MTI – Musical Theatre Initiative

MTI Coordinator

David Sollish
Anderson University

MTI Deputy Coordinator

IN SEARCH OF A FACULTY VOLUNTEER!

Contact David at:
kcactfmtiregion4@gmail.com

The Musical Theatre Initiative is comprised of two major components: Workshops and Scholarship Auditions.

Workshops designed for musical theatre performance during the festival. Workshops offered will cover a variety of areas of musical theatre performance, include audition preparations, acting, vocal technique and movement and dance.  All workshops are open to all students.  Check the schedule regularly to see if there is a limitation to the number of participants and sign up for the workshops on line.

The Scholarship Auditions are a focused audition process that will progress to a single scholarship recipient.  This individual will be invited to the National KCACTF festival held in Washington, D.C. in April.  Scholarships to the Open Jar institute are available for national and regional participants. 

Registration

MTI Virtual Festival Guidelines

Any student who attends a college or university with at least one participating or associate production during Spring or Fall 2023 may participate in the MTI Scholarship Auditions.

  1. Participants are asked to pre-register for the MTI auditions by January 8, 2024.  Registration will open on November 1, 2023 and can be submitted here.
  1. Registered participants must upload their first-round video, in an MP4 format, by January 22, 2024 here.
  2. First Round: Participants are asked to create a self-taped video of up to a 90 second cut of a song from the musical theatre or musical theatre adjacent repertoire.  Accompaniment can be provided by a live accompanist, by a track (public domain or with proof of rights/royalties paid- please see below for more details), or a Capella. Participants will receive feedback in a group session during the festival.
  3. Second Round: Up to twenty semi-finalists will be notified by on opening night of the festival and will be asked to perform a two song cuts totaling no more than four minutes at the in-person semi-final round (participants MAY use the same song from, but it is not required). Live piano accompaniment will be provided.  All participants will be invited to a group feedback session with one of our respondents.
  4. Final Round: Five finalists will be asked to perform one full song from round two during the festival closing ceremonies. 
  1. MTI will follow the same guidelines as the Irene Ryan Scholarship Auditions regarding rights and royalties.  Please see this link for material guidelines: https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/opportunities-for-artists/pre-professional-artist-training/kcactf/performance/ryans/irene-ryan-auditions-tips–suggestions/
  1. Semi-finalists will receive individual feedback from one of our respondents.
  1. Each finalist will receive coaching from one of our respondents before their final round performance.

*Please note that you MUST be registered for the festival in order for your materials to be considered*

Meet Our Guest Artists

Correy West

Correy West Headshot

Correy West was last seen on Broadway in Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations. He made his Broadway debut in South Pacific at Lincoln Center. Subsequently, he performed in the Broadway production of Nice Work If You Can Get It at the Imperial Theatre alongside Matthew Broderick. You can catch him tap dancing and singing in Live from Lincoln Center’s production of Showboat starring Vanessa Williams as well as PBS’s Great Performances Season 50: Celebrating 50 Years of Broadway’s Best, singing and dancing with Broadway Legends such as Sutton Foster, Chita Rivera and Donna McKechnie. He performed and worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber in the US Premiere/1st National Tour of The Phantom of the Opera’s sequel Love Never Dies, the 1st National Touring Company of Roundabout Theatre’s production of Anything Goes, as well as touring the country in a production of 42nd Street. Other New York credits include The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, the New York  premiere of Lunch at the New York Music Festival, a workshop of the new musical The Right Girl, directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman and a reading of the new musical The Gay Divorcee, directed by Jeff Whiting. Regionally, he has played Fagin in Oliver (Virginia Stage Company), Mitch Mahoney in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Arkansas Rep Theatre), Ken in Smokey Joe’s Cafe (Capital Rep Theatre), Paul in Kiss Me Kate (Cape Playhouse) and Rusty Charlie in Guys and Dolls (Barrington Stage Company). He’s performed at many other regional theaters such as Arena Stage Company, The Rev, Theatre Aspen, Florida Studio Theatre, North Shore Music Theatre, North Carolina Theatre, Prince Music Theatre, Riverside Theatre, Pioneer Theatre Company and Westchester Broadway Theatre. Next up, he’s heading to La Jolla Playhouse in April of 2024, to perform in the world premiere, out of town Broadway tryout, of The Ballad of Johnny and June, about the life and times of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, as well as continuing his work on the new, Broadway Bound, musical American Prophet,  about the life and times of Frederick Douglas.

Michael Ellison, Ph. D

Michael Ellison headshot

Michael Ellison, Ph.D., Associate Professor Emeritus, is a guide and integrator who has worked as an actor, singer, dancer, director, choreographer, and teacher for more than 40 years.  This eclecticism he utilizes to open the scope of possibilities to students of voice, musical theatre, dance, communication and acting as well as to private clients through coachings and/or body-energy work.  In 2022 Michael retired from teaching theatre at Bowling Green State University for 23 years.

            Using the arts as a vehicle for unlocking human potential, Michael has worked across the United States, in Canada, and Denmark to assist people in integrating body, mind, heart and spirit.  In the Philippines he worked as an acting coach with Tony winner Lea Salonga on productions of Grease and the world premiere of “The Music of Alain Boubil and Claude-Michel Schönberg in Concert.” As an acting and movement coach Michael draws not only on his own experience but also from more than 150 personal interviews he conducted with working actor/singer/dancers (“triple threats”) in order to discover how people construct themselves across boundaries of categorization.   He specializes in helping people mean what they say, sing and move, expanding and specifying gesture vocabulary, and utilizing the power of Stillpoint.

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