Belle Theatre’s Alvarez participates in 11th Annual ‘Freddie G Fellowship’
Cape Coral’s Dana Alvarez was one of six educators from schools and performing arts centers around the U.S. to work one-on-one with Broadway professionals at the 11th Annual Freddie G. Fellowship, which just wrapped. Alvarez is the director of Theatre Education at The Belle Theatre.
The teachers were selected in 2020, but due to the pandemic the New York experience was delayed. The event is underwritten by Freddie (“G”) Gershon, co-chairman of the global theatrical licensor Music Theatre International, and his wife Myrna.
Dozens of educators attending the 2020 annual Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta and the Junior Theater Festival West in Sacramento with thousands of attendees, applied for the program, and six in total were selected. The Junior Theater Festival is the world’s largest musical theatre festival dedicated to educational musical theatre groups that work with elementary, middle and high school students.
The classes and activities honored instructors and teachers who are working to make a difference for their students and communities through the process of staging musical theatre productions in their schools and educational theatre groups. In addition to the all-expense paid visit to New York, each of the teachers’ organization received $5,000 from Gershon and his wife. The teachers are empowered to identify and select how their respective school’s theatre program can best utilize the funds. To date the Gershons have donated $1 million to the program.
This year teachers attended a special master class led by Tony Honor winning director and choreographer Jeff Calhoun and will participated in dynamic classes covering many aspects of musical theatre. They were immersed in Broadway, attended productions of “Between The Lines,” “Beetlejuice” and observed a developmental workshop performance of “Beetlejuice JR.” During the workshop, the teachers experienced Broadway as theatre insiders … giving their feedback to the developmental process from their point of view.
Music Theatre Interna-tional is one of the world’s leading theatrical licensing agencies, protecting the rights and legacies of composers, lyricists and book writers. MTI’s core business is issuing licenses, scripts, musical materials and dynamic theatrical resources to schools as well as amateur and professional theaters across the globe.
With over 400 classic and contemporary show titles from Broadway, Off-Broadway and London’s West End, MTI shows have been performed by over 100,000 theatrical organizations in the U..S and in more than 150 countries.
MTI is a strong proponent of educational theatre. In 1996, Gershon, then the MTI chairman and CEO, launched “MTI’s Broadway Junior musicals” – 30 and 60-minute shows for younger performers. In 2012 he was awarded a Tony Honor for conceiving and creating this revolutionary program. During the past 21 years over 5 million students and over 500,000 educators have been involved in at least one of the close to 200,000 global productions of a Broadway Junior musical.
During the past 21 years over 5 million students and over 500,000 educators have been involved in at least one of the close to 200,000 global productions of a Broadway Junior musical.
The Belle Theatre is located at 2708 Santa Barbara Blvd., unit 135, Cape Coral. For additional information, call 239-323-5533 or visit https://sites.google.com/thebelletheatre.com/tempsite/home