Voice for Musical Theater
About the Course
In this class, students will strengthen skills for confident singing, focusing on character-driven vocals, ensemble singing, and general singing technique. Each student will have the opportunity to sing solo material, as well as group singing. If this is your first time dipping a toe in the world of musical theatre, or if you're looking to brush up on your musical theatre skills this class has something for you.
While this intensive may be taken independently, it is an elective that is designed to work in conjunction with our Musical & Theater Foundations program. Please see that description or email plus@cornish.edu if you have any questions.
See the video below for the instructor, David Taylor Gomes', HBO documentary. My So-Called High School Rank!
My So-Called High School Rank | Official Trailer | HBO
My So-Called High School Rank chronicles the creation of a musical theater production at Granite Bay High School in Sacramento, CA, inspired by students’ stories of the constant pressures to achieve a top-rank in every part of their lives to get ahead in today’s fierce college admissions process.
In an uncanny case of art anticipating real life, Granite Bay’s musical “Ranked” was in the works weeks before Rick Singer and the “Varsity Blues” scandal made headlines in 2019. The play’s apt timing and subject matter speak to a culture where many students feel driven to succeed at any cost.
The film features the “Ranked” creators Kyle Holmes and David Taylor Gomes, as well as students, parents and staff of Granite Bay High School and Cupertino High School in California, Fordham High School for the Arts in New York City, and Ripley High School in West Virginia.
Related Theater Classes
Musical & Theater Foundations
A fundamental acting education supports the ability to be successful in any career in musical theater, theatrical plays, and performance production. In this four-week intensive, teens will explore the world of the character through work on sensory awareness, physical involvement, imagination, and communication. Beyond any single production, teens
Technical Theater
Learn about bringing theatre to life through aspects of technical theater. Each day, teens will explore through professional back-stage environments to give them an understanding of what it takes to run a performance from the back end. This elective is perfect for the teen who loves theatre, ballet, music - any aspect of live performance -
Costume Design
Costume Design is focused on exploring the job of a costume designer and understanding their role as part of a collaborative design team working on a production. Teens will explore the role and processes of designing costumes from the initial reading of a script, to conceptual work and research, design techniques and principles, and
Stage & Screen Combat
Both an acting and a physical technique course, this class explores character movement in the context of a specific physical form: stage combat (armed and unarmed), including rapier, dagger, and broadsword. Performers develop greater specificity of movement, clarity of physical choices, and balance of one’s own energy with that of a partner. 
Acting for Stage and Screen
This intensive exposes teens to the actor’s “instrument” - their body and voice - and the habits of healthy performance; establishing skills, concepts, terminology, and goals from which subsequent training can spring. Teens will learn about their instrument as a complex and unified system, the mechanics of the body, and the steps
Dance for Musical Theater
In the last 10 years dance and how it relates to the world has evolved so much. Whether it be the prevalent use of hip hop and street dance in contemporary Musical Theater or the infectious fun moves of Tik Tok. In this elective, students will learn about the shift in culture with movement and understanding the styles that got us here! 
