Tada Concludes 20th Season With EVERYTHING TO KNOW ABOUT SCHOOL (ALMOST)

TADA! YOUTH THEATER is pleased to announce the upcoming production of EVERTHING ABOUT SCHOOL (ALMOST). Conceived by Eric Rockwell. Music and Lyrics by Brad Alexander, Daniel Aquisto, Deirdre Broderick, Helen Chayefsky, Richard Chiarappa, Van Dean, David Ganon, Keith Gordon, Bruce Keisling, Jim Lochner, Margaret Rose, Dan Shore, Shawn Sturnick, and Eddie Sugarman, EVERYTHING ABOUT SCHOOL (ALMOST) will be directed and choreographed by Joanna Greer. The limited engagement will be at TADA! Youth Theater (15 West 28th St. 2nd Fl. New York, NY 10001). Performances begin Friday, July 12 and continue through Sunday, August 4. Press is invited to every performance.

EVERYTHING ABOUT SCHOOL (ALMOST) concludes TADA!’s season celebrating 20 years of working with composer Eric Rockwell who conceived this show in 2002 as the second installment of TADA!’s popular “Everything About” series of musical revues focusing of a familiar topic like camp or family. In it we follow eight kids from elementary school through high school graduation in a comic look at how friendships are built and memories are made. Includes popular TADA! hits like “I Hate Gym,” “Can’t keep still,” and “On the Menu Today.” 

EVERYTHING ABOUT SCHOOL (ALMOST) cast is comprised of members of TADA!’s Resident Youth Ensemble; talented kids between the ages of 8 and 18 from the NY-metro area who participate in this FREE year-round youth development.

BIOGRAPHIES: 

Eric Rockwell (Book/Music) is a musician, teacher, dramatist and award-winning composer of several critically acclaimed musicals. His work has been produced off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally. A 2004 Drama Desk nominee for best music, Eric composed the score and co-wrote the book to The Musical of Musicals (the Musical!) which, after two years of performances in New York, went on to have success on London’s West End, as well as in regional theatres from coast to coast. Eric was a member of the BMI-Lehman Engle Musical Theatre Workshop, where in addition to creating Musical of Musicals, he developed the score to A Little Princess, which was chosen for both the Dramatists Guild New Musicals Project and the New Tuners Festival at the Chicago Theatre Building. Mr. Rockwell has composed the scores to several musicals for children, including Golly Gee Whiz, a loving satire of the Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney movie musicals of the thirties which was written as a commission for TADA!. The show was featured on Lincoln Center's Reel to Real series, and recently won a National Youth Theatre award for outstanding original musical. Other shows created for young audiences include The Trials of Alice in Wonderland, based on the work of Lewis Carroll and Princess Phooey, a very fractured fairytale. Eric collaborated with several of his colleagues to create Everything About School (Almost), an irreverent buT Loving look at elementary, junior high, and high school. All these shows were originally produced by the TADA! Youth Theater.

For several years, Eric was the resident music director of TADA! and taught theater and music extensively in the New York area. At the Rockwell Music Studio, he offers private instruction in piano and voice. An actor and singer himself, Eric has performed many musical theater and light opera roles in off-Broadway and regional theaters. As a pianist, Mr. Rockwell is in the process of recording the complete canon of 19th century composer Stephen Heller.

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