Recent News
Best Christmas Pageant Cast Writes 174 Letters to Veterans
As a socially distanced activity to fill the hour before each show started, the BCP casts made cards and letters for a Veteran's home in Oregon. They were matched up with the facility through the Cares List, an organization that matches card writers with the different senior citizens throughout the country. With covid restrictions preventing visitors and many other holiday activities, this was a great way for the Veterans to know someone cares. We also included a link to the virtual Christmas Caroling show we put together in place of the Christmas Caroling tours we normally do during the month of December. Dallas Theatre Critic and Author Nancy Churnin was impressed with their efforts and featured them on her social media platforms.
Kam Named a Winner in Theatre for 2021 Young Arts National Competition
Established in 1981, Young Arts identifies the the most accomplished artists in the visual, literary, and performing arts and provides them with creative and professional development opportunities throughout their careers. Young Arts is a highly competitive application process and the winners represent the top 8.8% of applicants are choose through a rigorous blind adjudication by a panel of highly accomplished artists. Other notable past winners of this award include Josh Groban and Camille Brown.
Kamarri, Maya, and McKinley Move on to State
Congratulations to Kamarri, Maya, and McKinley for making this year's All Region Choir and moving on to the next level in the state competition. This is a highly competitive process, particularly at the large school level. Over 70,000 students audition for the programs and the 1,810 who make it to the state level represent the top two percent of choral singers in the state.
McKinley Named National Merit Commended Scholar
Congratulations McKinley on being named a National Merit Commended Scholar. She is the third MYO member to earn National Merit Recognition with Delaney (c/o 2018) being named a National Merit Finalist and Aurea (c/o 2020) being named a Commended Scholar last year. Kind of interesting how the girl that has very convincingly played characters like Heather McNamara and Becky Two-Shoes is actually one of the most intelligent high school students in the entire country.
Annelise wins National Essay Contest
So if the girl who played Katherine Plumber in your 2018 production of Newsies goes on to write an essay in 2020 on the importance of the first amendment and freedom of the press that wins $5,000 from the Boston Globe Foundation and a full four year college scholarship worth $152,000- is that an example of life imitating art? Regardless, all of us at MYO still wish to congratulate Annelise on winning the MKL Public Relations National Essay Contest! View her incredible essay here: https://mklpr.com/national-student-essay-competition/winners
Ashley Named Area Elementary Music Team Leader
Congrats to Ashley on being named an area elementary music team leader. She has long been a leader in the district creating model lessons and teaching staff development. This role is especially crucial this year as arts educators try and navigate online learning and the best practices for face to face music education. She is also serving on the newly created Culturally Responsive Teaching in Music Education Committee. This committee also includes our percussionist Kevin Cho and MYO Parent Stephanie Miller. We are grateful for her expertise and help ensuring that we are always implementing current research and best practices in all areas of arts education.
MYO's ASL Class Makes Video for Deaf Awareness Month
September is Deaf Awareness month. Sydney has been teaching a weekly ASL class since the quarantine started in March. As a culminating project, they produced a video to increase awareness and spread the word that services are out there for those that need them. If you would like to find out more information or help by giving, they chose Texas Hands and Voices. TXHV.org See the video here: https://vimeo.com/455311256
Trailer for Everest's Movie
Everest has been participating in several film projects over the last year. Here is a link to the trailer from his latest movie. https://youtu.be/NjiPD_2Bfag Please be sure and watch and share it as much as possible. We know you did a terrific job Everest and can't wait to see the film!
Kam's performance highlighted on Playbill Website
Kam was one of ten entries selected as part of the week two highlights from the Playbill.com Search for the Next Broadway Star Contest. This contest was open to all performers age 16 and up and there were over 2,600 entries. Click the link and scroll down to hear Kam and the other week two highlighted performances. https://www.playbill.com/article/watch-highlights-from-week-2-of-playbills-search-for-a-star-contest
MYO Receives Season Grant from McKinney Arts Commission
After a successful application and presentation, MYO is grateful to receive its fourth season grant from the McKinney Arts Commission. Without these grant funds, our season would not exist. The commission was particularly impressed with the creative ways that MYO was able to not only continue to provide opportunities, but actually expand their programming during the Covid-19 lockdown. We are so grateful to our teen instructors and everyone who continued to stay active and participate even though our program looked very different. We will continue to persevere!
Click Pic to View Shoutouts
Mollie, Tilda, and Kam Participate in Broadway.com's Next on Stage Contest
Kam received on awesome shout-out from Hadestown star Eva Noblezada and Matilda got an amazing shoutout from mean girls star Mariah Rose Faith. Both Kam and Tilda recently participated in virtual workshops with the stars and obviously made great impressions. We agree they are amazing!
Now go check out and vote for all three!
MYO Workshop with Broadway Performer Stephen Carlile
One of several online classes and workshops that our members attended at no cost was a Lion King workshop with the current Scar on Broadway, Stephen Carlile. Several members were able to perform a few bars for him and receive feedback. We were all able to participate in warm up activities and a talk back session. One of the most unique experiences of the session was that we were able to hear the seven pm shout out to all the frontline workers. Everyone was out on their balconies and the whole city was giving a shoutout. What a neat experience for us to hear!
You're a Good Man Charlie Brown Cast Makes Stay Home Stay Safe Video
Did you know that before they started MYO, Ms. Rose and Mr. Valentine were constantly making videos with their classes at school? In fact they have numerous awards from their days producing videos. So when the pandemic hit, it seemed like the perfect time to revisit their musical parody skills. The tricky part was that each family had to film their own shots. Congrats to everyone for doing a great job! Click here to watch "It's a Distanced Life!" https://youtu.be/d3tva5iof14
MYO's Frozen Jr. Victim of Brown Paper Tickets
While we were extremely fortunate that we were able to successfully perform Frozen Jr. the weekend before the world began to shutdown to stop the spread of Covid-19, unfortunately the pandemic exposed that our online ticketing company was operating illegally and they were unable to provide hundreds of theatre groups across the country with the money they collected though their online platform. While this was a tough blow for us, we were much more fortunate than many other groups. Here is a link to the Dallas Morning News Story that we were featured in https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/performing-arts/2020/04/16/brown-paper-tickets-is-causing-outraged-arts-groups-to-see-red-including-one-in-north-texas/
Meet Your Urinetown Band...
Our previous keyboardist David Falterman made the move the NYC, but did you know our new keyboardist Jeffery Ou has numerous accomplishments including being a semi-finalist on America's Got Talent? We are also excited to welcome Jason Baker on woodwinds. He is the lead clarinetist for the New Life Orchestra and has a lengthy resume that includes playing at the Frenchwoods Festival of the Arts in New York. We are also glad to welcome back Kevin Cho on percussion and Dennis Langevin on bass. All of our band members are top notch professionals who have played for many adult theatre companies in the area. We are so grateful to all our musicians and of course to Ashley for bringing everyone together.
MYO Wins Thirteen 2019 Dallas Region Awards from Broadway.com
For the second year in a row, MYO earned more Dallas Regional Braodwayworld.com awards than any other theatre group youth or adult. Congratulations to all our winners as well as all the finalists. Click here to see all the Dallas Region winners https://www.broadwayworld.com/dallas/article/Winners-Announced-For-2019-BroadwayWorld-Dallas-Awards-20200113 or Check out our awards page to see pictures of all the winners!
MYO is the First to Perform the all new Firebringer Student Edition Script
It is official! We have secured the rights to the all new Firebringer Student Edition script just recently made available for license. There are a lot of changes to the language but the humor and great story still shines through. We are excited to be the first to produce this show. (Though we are only presenting it first because we asked first- great job Tilda on spotting the availability of the student edition!) The Instagram page for the production has over 5,000 followers and has caught the attention of numerous members of the original cast and Starkid team. The cast is amazing and this is going to be an incredible show!
MYO receives Grant From McKinney Arts Commission
For the third year in a row, we are able to continue to provide high quality, low cost performance opportunities to the students of Collin County and the surrounding areas thanks to a grant from the McKinney Arts Commission. We are extremely grateful for the support form the City of McKinney and can't wait to continue to provide high level opportunities for only $25 per show.
Tony Award Winning Alumni Eric Cornell is Guest Speaker for Workshop Collaboration with PDT
We were so excited to be able to collaborate with PDT Dance Arts to provide an all day Broadway Bound Workshop. Students participated in classes for a variety of dance styles taught by the incredible staff of PDT. Doug worked on honing in on emotions and preparing for auditions, and Ashley worked on sight reading. The highlight of the workshop was a talkback session with our Tony Award winning OnSTAGE alumni Eric Cornell. We appreciate PDT for hosting such a fun day full of learning.
Broadway the Cirque Way- a Collaboration with Lone Star Circus
Some of MYO's high school performers were given a very unique opportunity to perform as part of a collaboration with the Lone Star Circus. Tilda directed the entire show including picking out all of the songs and working with the incredibly talented members of Lone Star's Elite Youth Performance Troop on performances that involved numerous different acts including hoops, trapeze, aerial ring, silks, hand balancing, and contortion. The MYO members provided the live singing to accompany the acts. This was such an amazing and unique opportunity. Tilda did an amazing job a producer and director and the show was absolutely jaw dropping.
OnSTAGE Alumni Eric Cornell wins Tony Award
Huge congratulations to Eric Cornell on his first Tony Win! Eric was a producer on the incredible new Revival of Oklahoma!. He also had a Tony nomination this year for the play What the Constitution Means to Me. This was a great year for Eric who has also produced musicals like Big Fish, Rocky, Anastasia, Head over Heels and the revival of the play To Kill a Mockingbird. We are so proud of you Eric!!