During my time in Florida, the one thing that stood out was the elite young talent that the South Florida theatre community had to offer. With a lot of them having already started a career on the National level I will say that nothing inspires and excites me than seeing the next generation of theatre performers. Now I could speak for days about the amazing young talent I came across (because there were a lot), here are five that truly stood out to me that you should know and remember five to ten years from now.

There are a lot of things needed to make any show successful. You need the right people and the right tools. A great cast to put on the show and a great production team to make it all happen. However, above all, there needs to be communication. Good communication is a solid foundation for not only theatre but contributing success to a lot of things in life. Here are some tips to make sure communication is happening within your production.

As much as people tend to say that they have plenty of friends in the theatre industry, it probably sounds shocking when I say I don’t. People say that theatre is an accepting place (especially when it comes to the LGBTQ community), and though that claim is mostly true they forget that this is a cutthroat business. When you have friends in theatre, you have cheerleaders, and that means they won’t cheer for the other team, meaning people like me. 

Everyone has a role they would love to play but “can’t” because it is not their gender. This writer feels that there are plenty of roles that could be gender flipped and would have no negative effect on the show, and may even make the show better.  Hamilton was revolutionary because it changed the race of famous figures who were white. That’s an excellent start for growing the diversity on stage; but I believe we can take it one step further.  By changing the gender of certain roles, it gives a production a completely new take.  It can make a show you’ve seen for years suddenly feel brand new, like you’re seeing it for the first time.  

As performers, we find ourselves in the dreaded “off-season” far more than we probably want to. Either work is hard to find, or we move cities, or life throws us curve balls that force us to take breaks. This time of year, college students are returning home for two weeks or more, which I recall seemed like an eternity after a semester of nonstop work. 

Lea Salonga is a household name, at least in my home. Growing up she was basically the only Asian leading lady I saw in Broadway shows. She was also the first ethnic Disney princess I was exposed to. To this day Jasmine is still my favorite princess. She also won Best Lead Actress in a musical in 1991 for Miss Saigon. She has since had an incredible career and is still killing it!

Ms. Salonga is currently performing in Once on this Island on Broadway as Erzulie. Go see it. This show is beautifully staged and the performers are fantastic storytellers.

Finals for a theatre major isn’t as easy as people outside of the theatre world may think. We may not spend hours in a lab trying to perfect an experiment, but we spend hours in the theatre trying to perfect that monologue for class. We spend hours in the library trying to research classic works. We try to power through the common core classes when we drive to find more creative ventures than memorizing scientific formulas. In reflecting on this semester’s finals week and the past finals in my last few years as a college student, here’s how I survived this semester’s finals

Dear Santa,

We, the Board of Directors of Anywhere, USA's Players' Club Community Theater would like, this year, to make something of a special request. We've been quite happy over the past few years to have a few of our technical requests granted. The digital light board is working fine, and those new fixtures (I think the 'techies' call them 'instruments') just make everything on stage look great. I'm not sure our patrons are noticing, but we are.

Getting cast in an international tour is a huge thrill for any performer. You get to see the world and share your passion with foreign audiences. You'll enjoy many moments but also face challenges that come with continuous travel. While touring Japan, here are some tips I picked up along the way. 

‘Twas the night before Christmas, Broadway all alight,
And Aladdin was making three wishes that night.

Anastasia was wishing to know who she is,
And Miss Saigon was wishing she soon would find Chris...