In a city where its longest-running professional musical theater company—Theatre of the Stars—recently shut its doors, you might think the market for musical theater was waning. But you’d be wrong. This summer it seemed like every theater in Atlanta was turning out musicals, from “Rent” at Actor’s Express and “Chasin Dem Blues” at True Colors Theatre, to Serenbe Playhouse’s “Evita.” And Atlanta Lyric Theatre, which now holds the title as the only professional musical theater company in Atlanta, says that’s a good thing. “We fully embrace the local, professional theater companies and the growth of musical theatre in Atlanta. We don’t want less musical theater; we want more. Imagine Broadway with only one or two theaters, it wouldn’t be the hub that it’s become. We look at our neighboring theaters in the same vein,” shares artistic director and general manager Brandt Blocker.
It wasn’t always this way. When Blocker first moved to Atlanta from New Orleans in 2007 to join the Lyric Theatre, he would not have considered the Georgia capital to be a musical theater town. “Atlanta has a lot of very strong, professional theaters, but there weren’t many musicals being produced. I’m not sure why that’s the case,” he says. But he does have an idea as to why we’re embracing musical theatre now. “Of course if you go back in history and look at the Great Depression, the rise of musical theater was really substantial back then. People needed to get their minds off the financial woes and troubles of the time...and so musical theater was really blossoming during that time,” Blocker explains. “Well, I think we sort of had the same thing happen in 2008 with the financial crash here in the States. I think people were looking to musical theater to kind of get them out of the dumps. And so that worked well for me and for us at the Lyric as we were trying to grow our company.”
It certainly did. When Blocker joined the Lyric Theatre in 2007, they had about 260 subscribers and an annual budget of around $400,000. Today, the theater boasts nearly 3,000 subscribers and an annual budget of $1.2 million. Amazing growth as they head into their 36th season.
For those actors looking to be a part of this growing musical theater community in the South, we asked Blocker to share some advice.
What is your auditioning and casting process like?
We do a season audition in the spring, it’s usually in March or April. We’ll set aside a weekend and we’ll usually see over 400 artists come out and audition for us from across the country. We also constantly ask folks to visit our website and submit their headshots and résumés and we will have callback auditions for the individual shows and bring folks in at that time.
What makes an actor stand out for you?
Obviously, for us, we’re looking for as many triple threats as we can find—wonderful actors, tremendous musicians or vocalists and spectacular dancers. And that may be one thing that a lot of folks will say separates the Lyric from some of the other theatres in town, we tend to produce musicals that are pretty intense on the dance side. We’re putting a lot of dancers to work.
Your best piece of advice for aspiring actors?
Never stop learning. Once you have that degree in hand, that doesn’t mean it’s over. Stay in those voice lessons, stay in those dance lessons and stay in those acting sessions. Continue to grow as an artist. As the industry grows, you need to be able to grow with it.
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