Summer Theater Program Prepares ‘Broadway Bound’ Youth

By Eliza Hallabeck

Students pantomimed under the watchful eye of Broadway Bound instructor Jennifer Johnston in Middle Gate Elementary School’s gymnasium on Tuesday, July 6, while students acted out roles in a classroom at the school under the instruction of Broadway Bound overseer Kate Katcher.

“I don’t want to teach you to lie,” said Ms Katcher to the students surrounding her, “but when you are acting, you are pretending.”

The program is for students between the ages of 8 and 15, and is the first summer program to be co-sponsored by Continuing Education and Newtown Parks & Recreation. This is also the first year the program has been offered in Newtown.

On Tuesday, Ms Katcher walked groups of students through choosing cards at random to determine which scenario and which character they would portray for their fellow Broadway Bound actors.

As a Newtown resident, Ms Katcher said she hopes offering the Broadway Bound course will spark a larger dream of hers; to open a nonprofit theater company in the area, preferably based out of Edmond Town Hall. While this idea is still in the works, Ms Katcher has her fingers crossed.

“I’m hoping this will become the flagship program of a theater company I am starting,” said Ms Katcher, adding the name of the company will be Stray Kats.

But right now Ms Katcher is focusing on the students in their second week of the program.

“We’re really trying to get them to think beyond themselves in every situation,” said Ms Katcher.

She has high hopes for the 25 students who will begin rehearsals for the final production of the program next week.

The Broadway Bound program began in Bridgeport in 2003 and continued through 2008.

“I came up with this four-principle approach to acting that kids really seem to get,” Ms Katcher said, adding it came from years of directing and teaching theater.

While body techniques and voice techniques are also important in theater, Ms Katcher said the four principles she uses to teach acting include keeping in mind truthfulness, compelling characters, listening and responding, and knowing what you want.

There are multiple instructors helping Ms Katcher run the Broadway Bound course at Middle Gate this summer, and they are Jennifer Johnston, head of the Newtown Centre of Classical Ballet; Maggie Heilwell, a voice teacher and Newtown resident; University of Rochester music major Ben McCormack; Hofstra University music major Julia Preis; and Newtown High School student Brenna Calderera.

Newtown Continuing Education Director Elissa Gellis said when she attended the Broadway Bound program last week she found “the kids looked enthralled with what Kate was doing with them.”

She also said she thinks it is wonderful the self-supported program was co-sponsored with Continuing Education and Parks & Recreation, because it allowed the program to draw two different crowds.

A website for Stray Kats will be available in the future, and Ms Katcher said anyone looking for more information now can contact her at 203-270-6418 or go to her website at www.katekatcher.com for more information.