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BRAVO Wins Big at the Inaugural West Coast Junior Theater Festival

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BRAVO Wins Big at the Inaugural West Coast Junior Theater Festival BRAVO Wins Big at the Inaugural West Coast Junior Theater Festival Brooks middle school students BRAVO! program participated in the first ever Junior Theater Festival West in Sacramento, CA! This is BRAVO’s 9th year attending and performing in the festival and their first year going west. The Junior Theater Festival is the largest musical theater celebration in the country for young people that invite groups from all over the world to celebrate the transformative power of musical theater. Groups prepare 15 minutes of a piece from Music Theater International’s Broadway Junior collection to perform for a panel of Broadway adjudicators. For the 8th consecutive year, BRAVO earned the coveted award of Outstanding Production for their adaptation of Thoroughly Modern Millie! Five BRAVO students were awarded “All-Stars” for their performance on stage and off stage! McKale Thompson and Gabe Huang were selected as the All Star performers for “Millie” and three BRAVO crew students, Aidan Green, Emma Sculles, and Johnny McGillen, were selected as Technical Theater All Stars. The weekend is high octane with guest speakers, workshops, celebrity guests and BRAVO performances on the main stage prepared head to toe with dazzling costumes. The presentation of Mary Poppins during the New Works showcase Saturday evening was likened to “Broadway caliber!” The Memorial auditorium rang out with the most effervescent cheer and instantaneous standing ovation after the showstopping Supercalifgragilisticexpialodocious, the first of three numbers from Poppins. The auditorium was deafening after Step in Time with a second standing ovation. As the applause diminished, 8th grader Ella Renner (Mary Poppins) began singing “Anything Can Happen if You Let It”. While the stage filled with dancing buskers, chimney sweeps and children singing “if you reach for the stars…” each moment was more breathtaking than the last. The audience was on their feet when 7th grader Owen Campbell (Michael Banks) and 8th grader Mari Wolter (Jane Banks) projected “We’ll never forget you Mary Poppins” and waved with the largest of smiles. The auditorium erupted! It felt and sounded like the winning run in the 7th game of the Cubs World Series! It’s hard to believe there were more performances from BRAVO, but there was! On Sunday, Day 2 of the festival, the festival produced the Broadway Junior Retrospective, a musical review looking back at how Broadway JR was developed. The first Broadway JR show to be adapted was Annie, JR. BRAVO opened the retrospective with “Hard Knock Life” otherwise known as Angry Annie, a nicknamed dubbed by iTheatrics and the festival after BRAVO was seen performing this piece two years ago. BRAVO closed the retrospective with “Friend Like Me” from Aladdin featuring 8th grader Alex Johnson as Aladdin and 8th grader, Evelyn Crane as the effervescent Genie. The five days were jam-packed from morning to night and the students maintained an impressive level of professionalism throughout. Please visit the Bravo Performing Arts Facebook and Bravo_Performing_Arts Instagram pages for stunning pictures, impressive videos, and more exciting news from the festival. Thank you to the incredible team of parents, students, and staff who helped make this exciting weekend possible. Congratulations students! Mike Allen, Julia Anton, Paige Braun, Owen Campbell, Syona Carlo, Ellie Compton, Evelyn Crane, Rachel Czuba, Ruby Dalton, Caroline Diskin, Maria Donlin, Nina Donlin, Alex Fliszar, Taylor Foreman, Maya Funk, Sydney Germany, Leo Gonzalez, Lindsay Gooch, Samantha Green, Aidan Green, DeAnthony Howard, Gabriel Jackson, Alexander Johnson, Zora Johnson, Yana Keane, Maya Klippel, James Lynch, Johnny McGillen, Ava Moder, Gina, Vivian Murphy, Ruby Nelson, Emma Perisho, Lauren Peters, Leo Powers, Ella Renner, Allyson Rumoro, Ty Schirmer, Emma Sculles, Gabriel Sparkes, McKale Thompson, Maclaine Watson, and Mari Wolter. About the 2017 Junior Theater Festival West The 2017 Junior Theater Festival West was a monumental weekend of theatrical fellowship. All JTF West participants enjoyed a concert highlighting the works of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (La La Land, Dear Evan Hansen) featuring Shoshana Bean (Wicked, Broadway’s Hairspray). Also at JTF West, songwriting team Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich (Dear Edwina, Junie B. Jones);Ryann Redman (If/Then, Bring It On The Musical); composer/lyricist Matthew Lee Robinson (Atlantis, Happy People); songwriter and music director Rob Rokicki (The Lightening Thief, The Percy Jackson Musical running Off-Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theatre this March); Luca Padovan (Newsies, School of Rock!), and Deborah Wicks La Puma (Making Paradise: The West Hollywood Musical, Cornerstone Theater Company) talked candidly about their experiences and presented works from new shows. Producer Tom Rice previewed Speech and Debate, a film about high schoolers who are passionate about theater, adapted from the Broadway stage play of the same name by Stephen Karam (The Humans). Andrew Keenan-Bolger signed copies of his book Jan. 31 written with Kate Wetherhead (Legally Blonde) “Jack & Louisa: Act 3" released by Penguin Random House. At the festival, students and teachers also took part in professional development and workshops honing skills on and offstage. Most importantly they had the opportunity to connect with hundreds of fellow educators, students and working artists who share their passion for theater. iTheatrics launched its new textbook, “The iTheatrics Method,” published by GIA Publications. The book is designed to make sure that anyone, anywhere can create a successful and self-sustaining musical theater production and/or program. Excitingly Tina Reynolds and Lisa Morrow contributed teachable methods in the textbook with dozens of photos featuring the work of BRAVO and its students. .
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