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U.T. Hosts Broadway Veterans For Workshop & New Musical Staged Reading

Updated: Friday, June 15 2012, 07:13 AM CDT
By Rob Faubion, AustinOnStage.com

The University of Texas at Austin, in collaboration with Texas State University-San Marcos, is hosting the inaugural Texas Musical Theatre Workshop, a pre-collegiate summer intensive for high school students exploring a potential career in musical theater, through June 30. The unique program brings New York’s Broadway talent to Texas, and will include a free, public staged reading of the new work, Giant Steps: An Urbean Musical.
    
The workshop was founded by University of Texas at Austin faculty member Lyn Koenning and Texas State University faculty members Kaitlin Hopkins and Jim Price - collectively bringing more than 75 years of industry experience to the workshop.  Head of the Texas State University playwriting program, Price is a veteran Broadway performer (Les Misérables, The Civil War). Broadway performer and director Hopkins heads the nationally-renowned musical theater program at Texas State University.  Koenning is an award-winning music director, vocal arranger and voice and acting coach whose students have appeared on Broadway, regional theater, television and film.
   
The roster of teaching artists participating in the workshop includes Tony Award-winning composer Mark Hollman (Urinetown), Broadway director Matt Lenz (Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can), musical director Greg Bolin and Broadway performers Joyce Chittick (Anything Goes, Jersey Boys), Rocker Verastique (Chicago, Miss Saigon), Danny Herman (Leader of the Pack), Natasha Davison (Beauty and the Beast) and Darren Gibson (On the Town, Fosse).
   
The workshop also serves as an incubator for the development of new musicals by professional artists, and the creative team of Giant Steps: An Urbean Musical has been invited to include their musical as part of the workshop this year.  With music and lyrics by newcomer Michael Dexter and book by Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award-nominated Eric H. Weinberger, Giant Steps is a contemporary twist on the classic fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk.
    
A staged reading of the musical will be presented at the Department of Theatre and Dance’s B. Iden Payne Theatre on June 29th, starting at 7 p.m.  Directed by Broadway star Billy Porter, the Giant Steps cast will be composed of university students, alumni and community artists, and admission to the staged reading is free.
    
The B. Iden Payne Theatre is located at 300 E. 23rd Street in the located in the F. Loren Winship Drama Building on the University of Texas campus.  For more information on the Texas Musical Theatre Workshop, visit www.TexasMusicalTheatreWorkshop.com.

(Image courtesy University of Texas)U.T. Hosts Broadway Veterans For Workshop & New Musical Staged Reading