playbill vip

Thoughts from the Director:

Welcome back to Woodford Theatre after an intermission that lasted FAR longer than any of us anticipated. It has been 692 days, 3 hours and 34 minutes since the lights went down on the last Woodford Theatre Young Artists production on this stage. For some perspective: 692 days ago, some of our current students were about halfway through their 4th grade year in school!

When Music Theatre International announced their plans for All Together Now!, it was clear this would be a tremendous opportunity for the Woodford Theatre Young Artists. Beginning Friday night and continuing through this weekend, 2,500 organizations from all 50 states and 40 countries/territories are putting on their version of the show. There will be over 5,500 individual performances to be seen by over one million audience members. A coordinated event like this has never been done before, and it's a fitting return to the stage after experiencing so many things we've never done before. 

This show is an ambitious undertaking for any group, and ours is no exception. We began our season only 13 Sundays ago - meeting for a few hours one day each week. That's 15 musical numbers, choreography, staging, and three transitional spoken elements in 13 weeks! So these students, in a new group with new leadership, rehearsed together for only just over 60 hours total to bring you this production. Our goals were to give the students a production to give them some real life onstage experience, to give them an event to rally around and build into our WTYA family, and challenge them to push ahead and make progress in every rehearsal. Not only have the students risen to the occasion - they have consistently exceeded our expectation each week!

The scenery we have the privilege of utilizing today is a sneak peek at what will be the setting for the mainstage production of Irving Berlin's White Christmas in just a few weeks. It's a unique opportunity to see things in progress!

I would like to extend a huge heartfelt thank you to our friends and families who have all contributed to getting things started up again with WTYA. Our professional production team for All Together Now! has all volunteered their time and talents to this production. The larger WTYA family grows each year, and their willingness to help us return to the stage is appreciated beyond measure. 

On behalf of Alyssa, Jason, Claire and myself, we thank you for sharing your young people with us each week. We are truly fortunate to have this opportunity, and our time together with them is by far the highlight of our weeks. Our staff consistently comments to one another that we receive so much from these students each week, and we feel so blessed to work with them! We cannot wait to share their progress with you already, and are excited to watch them continue to grow as performers and people in the days ahead!