TOMBALL, TX: Attending the highly competitive and prestigious Broadway Artist Alliance (BAA) Summer Intensive in New York City is a golden opportunity for three LSC-Tomball students. The audition-only, weeklong, professional-level intensive training program takes place at Ripley Grier Studios in the heart of midtown Manhattan and accepts only performers with strong technical skills.
“Admittance into the BAA is an incredible accomplishment,” said Lisa Morales, PhD, MM, LSC-Tomball’s music program coordinator. “The opportunity to be coached by industry professionals on Broadway is amazing; it's career changing. We are so proud of our students. They’ve worked hard to achieve this, and we want to do all we can to continue to support them.”
The BAA intensive is a full musical theater educational experience. Master classes are taught by Broadway performers and Tony Award winners and focus on the “triple threat” talents: voice, acting, and dance. At the end of the intensive, performers will showcase their work for industry professionals, casting directors, and talent managers.
Cyn Cooper, 19-year-old, LSC-Tomball preforming arts major, who is attending the first intensive in July, said the training program schedule is “grueling,” but the opportunity “literally means everything.”
The thought of attending the elite training feels “intimidating, like stepping into the unknown,” said Cooper. “But I’m looking forward to focusing on what I love, and to just exist in my own musical theater world.”
Immersion in a musical world is normal for sisters Allysa and Jordan Leal, who are attending the fourth BAA intensive in August. “My family has always been passionate about music,” said Jordan Leal. “My sister’s first birthday was celebrated at a Jimmy Buffet concert and there are pictures of us, from when we were little, sleeping in my father’s guitar case.”
The sisters agree that anything could come out of the BAA experience, and both are ready to show up and give it their all. “Attending the BAA intensive is a big deal,” said 21- year-old Allysa Leal. She went on to say, “Music is a universal language- that speaks to the heart. I believe in the stories we portray, in the characters we give voice, in the songs we sing and the dances we dance, and when the belief is there, that’s where the magic happens.”
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