Texas Tech University

Musical Theatre Students Earn First Place

Shawn Ward

February 10, 2021

first place

New year, new opportunities, and new possibilities. This is how a team of four Theatre and Dance students felt after they earned first place in the National Opera Association Scenes Competition: Musical Theatre Division for their recorded performance of "A New World" from Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World.

Led by faculty members Casey Joiner and Dr. Shayna Tayloe, the senior team of BFA musical theatre students included Malāna Wilson, Daniel DiPinto, Cara Ellison, and Luke Weber.

A team of Texas Tech Theatre and Dance students first competed last year in Cleveland and took second place with a scene from Falsettos. Unfortunately, the original team was not able to rehearse for this year's competition due to COVID-19. The School decided to move forward with the smaller, all-senior group, as this would be their last chance to participate. To minimize any necessary rehearsal time, the team agreed to perform a song with which they were familiar.

"Luckily the four of us knew the song pretty well from working on it in a previous semester, so it was fun getting to work on it once again and seeing how much has changed since then," said Weber. "I think we all really respected each other's time and space, which made the filming process so simple and effective."

"The pandemic created a lot of roadblocks and issues for us, but fortunately we had a team of super hard-working and creative artists that worked together to overcome all of the problems that arose," Ellison agreed.

Wilson enjoyed collaborating with this senior group: "It was the first project outside of class where we were all able to perform together. I recorded my part first, then everyone else overlaid their part. Then we recorded the video lip-synching ourselves."

This method proved to be a learning curve for the senior team. Without their teammates' live voices, they each had to modify their timing, volume, and other vocal techniques to ensure a cohesive final recording.

For DiPinto, the real challenge was finding the harmonies on a pre-recorded song and blending the voices: "The reason my video is in the snow is that I had just gotten over COVID by the due date. My voice had just come back, so I submitted mine on the last possible day. I thought 'I HAVE to do this today or I'll let everyone down.' So I stuck it out and did."

With this push from DiPinto, the team launched through the preliminary round into the finals. They recorded the entire performance a second time and used DiPinto's recording as inspiration for the final rendition.

"The point is that we couldn't be together, so it was fitting to have them so far apart," says Joiner. "They didn't even have to be in the same room to create something that sounded great, because they're a team. That's the great thing about having people for four years, you get to see them mature and watch the cohesion of their class, and eventually work becomes effortless between them."

"The fact that the students were able to put this together without a ton of help from us," Dr. Tayloe continues, "speaks to how much this program has prepared them to enter this career and how they're able to be almost completely autonomous in their work and characters."

In the end, the team's drive and dedication paid off with the well-deserved win. Their incredible ability to collaborate serves as a testament to themselves and the students of the Musical Theatre program. When they graduate, it will be the first time that multiple graduating students receive a BFA in musical theatre in a year. In the few years since its inception, the musical theatre program has gained popularity among prospective students, drawing a pool of 300 to 400 auditions per year while only accepting six applicants at a time.