Tag Archives: UC College-Conservatory of Music

Via Richard Hess, Chair of CCM Drama

Rocco Dal Vera

Please join me in celebrating the recent appointment of Professor ROCCO DAL VERA to his new role as TAPAA (Theatre Arts, Production, Arts Administration) Division Head. Since joining the CCM Drama faculty in 1999 Rocco has distinguished himself with excellent teaching, leadership, and service to the department and college. His new appointment will allow him to continue to be an advocate for CCM Drama on a higher level, and to help move our Division to new heights with new opportunities. Rocco has moved his office up to our Division Head Office next to Patti Hall. He will continue to teach for CCM Drama, one course per semester to be determined, and he will still be available to us in many ways. Congratulations!

AMAZING CHANGES, there’s more exciting news
I am so pleased to announce the appointment of D’ARCY SMITH to the CCM Drama Faculty. In our time of need we moved quickly and efficiently to find an exceptional Voice and Speech teacher for CCM Drama.

D’Arcy Smith

D’Arcy Smith, BFA, MFA, Voice Teaching Specialist
D’Arcy Smith was recently the resident voice/dialect coach at the Guthrie Theater and a Lecturer of Voice/Speech/Text at the University of Minnesota. He has worked as a teacher and voice and speech specialist in the United States, U.K., Canada and New Zealand. A graduate of York University, Toronto, Canada from the MFA program in Acting with an additional Diploma in Voice Teaching, he has taught at The Central School for Speech and Drama in London, Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School, Wright State University, the Canadian National Voice Intensive, and at York University in Toronto. He has also worked as voice, speech and dialect coach on countless professional productions. He produced and directed the audio CD that accompanies the book “Phonics for Dummies”. D’Arcy is well versed in a variety of different voice, speech and communication techniques so that he can best help the individual in their learning. He believes in always keeping a sense of play while guiding the actor to find freedom, confidence and empowerment.

AMAZING CHANGES, there’s even more exciting news
Please Welcome GILES DAVIES to his position as Full Time Visiting Faculty member for the 2015-2016 school year. Giles has graciously agreed to put his successful acting career on hiatus, to leave Florida, and to spend the year in a full time capacity with us teaching a variety of courses. Giles was an adjunct instructor for us for 3 years from 2004-2007 as our Movement II teacher, as well as covering my teaching duties for a term while I was on sabbatical. He is a Cincinnati icon, now based in Florida, highly respected in the field as an actor and teacher, and I know you will all have an amazing year and life changing experiences working with Giles after the retirement of Diane Kvapil.

Giles Davies.

Mr. Davies was born and bred in Hong Kong where he began acting at the age of five at the behest of his sister. He received his M.F.A. from Ohio State University where he specialized in creating solo performances, and his Bachelor of Science degree in Theatre and History, Honors College, Ball State University. He has performed two of his solo shows, An Evening with Charles Dickens and Turgid Tales of Turmoil, Terror and Tortured Souls, in Hong Kong, Belgium, Malaysia, California, New Hampshire, Indiana and Cincinnati. He specializes in teaching Shakespeare, movement, and acting. He has had the privilege of studying with Marcel Marceau, The SITI Co., Richard Schechner, The Wooster Group, Kevin Kling, and Danny Hoch, among others. He initiated a High School age actor training program at The Cincinnati Shakespeare Co., where he worked full time as an ensemble member for 9 years (performing in over 45 productions on their stage). In the Tampa area he has taught with The Patel Conservatory, The American Stage summer programs, Hillsborough Community College, workshops at The Gorilla Theatre and independent sessions with various local artists and students. Most recent Tampa Bay credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (freeFall Theatre), Death and the Maiden (A Simple Theatre) Quills (Jobsite Theatre), and November (American Stage.)

TONY AWARD-WINNING BROADWAY PRODUCER
KEVIN MCCOLLUM JOINS CCM’S FACULTY
AS DISTINGUISHED VISITING PROFESSOR

 As part of his appointment, the renowned theatre producer and honored University of Cincinnati alumnus will develop a new musical theatre incubator program at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music.

Kevin McCollum

CINCINNATI, OH — Peter Landgren, dean and Thomas James Kelly professor of music at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), has appointed leading Broadway producer Kevin McCollum to the position of Distinguished Visiting Professor. McCollum’s initial appointment will be for three years and will become effective in August of 2015.

A distinguished alumnus of the University of Cincinnati, McCollum (BFA Musical Theatre, 1984; HonDoc, 2005) is the Tony Award-winning producer of Rent, Avenue Q, In the Heights, Motown the Musical and many other acclaimed Broadway, off-Broadway and touring productions. Earlier this spring, McCollum received two more Tony nominations for his current productions of Something Rotten! (Best Musical) and Hand to God (Best Play). He also received 12 Outer Critics Circle Award nominations, including Outstanding New Broadway Musical, and nine Drama Desk nominations, including Outstanding Musical.

As a Distinguished Visiting Professor at CCM, McCollum’s influence on the college’s students and programs will be broad, focusing his work on musical theatre, although his entrepreneurial expertise will also be applied to aspects of auditioning, career development, arts administration and more. Through this new appointment, McCollum will also work with faculty and administrators to develop a new musical theatre incubator program at CCM. A collaborative venture between CCM and Alchemation, McCollum’s Broadway producing office, this incubator will be designed to support the creation of new musical theatre works, utilizing McCollum’s entrepreneurial expertise and CCM’s abundance of talent.

“We are very excited to bring Kevin back to CCM as a member of our faculty,” says Dean Landgren. “Kevin is arguably the most accomplished and successful producer working in theatre today. Given his diverse background and his proven expertise in the business of the performing arts, his presence on our faculty will enhance the already world-class training that our students receive.”

“CCM was an essential part of my professional training and I am thrilled to return to such a top-notch institution,” says McCollum. “There are many things that attracted me to this position on CCM’s faculty; Peter Landgren’s bold leadership and openness to collaboration, the level of excellence found in the faculty, the highly accomplished young artists and the state-of-the-art facilities of my Alma Mater. I am proud to be counted amongst the internationally renowned faculty of this great institution. CCM has a longstanding commitment to presenting new works, and I am equally proud to help develop a program that will usher in the next generation of musical theatre artists.”

Speaking of the significance of an incubator program for musical theatre, Landgren explains, “Keeping with the University of Cincinnati’s proud tradition of cooperative education and experiential learning, this collaboration with Kevin and Alchemation will present our students with extraordinary opportunities to hone their craft while working to develop future theatre classics. Developing Broadway’s blockbusters-of-tomorrow with CCM’s stars-of-tomorrow is a win-win.”

About Kevin McCollum
With a career spanning 25 years in the theatre industry, Kevin McCollum remains one of the most prolific and successful producers on Broadway today. He has received the Tony Award for Best Musical for In the Heights (2008), Avenue Q (2004) and Rent (1996), which also won the Pulitzer Prize. He produced Motown the Musical (Broadway and National Tour), The Drowsy Chaperone in 2006, which won five Tony Awards, Baz Luhrmann’s production of Puccini’s La Boheme in 2002, [title of show] in 2008, the touring and Broadway productions of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, the off-Broadway hit De La Guarda, the recent hit revival of West Side Story and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.

In 1995 McCollum co-founded the Producing Office, and has since created Alchemation, a theatrical and media producing company committed to new work. In addition to his training at CCM, McCollum earned his Master’s degree in film producing from the Peter Stark Program at the University of Southern California.

In 1995, McCollum received the Robert Whitehead Award for Outstanding Commercial Theatre Producing. In 2005, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cincinnati. He is represented on Broadway this spring with the original musical Something Rotten! and the new American play Hand to God. His wife is actress and fellow UC graduate Lynette Perry-McCollum (BM Musical Theatre, 1985).

About Alchemation
Founded in 2012, Alchemation is a theatre and media company under McCollum’s leadership. Productions under the Alchemation banner include Motown the Musical, Something Rotten!, Hand to God and the third season of theatrical web-series Submissions Only. In the summer of 2013, McCollum entered a joint venture with 20th Century Fox to develop titles from the Fox catalogue into stage properties.

About CCM
Nationally ranked and internationally renowned, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) is a preeminent institution for the performing and media arts. Declared “one of the nation’s leading conservatories” by the New York Times, CCM provides life-changing experiences within a highly creative and multidisciplinary artistic environment.

CCM’s educational roots date back to 1867, and a solid, visionary instruction has been at our core since that time. The synergy created by housing CCM within a comprehensive public university gives the college its unique character and defines its objective: to educate and inspire the whole artist and scholar for positions on the world’s stage.

CCM’s faculty and staff and its state-of-the-art facilities make possible the professional training and exceptional education on which CCM believes the future of the arts relies. The school’s roster of eminent faculty regularly receives distinguished honors for creative and scholarly work, and its alumni have achieved notable success in the performing and media arts.

More than 150 internationally recognized faculty members work with students from around the world, specializing in the areas of Composition, Musicology and Theory; Electronic Media; Ensembles and Conducting; Keyboard Studies; Music Education; Performance Studies and Theatre Arts, Production and Arts Administration.

The largest single source of performing arts events in the state of Ohio, CCM presents nearly 1000 major public performances each year, ranging from faculty and guest artist concerts to fully supported opera, musical theatre, drama and dance productions.

For more information about the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, please visit us online at ccm.uc.edu.