That is the new word these days. COVID has ravaged practically all areas of entertainment. It certainly has devastated the whole world of live theatre. It took months for the full reality of the situation to become clear, certainly for me it did. My friend West Hyler just posted this in Facebook: “Obstacles are opportunities
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There is a wonderful organization that I belong to, the Educational Theatre Association (EdTA.) It is an international non-profit group that shares information with teachers, directors and others about many aspects of the theatre for school aged actors, directors, musicians, dancers, etc. They run an annual festival that attracts thousands of participants. At the festival
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I have a friend from Milwaukee, a mature, theatre-going woman, who just loves HAMILTON. Before she saw the show live in Chicago, she downloaded and printed the lyrics to the show. She wanted to be familiar with the story before she saw the show. She was not too familiar with hip hop music, so she
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THE MYSTERY OF CUSTODIA – our new virtual, online musical is being tested….right now! Several pilot productions of the show are being performed by middle schools throughout Illinois. What’s a pilot production? Well, normally, when we develop a musical we “test” it by doing workshops. A workshop is a staged mini version of the show.
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The challenge was daunting. How could we ever create a new musical in such a short time? Musicals take years to create and develop, right? And this one had to be all solos and monologues – how on earth are we ever gonna do that? Schools and summer programs needed something immediately! This was a
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Dear friends, All of us at CPA Theatricals want to join our voices to those of the black community – and, indeed of all Americans of good will – in expressing our anger and our grief at the brutal and deadly treatment of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others. This pattern
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Performance Packages Now Available! I hope you and your family are safe and well. We are hunkered down here in Chicago, eagerly waiting for our mayor to open the parks. But every day I am reminded about how fragile life is. How important it is for all of us to stay alert – and, even
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Well, you haven’t received a blog from us in a long time. In many ways it feels like the last month was the “month that wasn’t.” But, still, there’s lots to say. I want to look beyond the CPA Theatricals doings. About two weeks ago, I participated in a Zoom with about fifteen of my
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About a month after GIRLHOOD opened its pilot production at Bravo Performing Arts last summer, I received an email from a high school in Hammond Indiana. They asked if the show could be done with an all high school cast. As you may recall, GIRLHOOD is the story of girls starting in middle school and
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