Kate C. TakeLessons Instructor music, singing, audition techniques, help for dancers who are scared at singer calls, acting a... Crecent st. First, Astoria, NY

Kate is an Equity actress who has just recently moved to New York City from the Los Angeles area. She started her performance career in the ballet world at age 5, performing leads in ballets (Clara in The Nutcracker, Wicked Stepsister in Cinderella, Hansel in Hansel and Gretl) and teaching her own ballet and tap classes starting at age 13. She danced only classically until the world of musical theatre pulled her in at age 15.

She started dancing in the ensembles of musicals like Brigadoon and Meet Me in St. Louis until she went to college and started taking singing lessons. She got her first leading role (Sargeant Sarah Brown) at 19 in a college production of Guys and Dolls, and followed that with one of her favorite roles, Dot in Sunday in the Park with George.

She got her degree in Musical Theatre from the University of California, Irvine, and then went on to do a few years of summer stock in the east (Weathervane Playhouse in Ohio) doing some great roles (Sargeant Sarah, again, Marian Peroo in The Music Man, Johanna in Sweeney Todd, and Maria VonTrapp in The Sound of Music).

Between shows, Kate would travel to various locations and teach ballet and singing to kids. She started to learn to play the piano and was able to begin a modest private voice lesson practice as well. Then, in 2004, she was accepted into the post-graduate program at the Oxford School of Drama in England, where she played Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream and the quirky Bessie Higginbotham in Tennesee Williams' A Perfect Analysis Given By A Parrot.

After school, she and a business parter started their own theatre company in California, Light Hat Productions, and over the next three years, they produced one-woman cabarets, independant film screenings, and new play readings. Kate also began teaching all levels of voice, ballet and theatre dance regularly at studios in Southern California, preparing yearly recital pieces and getting kids ready for competitions. Then, last year, after a spate of some regional lead roles (Fiona in Brigadoon and Maria VonTrapp in The Sound of Music) Kate got to play her dream role, Eliza Doolittle in a Los Angeles Production of My Fair Lady. She moved to New York in that same year to follow the Broadway dream once again.

Recently, she has started a new theatre company, Claramarian Productions, which should start producing works this fall. She continues to teach voice in the city mainly to kids who are following the broadway dream, and dancers who get past all the cuts and are terrified when auditioners say, "ok, get your books and sing." She has taught every level, from Broadway chorus dancer to financial advisor with a secret yen for performing to kids who love to sing, and she loves watching her regular students improve from week to week, getting out there to auditions and booking jobs!!!!

This is the structure of each lesson: 

For the first 5 minutes, we do a physical wake up session (stretching out the face, jaw and spine, warming up the body to get out of normal mode and into singing mode). 

For the following 25 minutes, we do vocal exercises and warm ups to increase range, voice strength, and the student's understanding of the mechanisms of singing and how their own voice works (breath support, relaxation, focus, resonance, projection, etc). 

For the last half hour, we work through a song that the student wants or needs to sing, whether it be for auditions, for choir, for school, for fun, whatever! We get the song to be in a place where it feels good, it's not difficult or out of their range, and the student is ready to perform it in front of auditioners or audiences. 

I ask that students bring a bottle of water and if they want, some sort of recording device so they can practice later. I do not require students to practice outside of lessons unless they want to. Singing has to come from the desire to sing, not from force. If you force the voice, you injure the voice. I also require that the students bring sheet music that they want to work on every week. I can help with titles and song choices, but it's up to the students to get the sheet music. 

After a few months of weekly lessons with me, a student will have an audition book (if their goal is auditioning) of songs in their range and they will feel comfortable going to auditions and singing a 32, 16, or 8 bar cut. If the goal is fun and exploration, they will have an understanding of their instrument and be able to feel comfortable singing solo or speaking in front of other people. And, for the more advanced students, they will feel able to properly act or interpret a song with sound quality and physical choices that match acting intention. Singing lessons with me are an opening up of the body and voice to be better equipped to perform the way you know you can perform!

breath support, relaxation, uta hagen, some bel canto, understanding the meaning of a song.

music, singing, audition techniques, help for dancers who are scared at singer calls, acting a song.