Music in Theatre Class at the Beverly Hills Playhouse

Actor/Teacher Rick Podell talks about the new class, Music in Theatre at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Rick Podell talks about how he was the original narrator in "Joseph and the Amazing Tehcnicolor Dream Coat" written by Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice. He went on to do "Evita" and "Sunset Boulevard" and other Broadway Shows. He started a musical theater class at the Beverly Hills Playhouse called Music in Theater. He was always interested in the blend between acting and the musical part of it. Josh Logan says that you sing because you're so full of emotion that you can't talk anymore. To be able to blend the acting techniques of the BHP with the musical is very exciting to Rick. In the musical theatre workshop at the school, every week the students work on 2 forms of dance, from ballet, jazz, tap, or hip-hop. Rick had been a dancer for years and was a member of the San Francisco Ballet. They do dancing, along with vocal technique and workout for half hour, and then scenes, songs and improv. Every actor works every class for the entire class, blending all these styles. Rick was the first person to do the Stephen Sondheim musical "Company" in three generations. After not doing a musical in a while, Rick decided to do a scene from "Married to the Mob" in class, and Milton Katselas suggested he sing during the scene. He decided to sing an aria from "La Boheme" in the middle of it. The scene was very successful and a fellow student suggested he do a musical again. A week later, he got a call from a NY casting director asking him to read for a part in the musical "Sunset Boulevard". Previous to this, no one had called in 3 years for a musical theater audition. It turned into a two-year job opposite Glenn Close. He believes that it started from doing that scene at the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Rick believes that the BHP is the only school on the West Coast doing an intense program for musical theater. Rick hopes to lead another generation of musical theater performers to push envelope and take the younger world into the musical theater form as a part of their culture.

The Beverly Hills Playhouse Acting School
http://www.bhplayhouse.com

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Performing
• arts
• Acting
• Beverly
• Hills
• Playhouse
• Musical
• Theatre
• Study
• Singing
• Rick
• Podell
• Milton
• Katselas