If you read playbills carefully, you’ve probably seen Dee Anne Bryll’s name. She’s worked at most every theater in town — from the Playhouse to the Covedale Center, from Northern Kentucky University to University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, plus countless engagements with local schools. As a choreographer, director and especially a teacher, she’s constantly busy and she loves to push others into the spotlight.
Allison Hinkel, who heads the drama program at St. Ursula Academy, met Bryll when she enrolled at NKU. They worked together on the Cappies, a recognition program for high school theater students, and on productions at Covedale. Hinkel learned about tap dancing and musical theater performance in courses Bryll taught at NKU.
“She has a great relationship with almost every theater in town, from the Village Players to Ensemble Theatre,” Hinkel says. “She works hard, makes performers look good and has such a comforting demeanor — she works well with anyone. After I graduated, she offered me a job with her at St. Ursula Academy. When it was time for her to move on, she saw to it that I was prepared to run the department.” She describes Bryll as “one of the kindest, most talented and hardworking women I’ve ever met.”
Lauren Blair, an award-wining choreographer and dance teacher at Santa Monica College in Los Angeles, echoes Hinkel’s sentiments. As a 14-year-old ballet dancer, she took tap lessons from Bryll. “I would go home and cry after class because I had trouble keeping up,” Blair says. “But she had faith in me.” Bryll eventually brought Blair on board to teach tap in CCM’s Preparatory program. Blair most cherishes Bryll’s “fierce belief in her students coupled with her generosity of self and never-ending patience.”
Bryll excels at developing young talent, especially through CCM Prep, where she has encouraged young theater performers for more than 25 years. Starting as a teacher in 1989, she became the program’s director, handling those responsibilities from 1996 to 2010.
“I took it as far as I could,” Bryll says. Then she stepped aside to launch the Junior Musical Theatre Intensive, a new CCM program providing a disciplined educational experience for students aged 9 to 14 interested in musical theater. They spend months preparing a full-scale musical production and present a 15-minute excerpt at the Junior Theatre Festival in Atlanta in January, attended by nearly 5,000 aspiring young performers and their teachers. This year, her CCM students staged a snippet of Thoroughly Modern Millie JR.
That’s one of the Broadway shows adapted for young performers by Musical Theatre International (MTI), the licensing organization that authorizes theaters to present shows. Since 1994, iTheatrics, a division of MTI, has developed “junior” (JR) versions of well-known Broadway titles.
In 2010, MTI’s founder, Freddie Gershon, and his wife Myrna began awarding “Freddie G Fellowships” to outstanding educators. They are invited to New York for a week of one-on-one sessions with Broadway performers, directors and designers. Bryll was chosen this year and singled out among a group of eight for the annual “Spirit Award.”
“Without teachers, there is no Broadway Junior,” Gershon says. “Myrna and I feel strongly about personally investing in teachers and immersing them in experiential skills they can take home to guide their students and pass on to other teachers. It’s crucial we keep live theater thriving in this country by working with educators and children.”
Bryll and the other teachers attended a private dinner with Broadway stars Bernadette Peters and Brian d’Arcy James and special workshops led by directors, choreographers and designers. She also had a chance to visit with award-winning composer Stephen Flaherty (Ragtime and Seussical; he’s a CCM grad). They observed a developmental workshop performance of Mary Poppins JR., a potential Broadway Junior title.
Bryll loved the opportunity to meet and work with other teachers. “Musical theater is not just about singing and dancing; it’s about life lessons.” The trip reminded her “why we do what we do. We need to make ‘telling the story’ real for children — exploring, creating and imagining. Our job is to find what’s within every child and allow them to do it, making it more wonderful.”
That’s what Dee Anne Bryll has been doing for years — and what she continues to do today.
CONTACT RICK PENDER: rpender@citybeat.com
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2015.
