PYT - Alumni Newsletter

Dan Hurst first arrived on the PYT scene at nine-years-old in 1996 as a pirate in Peter Pan. He has since participated in PYT’s Mainstage shows, Stories on Stage, Pizazz!, and School of Performing Arts. The last show he performed in was Aida as a dancer/Dream Radames, but his favorite role would have to be Marius in Les Misérables. Dan has managed to stay involved with PYT teaching Theatre in the Park, choreographing Wonderland, and of course, being a member of the Alumni Association Council and Cabaret Nights. Dan is currently studying musical theatre at Ball State University. Once he graduates, he hopes to perform on cruise ships while traveling the world for a while before becoming a struggling actor in a big city.

Nic Rouleau (Administrator) is a junior at New York University majoring in Music Theatre. At NYU, Nic serves as the Treasurer of the Players’ Club, a student-run organization focusing on producing new musical works, such as last years’ Edges, in which he was featured. Through NYU Mainstage, he has been seen in the New York premiere of Odin: A Percussion Opera, I Sing: Cabaret 2005, and Urinetown (Robby the Stockfish). He will also be featured in this fall’s Next Thing You Know: New Songs by Salzman and Cunningham, a new musical by the writers of the 2006 critically acclaimed Off-Broadway show I Love You Because. This past summer, Nic was a resident actor at the New London Barn Playhouse in New Hampshire, performing in such shows as Cabaret (Cliff), CATS (Mungojerrie), Annie Get Your Gun, and Little Shop of Horrors. Nic first began working with PYT in the 1996 production of Peter Pan where he played a lost boy and has performed in over twenty productions with the company since. Some of his favorites include Aida (Radames), Les Miserables (Jean Valjean), West Side Story (Tony), and The Sound of Music (Rolf).

Hello everyone, and welcome to a brand new year of the PYT Alumni Association!

I am pleased to be sending you the first in a new season of quarterly newsletters—revamped, researched, and written by Nic Rouleau. In this publication, you will find information about PYT’s upcoming events, as well as events hosted by the Alumni Association. You will also find articles concerning PYT alumni currently working in theatre, and about the theatre community at large. If you think you’re involved in an interesting company, production, or theatre program, write us an e-mail (pyt_alumni@yahoo.com) and tell us about it. You may be our next “Alumni Feature!”

This past year has seen a lot of growth within the alumni association. Most significantly, the alumni council, started last summer, is entering its second year. We welcome the return of previous council members, Nic, Sean, Dan, and Jessica, as well as two new members—Sarah Cook and Breigh Zach. Both Breigh and Sarah were in this past year’s Cabaret Night, “Steppin’ Up, Movin’ Out.” The show proved immensely successful, featuring a cast of 25 and songs based on the theme of growing up and moving forward with one’s life, while ultimately returning to your roots.

I am proud to announce that the title for the coming year is...

AND THE TONY GOES TO...

The night will feature songs from TONY Award-winning musicals, including A Chorus Line, Jersey Boys, and Spring Awakening. Along with hosting the Third Annual Cabaret Night, PYTAA will also be producing several other events. First on the calendar is the College Night, coming up in December, followed by a summer BBQ. Watch for dates for these events, as well as for information about auditions for the Cabaret Night.

Best,

Stephanie Ringstaff

PYTAA Chair

The PYT Alumni Association is dedicated to keeping PYT alumni connected to the company and to each other through events and productions that allow alumni to use the skills they have developed in their theatrical endeavors with PYT and elsewhere. The PYTAA is also dedicated to giving back to PYT through volunteer work, as well as monetary contributions.

This summer, PYT Alum Emily Borromeo spent ten weeks in the Catskill Mountains of New York State at the Forestburgh Playhouse, a 60-year-old summer stock theatre nicknamed the “miracle of the forest.”

The term “summer stock” refers primarily to theatre companies that only operate in the summer and put on a series of shows that mainly utilize one core company of actors. As soon as the first production begins performances at night, the company starts rehearsals for the next show during the day, thus working on two entirely different productions at the same time. If that’s not enough, there are often maintenance duties (“chores”) required for the core company, as well as nightly Cabarets after the performances, as is the case for the Forestburgh Playhouse. But for young up-and-coming actors, like Borromeo, summer stock theatre is a great way to start building your professional resumè in hopes of a career ending on the Great White Way—Broadway!

In just ten weeks, Emily performed in 4 Mainstage Shows: Oklahoma, CATS, Funny Girl, and Footloose, her favorite role being Jellylorum in CATS.

A typical day for Emily began at 8 AM and ended around 2 AM—not uncommon for actors involved in the core company of a Summer Stock theatre. In the mornings and afternoon, she would have rehearsal for the Mainstage productions, as well as a few chores around the theatre. That would be followed by a performance for the Mainstage show at night. A one-hour cabaret at the Tavern Restaurant would follow, in which the actors would wait tables and serve coffee to local patrons, as well as perform a themed cabaret. Emily’s favorite was “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” a revue featuring the music of Irving Berlin. After the cabaret, Emily would head to bed, and then wake up at 8 AM and do it all over again!

“It wasn’t easy working all day, 6 days a week,” says Borromeo. “I remember working ‘Cabaret Trash’ for two weeks straight. ‘Cab Trash,’ as we called it, involved emptying slop buckets, cleaning the garbages, and wheelbarrowing up to eight trash bags to the dumpster in a nearby field.” A Los Altos native, Emily says she was not prepared for the rural lifestyle of Forestburgh, NY. “It took some time to get used to the bunk beds, deer heads plastered on every wall in the lodge, and moths—even bats—flying on stage into my face!”

Yet despite these negative aspects, Emily is nothing but confident about her experience this summer. “I feel that this summer was one of the best summers I’ve had,” she says, “and definitely a wonderful learning opportunity for me.” In fact, she credits PYT with helping her get to where she is today: “I am grateful to have started out my musical theatre career at PYT. I feel that I learned essential fundamentals of performance, ranging from rehearsal manners to jazz choreography to harmony singing. Performing in shows at PYT—ten years!—also helped me build confidence and a strong sense of who I am as an actress. I could not have asked for a better or more fun environment in which to grow up and learn.”

Emily is a ten year veteran of Peninsula Youth Theatre. Audiences would remember her for such diverse roles as Aida (Aida), Eponine (Les Miserables), Mama Noah (Children of Eden), TiMoune (Once on this Island), and Dorothy (The Wiz).

Sarah Cook (Events Coordinator) is pleased to be serving on the Council this year as Events Coordinator. After graduating from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a BA in Theatre, Sarah has returned to the West Coast and currently works at the Cancer Center at El Camino Hospital. When she’s not working to pay her bills, she enjoys performing with local theatre groups, running, rock climbing, and singing in the shower.

Jessica Uher is a sophomore at UC Davis majoring in dramatic arts. Her first PYT show was Wind in the Willows in 1995. She was a member of Pizazz!, acted in several “Stories on Stage” and main stage shows, and she also choreographed PYT’s Wonderland with Dan Hurst. Additionally, she acted in numerous productions, student directed, and choreographed at St. Francis High School, and was a California Theatre Center Intern in Training for two years.

Sean Kranz (Financial Director) started performing with PYT in 1995 and has since gone on to perform in a total of 28 musicals. Some of his favorite rules include God in Children of Eden, Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, Danny in Grease, and Harold Hill in The Music Man, all with PYT. He is currently pursuing a BS in Electrical Engineering with a double minor in musical theatre and music recording at USC. Sean vocal/music directed the past two Alumni Cabaret Nights and looks forward to continuing to work with the Alumni Association as it grows into a strong branch of PYT. In the future, he’d love to continue music directing and performing on a more professional level.

Stephanie Ringstaff (Chair) has been involved with PYT since its inception in 1992, and looks forward to continued involvement through the Alumni Association. This past summer, she came back to teach a fifth year of Theatre in the Park. In the past, Steph has also stage managed for PYT (Wonderland and Stories on Stage), as well as produced the Alumni Association’s annual Cabaret Night productions for the past two years. Favorite performances with PYT include Pirates of Penzance (Mabel), Les Miserables (Cosette), The Wizard of Oz (Wicked Witch), and Godspell. Currently, Steph is spending the semester studying in London at the British American Drama Academy. A double major in Theatre Performance and Psychology, Steph hopes to pursue a career in Drama Therapy.

It was a bright Autumn afternoon when Breigh Zach (Membership Liason) was born...just kidding! Breigh last performed in Into the Woods with the Sunnyvale Community Players, playing the role of The Witch. She is a junior high school teacher in Sunnyvale, teaching 6th and 8th Grade Language Arts and Religion. In fact, many of her students are PYT actors! She adored being part of the PYT Cabaret Night this past summer, and hopes to be involved next year, as well. It was an incredible experience for her to meet new people who had also had a positive PYT experience. Breigh joins the council for the first time this year.

Not all PYT Alumni are actively performing on a

professional level, like Emily Borromeo; many alumni have found great success (and happiness!) pursuing a more behind-the-scenes career in theatre. One such alum is Matt Blank, who currently works for Playbill.com, one of the world’s leading providers of the latest Broadway and Off-Broadway news.

Blank first came to PYT in 2002 when he performed in The Wiz. The following summer he returned once again for Children of Eden. He proceeded to stay involved with PYT, but in a different manner—he taught three sessions of Theatre in the Park, worked for six months as interim receptionist for Executive Director Karen Simpson, and co-produced the 2003 production of Les Miserables. It was in these experiences that Blank found there was more to theatre than being onstage. “I was just as happy working behind the scenes or teaching kids or doing office work as I was performing,” said Blank in a recent interview. And it was this revelation that helped him decide to move to New York City. “That pipe dream of living in New York had always been in my head, but, honestly, it was those six months working with, in, and around PYT that allowed me to discover how deep my love of theatre really ran and that I needed to go for it.”

So in January of 2004, Blank packed his bags and left Cupertino for the Big Apple! He enrolled at Marymount Manhattan in their Theatre Production and Management Program. Although he did not finish there, he remained in NYC. He first got a job ushering at Dodger Stages (now known as New World Stages) when it first opened in 2004. Over the course of that job, Blank ushered The Immigrant, Modern Orthodox, The Musical of Musicals: The Musical, and Altar Boyz.

After Dodger Stages, Blank took a part-time spot as a development assistant for the non-profit Theatre Museum. He also picked up some usher shifts at the off-Broadway Second Stage Theatre, working on the pre-Broadway run of Spelling Bee in early 2005. He was then hired to join the House Staff at the Hilton Theatre for the Broadway run of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This was Blank’s first “livable wage” he made in New York, and allowed him to join IATSE—the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts—which gave him health benefits. When Chitty... closed, he was hired by the Shubert Organization, which owns 22 Broadway theaters. He now has a full-time position on the House Staff of the Schoenfeld Theatre, currently the home of A Chorus Line. He has been there for over a year and continues to usher seven shows a week, in addition to his job at Playbill.com. As Blank says, “I basically spend my days working at Playbill, and I spend my night handing them out!”

Blank jokes about his success behind-the-scenes: “No one wants to pay me to perform anymore, but apparently I’ve managed to become one of the best-paid ushers in one of the top House Staff jobs on Broadway. Make of that information what you will.”

Playbill.com features an online “Casting and Jobs” listing, in which Matt found an advertisement for a job at the company. The position started as a one semester internship with a small monetary stipend. That has gradually evolved into an open-ended hourly wage position somewhere in between intern and permanent staff, which is where Matt sits now. Recently, he has been playing the “Swing” role for the rest of the company, filling in where they are lacking in their “Off Seasons.” He spent one week as Head Photo Editor back in July, and just last week he had to opportunity to fill in as the Engineer for the newly launched Playbill Radio station.

“Playbill.com has actually been my homepage for as long as I’ve had the internet, going back to junior high” says Blank. “I’ve been reading it religiously all these years, jealously wishing to be part of the New York theatre community, vicariously living through what I read on the Playbill site.” For Blank, “Playbill has been and still is the only reputable source of Broadway news.”

Matt credits the success of his journey to his early days at PYT. The organizational and intra-personal skills he gained from both his on- and off-stage experiences are still immensely useful to him in his day-to-day operations, he says. He laughs as he recalls his first day as an intern for Playbill.com: “I had some light copy work to do and was commended on my excellent XEROX skills. Well, having previously run off and collated 200 copies of the Les Miserables script and score [as producer] for PYT, I got to know my way around a copy machine pretty well!”

He leaves us with one final thought:

“The theatre is a vibrant, living creature—always changing and always offering up something new. Theatre provides an avenue to use your creativity to its greatest potential, to suspend disbelief and travel anywhere or be anyone. Theatre both gives and needs. What it gives to those who create it is a collaborative monster to overcome, a project larger than any one person, that requires the full scope of everybody’s imagination, skill, and effort. What it gives to those who watch it is an escape into their own imaginations, a collective experience that they together share with hundreds of people they’ve never met before and will probably never see again. What it needs from both is simply for people to continue nurturing it, appreciating it, and realizing that it is an essential component of any enlightened society. PYT, to me, exemplifies this spirit by affecting the lives of countless young people and their loved ones—by introducing them to and involving them in theatre in whatever context they are most comfortable. PYT brings theatre to great numbers of people, and it brings great numbers of people into the theatre, sometimes keeping them there for the rest of their lives. This is not to say that I fully expect to always work in the industry, but I will never leave the theatre—and PYT was indeed instrumental in cultivating that realization in me. If theatre is what you truly love, you can always find a way to be a part of it.”

If you think you’re involved in an interesting company, production, or theatre program,

write us an e-mail (pyt_alumni@yahoo.com) and tell us about it.

You may be our next “Alumni Feature!”

Matt Blank at the 2007 Tony Awards