Patricia Clark, director of the Kentuckly Classical Theatre Conservatory, talks to students in a musical theater workshop Jan. 3, 2010 in the Schmidt Vocal Arts Center on the University of Kentucky Campus. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.
Instructors and directors would come up to her and talk about students that had gone through the Kentucky Classical Theatre Conservatory and its former incarnation as the Lexington Shakespeare Institute, which Clark has overseen. They would comment on how well versed the students were on things like Ann Bogart’s Viewpoints method and skills like stage combat.
“They’d say, ‘Whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it right,’” Clark said.
But, for the most part, the conservatory was doing it only in the summertime, in conjunction with Summerfest, the three-week outdoor theater festival in the Arboretum on Alumni Drive.
That’s been changing the past few months, though. The conservatory and the organizations’ stage productions aim to become a year-round enterprise.
“We have wonderful talent here that needs as many opportunities to develop as possible,” Clark said. “To do that, we need something solid and consistent we can build on.”
KCTC and SummerFest president Joe Cannon Artz said, “The goal is to be a full-time, year-round producing organization by 2011. This will include a full calendar year of performing arts training opportunities for high school, college students and adults, plus SummerFest and two other indoor productions, one prior to SummerFest and one after.”
Artz said that the organization has been working with a consultant from the Kentucky Arts Council for a year to plan for the next steps, and the full plan will be revealed after this year’s SummerFest, July 7 to 25.
That planning will include a new name for the overall organization, including the educational outlets, though SummerFest will remain the name of the July festival.
Kentucky Classical Theatre Conservatory, however, was a hastily chosen name when SummerFest and the Conservatory were formed in 2007 to replace the Lexington Shakespeare Festival and Institute, which folded in 2006.
“That name has not been easy to work with or easy to remember for that matter,” Artz said. “Even if we just use the acronym, it’s too close to KCTCS (Kentucky Community and Technical College System) and BCTC (Bluegrass Community and Technical College). To further define our new mission to the creative community and to differentiate ourselves from other existing organizations to the public, we find it necessary to adopt a new parent name for the organization.”
While a lot of details of the organization’s retooling are to be announced, the work has already begun in the form of workshops KCTC has been holding, including last weekend’s musical theater workshop that served as something of a prelude to this summer’s production of “Rent.”
Tracey Bonner, a Lexington native now teaching musical theater at two California colleges, leads a musical theater workshop Jan. 3, 2010 in the Schmidt Vocal Arts Center on the University of Kentucky Campus.
Like other workshops, the musical theater workshop featured a Summerfest director, Tracey Bonner, who will bring “Rent” to the Arboretum stage. Previous workshops last fall addressed topics such as auditioning with Sullivan Canaday White (“Lord of the Flies,” 2008) and dialects with Patti Heying (“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” 2009).
All are local talents, or locally raised talents who have gone on to national careers and are returning to share their experience, which is the sort of thing the organization is going for.
“We do believe in providing the best possible professional performing arts training we can for central Kentucky,” Artz says. “We also believe in utilizing the best possible professional producing practices.”
Currently, Artz says, onstage and offstage personnel are paid either stipends or salaries, which are covered by donations and SummerFest ticket prices.
As to whether the productions in addition to SummerFest would be “professional” shows in the sense professional theater in Lexington has been discussed the past several years, Artz said, “My hope is that as our organization grows and flourishes, we will find ourselves in a financial situation where we can elevate everyone’s salary or stipend to reflect current and competitive trends.”
Right now, he and Festival director Joe Ferrell point out that they have put their livelihoods where their mouths are, leaving other jobs to focus on the KCTC/SummerFest organization. Clark is a retired Paul Laurence Dunbar High School drama teacher who is now community outreach coordinator for the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre.
“We’ve had quiet successes with these workshops,” Artz says. “It makes us feel confident we’re heading in the right direction.”
That’s becoming the organization’s pattern: watch for good signs and move forward. We’ll see how far it takes them.
Coming this weekend: Copious Notes will start its “‘Rent’ Notebook,” chronicling the production as it prepares for performances July 21-25. This weekend’s post will include some moments from last weekend’s workshops and director Tracey Bonner’s initial thoughts preparing for the production.
