Björn hired Peter Royston to be the Academy’s first Director. Peter has been working in theater education in the River Towns, including the Sleepy Hollow school district, for the past 15 years. He’s also written over 50 study guides for Broadway, Off-Broadway, and touring productions and co-founded Broadway Classroom, the educational theater program for Broadway.com.
“I’ve been working with such a wide-variety of ages, different grades, over the years,” said Royston, “that I took all that experience and decided the Academy was going to be the home for that.”
This past summer, The Academy had seven week-long workshops for close to 100 students. The workshops included musical theater week, stage combat week, and a week where kids created their own plays based on stories and legends like Little Red Riding Hood and The Odyssey. The other three weeks were dedicated to staging A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Kids had the option of attending as many or as few weeks as they liked. Many kept coming back for multiple weeks.
After successful Summer and Fall sessions, The Music Hall Academy is gearing up for their Spring programs which start in February. For the Spring session, the Academy will offer scholarships and partial scholarships for families who might need financial aid to send their child to the Academy.
For the full Music Hall Academy schedule of programs for the Spring – including a series of one-day programs for children and adults – visit www.tarrytownmusichall.org/academy.