned musical theatre program at Texas State University. University of Texas at Austin faculty member Lyn Koenning is an award-winning music director, vocal arranger and voice and acting coach whose students have appeared on Broadway, regional theatre, television and film.
“We have a huge network of performers, directors, composers and playwrights ready to share their experiences, skills and insights with the next generation of artists," Koenning says. "We’re delighted to bring Broadway’s best to Texas.”
TMTW’s roster of teaching artists includes Andrew Lippa, Tony Award nominee and composer of the Broadway musical The Addams Family. Lippa’s work on The Wild Party (book/music/lyrics) was recognized in 2000 with the Drama Desk Award for best music. Broadway director Matt Lenz served as the associate director for the original production of Hairspray on Broadway and was recently the associate director for Catch Me If You Can on Broadway. And performer Joyce Chittick has starred in nine original Broadway casts, including Anything Goes, Jersey Boys and Cabaret.
At TMTW, students work side-by-side with these teaching artists and university faculty members. The program offers studio and master classes in acting, voice, dance, audition technique and performance.
“There is tremendous talent in Texas but few options for comprehensive training in all aspects of musical theatre by industry professionals,” Hopkins says. “At TMTW, we give them the added bonus of having our top faculty help prepare them for their colleges’ auditions as well as their careers."
Registration for the 2012 workshop is under way. For more information on Texas Musical Theatre Workshop, visit www.texasmusicaltheatreworkshop.com.
Found at the Daily Texan on-line, September 16:
Working woman's story gets told in stage collaboration
by Elizabeth Hinojos
The working woman is as thriving as ever, and there is no forgetting the iconic figure who symbolizes the upheaval of the male-dominated workforce.
Famous poster child Rosie the Riveter is the protagonist in the musical “Rosie,” which follows the story of a working woman who led the charge. UT is lending its facilities to this potential Broadway hit. The musical is in the process of securing producers while the cast has been volunteering their time preparing for a staged reading Saturday. The reading marks the first steps of what the actual production might look like. If the musical goes forward and receives support from producers, the University will procure billing. This entails UT being listed in a playbill as the first venue where the musical was performed.
Although there will be no costumes, props or a set, the reading will show prospective investors the elements essential to the musical. The cast includes about 30 singers and dancers, including students from the Department of Theatre and Dance and two UT graduates who are part of the musical’s creative team.“Rosie” takes place on Coney Island and is a fictionalized account of how the women of World War II became empowered to work toward the war effort through a historical backdrop.
At the start of the war, there was a great need for female laborers because of the many males sent overseas for combat. This necessity was contrary to the Great Depression, when unemployment was at an all-time high and women were essential to the survival of the United States economy. In an attempt to draw these women to the workforce, the government launched an ad campaign encouraging females to work in war-related industries. Norman Rockwell created the image of “Rosie the Riveter” in 1943, and it was printed in the Saturday Evening Post. The figure was to symbolize loyalty, efficiency, patriotism and beauty, gaining great popularity which lasts to this day.UT students, faculty and a few special guests from the community each have a piece of the puzzle that is the production, said Lyn Koenning, musical director and lecturer in the Department of Theatre and Dance. Running a new musical is very collaborative and cannot be done separately.
UT Theatre and Dance tweets a link to
As I walked in to the Winship Drama building on Saturday morning, nostalgia came over me for the days I spent in the chorus of musicals Annie and Grease.
Upon entering the B. Iden Payne Theatre, where UT's first-ever musical workshop was taking place, I remembered the strenuous practices it took to bring a musical together. I would go to sleep with blisters the size of baseballs and dream of the sun coming out “tomorrow, tomorrow.”
Just imagine what it would be like if the musical had never before been performed, if the musical didn’t even have music yet, and if you had just nine days to bring it all together. This was the case over the weekend at UT's Department of Theatre and Dance for director Johanna McKeon, MFA ’02, and music director and theatre professor Lyn Koenning, MM '83, Life Member.
The idea to bring a musical workshop to UT, where a curriculum for musicals was nearly nonexistent, was thrown around by McKeon and Fine Arts dean Douglas Dempster more than a year ago at an alumni mixer in New York City. McKeon is currently associate director of the Tony-winning musical American Idiot.
Click to read full text at the Alcalde blog. . . .
UT's The Threepenny Opera is an astonishing production, of such quality and depth that it deserved to run for months. But the Oscar Brockett Theatre seats only about 200 and there were only seven performances.
I organized a group of 16 to attend the first Saturday performance, and they walked away bedazzled. You can pity that one prospective group member who decided not to take up the offer because, he said, he's "allergic to opera."
Never mind that this cast of 22 and musical ensemble of 7 are almost all students, performing for free and working with UT grad students and faculty. Instead, admire the fact that they're paying tuition so they can get up there and amaze you.
Given the size of the university and the theatre department, you can explain some of the quality by simple Darwinian selection. Plus the fact that UT, in fashion similar to Texas State, has ploughed resources into a new musical theatre program.
The back page of the program lists 180 names -- 180! -- of secondary-level crew members, in 70 specialties.
UPDATE: Robert Faires' interview with composer David Lang, Austin Chronicle, April 29
UPDATE: Robert Faires' interview with composer David Lang, Austin Chronicle, April 29
UPDATE: Vimeo video of scene from The Difficulty of Crossing A Field, captured by John Clare for Texas Public Radio (click this link, then go to bottom of page at AustinLiveTheatre.com)
UPDATE from UT Theatre & Dance: A Conversation with Mac Wellman and David Lang All theatre patrons are invited to attend this intimate pre-performance talk with the creators of The Difficulty of Crossing a Field. Refreshments will be served.April 23 at 6:45 p.m. at Winship 2.112 -- Space is limited
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field
April 23-May 1, 2010
Libretto by Mac Wellman, Composed by David Lang
Directed by Luke Leonard, Music Directed by Lyn Koenning
April 23*, 24, 28, 29, 30 & May 1 at 8 p.m.
April 25 & May 1, 2 at 2 p.m.
B. Iden Payne Theatre
Tickets: $20 adults, $17 UT faculty & staff, $15 students available online at www.texasperformingarts.org or by phone at 477-6060.
*Join us April 23rd for an Opening Night Reception immediately following the performance. Guests will be able to mingle with the cast, crew, and director of The Difficulty of Crossing a Field while enjoying an assortment of light snacks and desserts.
A slave-owning farmer in the pre-civil war American South walks across his field in
