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Theatre

Theatre
VCUarts SUMMER PROGRAMS presents Theatre Arts Intensive (TAI), a three-week residential program offering the finest professional training of its kind. Designed for high school students interested in developing their passion for theatre, students will spend seven to eight hours daily swashing swords, belting out showstoppers, acting for TV and film, and learning make up design techniques. Under the watchful eye of some of the nation’s most renowned master teachers, TAI provides training for the curious, the interested and the professional yearning to develop their talent in a safe and nurturing environment. Instructors are selected for their professional success as well as their ability to inspire and teach their passion to the next generation of theatre artists.

Mornings:
“Acting for Camera”
Barry Bell - Instructor

* Please bring two VHS tapes.
* Please prepare one monologue (2 minute limit) from a contemporary play.
Select a piece that is in your age range and life experience. Be prepared to present your monologue to the class the first day.
* You will start working on tape during the first class. Please dress in a professional manner.

Afternoons:
“Musical Theatre”
Patti D’Beck - Instructor pdbeck@vcu.edu

* Please bring sheet music from Broadway musicals for a ballad, an up tempo piece and a song of your choice to work on in class.
* Bring a tape recorder and a tape, or some type of a recording device.
* Bring a water bottle and dress to move.
* Wear either tennis shoes or dance shoes.

“Physical Movement/Stage Combat”
Drew Vidal - Instructor drewvidal@hotmail.com

* Please dress to move.
* Close fitting gloves and tennis shoes are necessary.
* Bring water bottle.

Four Evenings:
“Make Up Design”
Heather Hogg – Instructor hhogg@richmond.edu

* This course will explore basic character make up for the stage. Students will learn about color, texture, and line as it pertains to changing the look of the face, i.e. old-age make up or twin likenesses.
* Students are expected to come to class with little or no "street" make up.

David S. Leong is chairman of the Theatre Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. He currently holds the title of Certified Fight Master, a distinction held by only ten other people in the United States. Feature films include Titus starring Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, and Alien Resurrection starring Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder. David’s fight direction and movement coaching has been seen on Broadway in Carousel, The Rainmaker, The Civil War, King Henley II, Company, Picnic, Hamlet, Macbeth, Solitary Confinement, Sex and Longing, A Delicate Balance, The Homecoming, and In the Summer House. David has also choreographed or directed fights and/or movement for Val Kilmer, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Spacey, Mary McDonnell, Tom Berenger, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Joan Cusack, Tom Hulce, Stacy Keach, Christopher Plummer, and Harry Hamlin among others.

Patti D’Beck is a veteran of 13 Broadway shows including, Annie Get Your Gun, Bells are Ringing, Grease!, The Will Rogers Follies, My One and Only, Evita, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, A Chorus Line Pippin, Seesaw, Applause, and pre-Broadway original musicals Busker Alley and Easter Parade. Patti also choreographed the opening number for the 1997 Tony Awards for Rosie O’Donnell. Patti has worked with many Broadway directors and choreographers including Tommy Tune, Bob Fosse, Michael Bennett, Jeff Calhoun, and Graciela Daniele. She has personally coached Brooke Shields, Reba McEntire, Jon Secada, Bernadette Peters, Tommy Tune, Sandy Duncan, Susan Lucci, Keith Carradine, Marla Maples, Lucy Arnaz, Rosie O’Donnell , Lucy Lawless (Xena the Warrior Princess), Liza Minelli,, and Marilu Henner, to name a few.

Drew Vidal’s background is in Movement Pedagogy for Theatre. He teaches movement classes to both undergraduate and graduate students in the VCU Theatre Department. Before relocating to Richmond, he was based in Chicago, where he choreographed movement and violence for many local, regional, and professional theatres such as the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Madison Repertory Theatre, Famous Door, Boxer Rebellion and Rivendell. During this time, he was also working as an actor; some favorite roles include D’artagnan in The Three Musketeers (New American Theatre), Levoisseur in Bloody Bess (Red Hen), and Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Illinois Shakespeare Festival). He is an Advanced Actor/Combatant with the Society of American Fight Directors, and brings over twenty years of dance and martial arts training to the classroom. Locally, Drew has done extensive work with high school students both as a choreographer, and as a movement and combat teacher. He has taught theatre and movement classes for the School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community, acted and choreographed on the VCU Main Stage, and assisted VCU Theatre Department Chair David Leong on Richard III and Tambourlaine (Fall 2007) at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Barry Bell has been a member of the Screen Actors Guild for the past twenty-seven years. He has worked in Feature and Independent Film, Television Series and Film, Commercials and Industrial Film. His resume includes; guest-starring roles on Matlock, Walker Texas Ranger, I-40 Paradise, Dawson’s Creek, Legacy, American Gothic, HBO’s From Earth to the Moon, John Adams, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and the British Television show The Professionals. On film he has appeared in Maximum Overdrive, Morning, Bruno, Reuben-Reuben, Doomsday Man, Radioland Murders, Trick or Treat, One of Her Own, The Perfect Daughter and three dozen other TV and Feature Films. Barry is currently an Assistant Professor in the VCU Theatre department where he teaches Acting for Stage and Film, and Directing for the Stage. Mr. Bell is also a member of Actor’s Equity.

Heather Hogg has been a designer, couturier, and artist in the Richmond area for 15 years. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Costume Design in 1991and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theater Pedagogy in May of 2006 from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her most recent design work includes Firehouse Theater Project’s, The Secret of Madam Bonnard’s Bath, Theater IV’s, Mousetrap , Theatre VCU’s, The Three Sisters, Firehouse Theater Project’s, The Goat , and the Science Museum of Virginia’s Anna and Tony. She also was awarded a Partners in the Arts grant for designing and implementing an original production called James River Anthology, in which masks were co-created with characters from the imagination of the minds of the students of Seven Hills School. She was also commissioned by Collegiate School to write Amelia’s War, a play based on the novel by Ann Rinaldi. Heather is the Costume Shop Supervisor at the University of Richmond’s Department of Theater and Dance, an adjunct faculty member of Theatre VCU, teaching Costume Design and Stage Makeup, and also designs and constructs couturier bridal gowns for both local clients and clients as far as New York City.