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Please share your JPA memories with us at parentsofperformers@jpas.org, our new support group for parents and families of current and past performers as well as alumni.
Find out more about POP here: https://www.jpas.org/pop/
We are particularly interested in the long-lasting effects of your performing arts experiences and how they led to your overall development! We want to hear from everyone, not only those who continue to work in the performing arts, but also those who have taken these skills (communication, collaboration, empathy, public speaking) into other professions!
In 2004, I signed my daughter Madeleine up for the JPAS Children’s Chorus. I remember the end of the year concert like it was yesterday. It was held at a church on Williams Blvd on Mother’s Day. The choir director taught the PK students how to play the bells. All of the little kids were there on stage, holding a bell, but I didn’t see Madeleine through the lens of my old-fashioned camera. The director started doing her thing and the kids were shaking those bells. My heart sank because Madeleine wasn’t there. My initial thought was that she had stage fright but suddenly I heard her voice. The voice of my angel was singing Mary Had A Little Lamb.... opera style (which made me LAUGH) from the pulpit. She wasn’t in the group shaking those multicolored bells, but she was singing on the microphone! Her career started at that very JPAS moment.
After college graduation, Madeline auditioned in NYC and was offered a job with Royal Caribbean in the main stage show of Grease. She’s currently living on a cruise ship for a year as Frenchy in Grease and the Sandy understudy.
And it all started with JPAS choir for the babies!!!!
My parents (both theatre majors who met while working in theatre) heard about JPAS summer intensives and signed me up. My first show was Mary Poppins Jr in 2018 where I was a feature dancer in the ensemble playing a chimney sweep and a statue. I’ve done JPAS summer shows every year since then.
I attended NOCCA where I studied Musical Theatre. I’ve traveled and competed in places like Orlando and NYC, I’ve worked on stage and off in mainstage JPAS shows like Jesus Christ Superstar, In The Heights, Holiday Inn, My Fair Lady, Legally Blonde, and more, I’ve choreographed 3 shows now at my school, and I played Rizzo in Grease last summer at JPAS. This summer, I’m choreographing the youth musical theatre intensive’s ‘Fiddler on the Roof Jr’. After that I will be heading to New York City in August to start my BFA in Music Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Production at Long Island University Brooklyn’s Roc Nation School.
I learned that showing up and giving my all can lead to great things, and I learned how teamwork and trust are crucial to any end goal.
Bruce is a native New Orleanian who now lives in New York City. At only 11 years old Bruce began performing with the Jefferson Performing Arts Society in both their summer and mainstage musicals. Past productions with JPAS include Peter Pan, Oliver, Children of Eden, Wizard of Oz, The Will Rogers Follies, Anything Goes, and Zombie Prom.
Bruce traveled the country with the first National Tour of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella. After returning to New York, he made his Broadway debut in Sir Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of Les Misérables. Bruce was most recently seen playing Cliff Bradshaw in Cabaret, and as Henri Baurel in An American in Paris. Other favorite roles include Link Larkin in Hairspray, Fabrizio in The Light in the Piazza, Jean-Michel in La Cage Aux Folles, Frederic in Pirates of Penzance, and Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid.
Bruce returned to Broadway in 2023 in Harmony: A New Musical–– directed by Tony Award winner Warren Carlyle, with original music by Bruce Sussman and the legendary Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award winner Barry Manilow.
The foundation of everything I do today is deeply rooted in the early training that the Jefferson Performing Arts provided me, and I am forever grateful.
I began working with JPAS Theatre Kids when I was 15 years old. I was awarded a scholarship to do a production of Smokey Joe’s Café. This was my first full-length musical and it made me fall in LOVE with every aspect of musical theatre. Every summer, I would perform in the high school theatre camps and intern for the younger camps. It was an amazing experience and I feel like I grew up with the company and the program. All my directors were so kind and nurturing to me. They saw my enthusiasm and encouraged me to go out and pursue Theatre as a career.
I am now a professional actor and educator. I’ve worked around the country for theatre companies, resorts, and theme parks. During the pandemic, I began teaching theatre in Alexandria, Louisiana. Using my past JPAS instructor, Lynne Lawrence Bordelon, as my inspiration, I became an award-winning educator.
JPAS Theatre Kids taught me how to be a theatre professional. I was held to a very high standard.
JPAS has really shaped the performer I am today. JPAS Theatre Kids created a safe space for me to grow my art, teach me the ins and outs, and shape me into the professional I am today. I made friends and connections with people that I still talk to today! Without this program, I wouldn’t be the performer/person I am today.
THEATER: Collide: The Great Gatsby. Lyric Arts: 9 to 5 (Ensemble, u/s Maria and Missy); A Chorus Line (Val, Dance Captain). Artistry: The Pajama Game (Mae, u/s Gladys). Chicago College of Performing Arts: A Chorus Line (Connie). Disney +: Encore! Summer Lyric at Tulane: Pirates of Penzance; James and The Giant Peach. Porchlight Music Theatre: Minnie’s Boys. Jefferson Performing Arts Society: West Side Story. BFA in Musical Theatre (Emphasis: Dance) from Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University.
JPAS Theatre Kids created a safe space for me to grow my art, teach me the ins and outs, and shape me into the professional I am today.
