| MAC TO SCHOOL RETURNS SEPT 17 & 18, 2022 | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 11:44 am EDT 08/25/22 | |
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| MANHATTAN ASSOCIATION OF CABARETS MAC “MASTERS” Weekend STUDIO 353, 353 WEST 48th Street, 2nd Floor, New York City The Manhattan Association of Cabarets (MAC) announces the seventh year of its MAC TO SCHOOL weekend event. This year, there are two full days of cabaret events featuring panel discussions and interviews, with a focus on master classes MAC TO SCHOOL is Saturday and Sunday, September 17 & 18, at Studio 353, 353 West 48th Street, 2nd Floor, NYC. MAC TO SCHOOL is open to MAC and non-MAC members. * Registration fee for MAC members: $50 * Registration fee for Non-MAC members: $150, or join MAC for only $50 (Basic level) for a full-year membership to take advantage of the deeply discounted MAC member price of only $50 for the entire weekend. The $50 registration fee is good for admission to all events. Tuition is the same regardless of how many events you attend. Classes, seminars, and workshops will include cabaret performers, directors, and booking managers from NYC, moderated by a member of the MAC Board of Directors. Complete schedule follows. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 Homeroom: 9:30 – 10 a.m. 10 - 11:30 a.m. Panel Discussion: Nuts and Bolts: Establishing, Maintaining, and Growing Your Cabaret Career A cross-section of cabaret professionals, including performers, musical directors, directors, and booking managers—Jason Ellis, Yasuhiko (Yaz) Fukuoka, Tanya Moberly, Gretchen Reinhagen, Tracy Stark—discuss the best practices, shortcuts, what works, and what’s possible in the cabaret industry, and will also take questions from the online audience. A wide-ranging discussion with useful nuggets for beginning, emerging, and mid-career cabaret artists. Moderated by MAC Board President Amy Wolk. 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 pm. Master Class with Jeff Harnar: On Making a Song Your Own Onstage Award-winning Jeff Harnar offers an intensive method of focusing on your song so that you can put your personal touch to it! Coming off his highly acclaimed show, I Know Things Now: My Life in Sondheim's Words, he is here to share with you the tools for bringing your unique self to a song so that your interpretation becomes definitively your own. Musical accompaniment by Steven Ray Watkins. Master Class with Susie Mosher: Sing Your Inner Life Susie’s Master Class helps you discover your own ability to “Sing your inner life” which will free you as a cabaret artist and make you more comfortable revealing more of yourself, ultimately making for a more compelling performance. Accompanying Susie and the participants will be Broadway conductor (Hairspray, Catch Me if You Can, On Your Feet, Hair, Escape to Margaritaville) Lon Hoyt. 1:30 - 2:30 p.m. Lunch Break 2:45 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. Master Class with Carl Kissin: MAC Improv—The Missing Element in Your Act You’ve memorized your lyrics and you sing like an angel. Now learn how to connect with your audience. Master improviser Carl Kissin teaches you how to deal with the unexpected and enjoy the serendipitous moments of your show. Through a series of improv exercises you will practice going off script when necessary, making confident choices, employ playful banter, and above all, create an engaging relationship with the people who came to see you. No experience necessary. If you have taken improv classes before, you can practice applying your skills to singing and to cabaret. Master Class with Peter Allas: Scene Structure Approach to Acting/Auditioning This acting technique approach is a 17-step “ladder of success list” influenced by The Method-research tech and basketball legend John Wooden from his book Coach Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, “Watching documentaries NOT TV,” and years of collaboration directing works of John Patrick Shanley, David Mamet, and his Sports/Dance (Phil Black Studios) background. “It’s all about AAA (attitude, administration, and ACTING—being a person in the room!). In this class you will learn how to “walk into the room/Tape” prepared to audition and BE A PERSON, and not have them catch you “ACTING.” You will be paired up in a 3-minute scene and learn how to make BOLD, HOT choices that are highly evaluated, that make the work PERSONAL! 4:15 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. Master Class with Lennie Watts: Sing Your Story Every song tells a story; every person has a story. Sometimes it’s hard to find the common ground. How do we choose the right songs to tell our particular story? This workshop focuses on the process of infusing oneself into a song. With subtle music changes and personalization, we will work on making the lyrics your own. Using the music of your choice, we will explore the technique of truly making a song work for YOU. Musical Accompaniment by Yasuhiko (Yaz) Fukuoka. Master Class with Natalie Douglas: Vocal Interp/Performance Workshop A workshop for students seeking musical growth and greater interpretive depth in their performances. As a longtime performer and instructor, Natalie brings her formidable talent, experience, technique, and enthusiasm to the exploration of your material. All genres are welcome, as she knows literally thousands of songs and is familiar with a great many others—from classical to jazz, the Great American Songbook from top to bottom, ’60’s & ’70’s singer/songwriters through to 21st century pop, show tunes from 1910 through today, and even TV Themes. We’ll leave no genre unmolested! Don’t miss your chance to work in this nurturing, no-bull environment where constructive fun awaits! Musical accompaniment by Jon Weber. Sunday, September 18 10 -1 1:20 a.m. Beloved performer Sidney Myer is in conversation with 2022 MAC Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Marta Sanders. An in-depth interview with Broadway (The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) and multi-award-winning cabaret veteran Marta Sanders. Marta spent her formative years living internationally and has had a fascinating career performing around the world. The experiences informed her artistry and led to her ultimate stardom. Join us to learn more about Marta. You will be inspired and perhaps decide to embark on a similar journey! 11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Master Class with Farah Alvin: Raising the Stakes—Acting Your Pop Song Between jukebox musicals and the prevalence of contemporary pop scores on Broadway, your rep book is incomplete without a handful of pop songs. MAC Award nominee Farah Alvin has made a career of translating Top-40 songs into theater pieces, from her Drama Desk-nominated turn in Off-Broadway’s The Marvelous Wonderettes to the hits of the Bee Gees and Burt Bacharach on Broadway. Her hit cabaret shows On Vinyl (named the Best Cabaret Show 2019) and B-Side were comprised entirely of 1970’s hits. She will teach you how to select pop and rock material that translate well to a cabaret setting, how to build an arc into a pop song, and how to play to your strengths in this genre, even if you’re not a natural pop singer. The class will cover pop-rock material from the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, as well as contemporary choices. Musical accompaniment by Michael Holland. Master Class with Mary Foster Conklin: Calling Tunes and What Makes It Jazz? Explore some of the key differences between musical theater and jazz. In this class, you will experience calling tunes (instant arrangement), what you need to know going in (a good tool for exploring new tunes), and the big question, what makes it jazz? (Allow for general questions about jazz or any specific difficulty with sitting in). Musical accompaniment by Dan Furman. 1:30 - 2:30 p.m. Lunch Break! 2:45 - 3:45 p.m. Kristine Zbornik: Connect to Singing Through Breath and Yoga Connecting your mind, body, spirit, and voice through breath, meditation, and yoga. In this unique class, Kristine brings her 40-plus years as a performer, 10-plus years as a teacher, and her training as a certified RYT® yoga and meditation instructor, incorporating yoga, breathing, and mindfulness techniques to open the body and mind. You don’t have to be a practitioner of yoga or meditation; these are simple poses and techniques that enable you to connect more deeply to yourself, your material, and your instincts as a performer. These simple techniques can help to take you out of your head and move you into your body and allow for focus and relaxation in your work. 4 - 6 p.m. Master Class with Eric Comstock & Barbara Fasano Find the source of your unique creativity, work with where you are now, and make the most of your individual strengths. Singers of all levels are welcome. Barbara and Eric create a supportive and trusting environment, encouraging creative leaps. They’ll work on physical relaxation, microphone technique, phrasing, arrangements, personalizing your material through subtext, and all the elements that lend uniqueness and truth to a stage performance. Plus, we’ll have fun! Please come with your sheet music and with your songs memorized. Master Class with Kristine Zbornik: A One-Room School House Hone your comedy chops with Broadway/TV/cabaret performer and multiple MAC Award winner Kristine Zbornik. Kristine will work one-on-one with four students (and possibly two alternates) in a master-class format to maximize the comic impact of their performances. Slots will be apportioned on a first-come-first-served basis. Participating singers will submit self-tapes of two comic pieces they wish to work on by September 15. Kristine will let folks know if they need any alterations in the tracks (such as on keys or tempos) beforehand. Singers will work on one or both pieces, as time allows. Musical accompaniment by Dan Furman. MASTER CLASS INSTRUCTOR BIOS (in alphabetical order) PETER ALLAS is a graduate of Fordham University CLC and Boston University’s Fine Arts program. He began his directing career at the famed Circle Repertory Co. in NYC. He is the co-founder and Associate Teaching of Directing of Z/A Studio (LA, SF, Hawaii, and online) with Rob Zimmerman. He also is an award-winning stage actor (Helen Hayes, Carbonell), and an L.A. and T.C. Critics nominated director. He directed Off Broadway’s Danny & the Deep Blue Sea and multiple productions with David Mamet. Most recently he directed the first L.A. revival of God of Carnage with Yasmina Reza. He is also widely recognized as Seinfeld’s “Calzone Man,” “Costas Korvos” (The Blacklist), and from The Sopranos. FARAH ALVIN’s Broadway credits include It Shoulda Been You, Nine, The Look of Love, Saturday Night Fever, and Grease! among others. Off-Broadway credits include Window Treatment (cast album), Goldstein, The Last Smoker in America (cast album), The Marvelous Wonderettes (Drama Desk Nomination, cast album), I Love You Because (cast album) and more. Lots of regional theater including shows at Papermill Playhouse, Goodspeed Opera House, Signature Theatre (Helen Hayes Award), Cape Playhouse, Geva Theater, and Alabama Shakespeare. Her solo show Farah Alvin on Vinyl was named the Best Cabaret Show of 2019. Proud member of Actors’ Equity for 25 years. Farah has taught Master Classes at Temple University, Clarke University, Troy University, Oklahoma City University, Broadway Workshop, Broadway Teaching Group and is the Master Teacher for Broadway Rising Stars at New York’s The Town Hall. She teaches musical theater performance at CAP 21 at Molloy College in New York City and has been the Region 3 judge for the Kennedy Center America College Theater Festival for the last three years. MARY FOSTER CONKLIN Her smoky voice with a tart twist of lemon has been described as both recognizably traditional yet unmistakably contemporary, as she puts her personal stamp on a repertoire that spans over nine decades. “Scratch her witty tough-girl-from Jersey patter,” wrote The Washington Post, “and you’ll find a sensitive artist (but not frail) with a wide-ranging boldly colored voice and an open ear for off-beat material.” A New Jersey native who came to New York to pursue theater work, her transformation from actor to jazz singer began when she joined drummer/composer Art Lillard’s 15-piece Heavenly Band and her song selections naturally shifted from show tunes to blues, Latin, and bebop. As a leader, her sets are a mix of contemporary material and standards, with an emphasis on the lesser-known treasures of the Great American Songbook and women writers. In New York, Conklin’s talents have earned her a place on the stages of The Blue Note, Zinc Bar, Iridium, Birdland, the Kitano, and Pangea. ERIC COMSTOCK “Ingenious musical wit ... cabaret caviar” – The New York Times. “Expert musicianship and joie de vivre in equal measure” – The New Yorker. Eric is an acknowledged master of the Songbook and a Resident Artist at Birdland Jazz Club. Upcoming: Birdland Saturday nights at 5:30, Tuscany in October, and a new CD in 2023. Career highlights: Star/co-creator, Our Sinatra (three years Off Broadway), Carnegie Hall (salutes to Peggy Lee and Harold Arlen), Lincoln Center’s American Songbook, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Pizza Express Live (UK). Honors: 2021 Donald F. Smith Award, multiple MAC, Bistro, and New York Nightlife Awards. Performer/commentator: PBS, CNN, Sirius/XM, BBC, Radio France, CBS’s Early Show, NPR’s Morning Edition, Fresh Air, JazzSet. www.ericcomstock.net NATALIE DOUGLAS is a 13-time Manhattan Association of Cabarets Award Winner. She has been called “a true force of nature,” by Clive Davis of The Times (UK). She has performed across three continents, from clubs and theaters to performing arts centers and concert halls including, Carnegie Hall, Café Carlyle, The Town Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Pheasantry in London, and at her New York City home club, Birdland Jazz Club, where her award-winning TRIBUTES residency (Nina Simone, Elvis, Dolly Parton, Nat “King” Cole, Dame Shirley Bassey, Stevie Wonder, Ella Fitzgerald, Roberta Flack, Joni Mitchell, Sammy Davis, Jr., Barbra Streisand, and Cher) has been an SRO hit since its Summer 2017 debut. Natalie has released three albums, including the MAC Award-Winning Human Heart. She has also made her mark as a much-sought-after educator and actor; she is a Master Teacher for the Jim & Elizabeth Sullivan Foundation, the Eugene O’Neill Cabaret & Performance Conference, and the Mabel Mercer Foundation, for which she has been newly named Education Director. Natalie holds a bachelor’s degree from USC in Psychology, Theatre and Women’s Studies and a master’s degree from UCLA in Psychology and Theatre. For more info, visit www.nataliedouglas.com BARBARA FASANO, a Resident Artist at Birdland Jazz Club, is praised for her “taste, built-in dramatic chops, the ability to manipulate time, and, above all, respect for lyrics.” (JazzTimes). Upcoming: Saturdays at Birdland, a residency in Tuscany in October, new CD in 2023. Career highlights: Music Mountain, Saratoga Jazz Festival, Café Sabarsky, Pizza Express (UK), Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s American Songbook, Kravis Center, Nighttown, Red Wall Saloon. Honors include 2021 Donald F. Smith Award, 7 MAC Awards, 3 Bistro Awards, New York Nightlife award, and Hofstra University’s Estabrook Award. Barbara’s last two CDs, Written in the Stars and Busy Being Free (“intelligent, lush and sexy” – HuffPost), each won the MAC Award for Record of the Year. www.barbarafasano.com JEFF HARNAR is a BroadwayWorld, MAC and Bistro Award-winning Director. In the UK, Jeff was Artistic Director/Host of The American Songbook in London. This Fall Jeff returns to the teaching faculty of The St. Louis Cabaret Conference in NYC. As a vocalist, Jeff has won multiple Broadway World, MAC, and Bistro Awards, and the Noël Coward Foundation Cabaret Award. He is currently performing his critically acclaimed show, I Know Things Now – My Life in Sondheim’s Words, and PS Classics has just released the studio album of the show. Television appearances include three PBS presentations of his shows. www.jeffharnar.com CARL KISSIN has performed more than 4,000 shows for one of the country’s premier sketch and improvisational comedy groups, Chicago City Limits. He was the show’s head writer and director of their National Touring Company. He developed and directed sketches for the pilot episodes of NBC’s Live on Tape and was an original staff writer and actor for the MTV show Mouth to Mouth and for VH1’s Eggman. He is a three-time Manhattan Monologue Slam champion. He has written two full-length musicals, Depressed, Depressed! and Date of a Lifetime (Winner: Excellence in Writing – Lyrics, New York Musical Theater Festival). His cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker. SUSIE MOSHER has been performing in nightclubs, theater, television, and film for over two hundred years. Susie finally obtained her childhood dream of being on Broadway when she was cast in Hairspray and played Prudy Pingleton for the last two years of its amazing six-year run. Susie now has her own weekly show, The Lineup with Susie Mosher, at the world-famous Birdland in New York City every Tuesday night. The Lineup is a wild, anything goes variety show that spotlights amazing New York performers and Susie’s own talents “singing her story” as an improv artist. She has won MAC awards and a Bistro Award for hosting and being amusing doing so. LENNIE WATTS is a 10-time MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets), five-time Backstage Bistro, and three-time Nightlife Award winner. Recognized as an outstanding vocalist, director, producer, and booking manager, he has been active in the New York cabaret scene for over 20 years. In addition to directing in small cabaret venues, he has directed events at Symphony Space, The Town Hall, and BB Kings. He has toured nationally and internationally with productions of The Music Man (Marcellus) and The Wizard of Oz (Lion). Other roles: Man in Chair (The Drowsy Chaperone) Psuedelus (A Funny Thing...), Herod (Jesus Christ Superstar), Nicely Nicely Johnson (Guys and Dolls), Jinx (Forever Plaid). He has performed at the Town Hall in several concerts, including Broadway Unplugged and Broadway by the Year, 1949, and can be heard on the cast recordings of both shows. As a theater director, he has directed productions of Godspell, Dames at Sea, Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Phantom” Watts is the creator of cablab and Summer in the City, both critically acclaimed professional cabaret performance workshops. KRISTINE ZBORNIK spent 40-plus years in show business and continues to blaze new frontiers as an actor, director, and performance coach. Her recent credits include appearances on the hit TV shows The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime) and Tales of the City (forthcoming on Netflix). She also has a principal role as quirky amateur paleontologist Deborah McGuiness in the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, which broke records with the second-biggest launch in the history of entertainment, generating $725 million in sales its opening weekend. Kristine is certified as an RYT® yoga instructor and has developed her own unique class, Zen Singing, which incorporates yoga, breathing, and mindfulness techniques to open the body and mind for full expression in singing and performing. Kristine’s hilarious, fearless, and raucous cabaret performances, featuring twisted renditions of beloved show tunes and standards, have earned her a handful of MAC (Manhattan Association of Cabarets) Awards. |
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