BSR_S01E14 - Music Theatre Philly - Mindy Dougherty
On this podcast, we meet Mindy Dougherty, co-founder with Dan Dunn of Midtown Village's musical-theater training program Music Theatre Philly. Both Dougherty and Dunn have Broadway bona fides, and they have worked on some of the region's best-known stages. The company offers a unique blend of classes for both children and adults with "quadruple threat" aspirations: acting, voice, (several types of) dance, and music (guitar and piano).
Mind the gap
About 20 years ago, Dougherty noticed a gap between what she learned in Philadelphia's performance-training programs and the skills she saw in students coming out of a comprehensive independent program in Pittsburgh. She worked and attended graduate school in New York, but when she returned home to Philadlephia, she realized nobody in this city had stepped in during the intervening years to fill that gap. That's where Music Theatre Philly comes in, and Dougherty hopes it will help create this city's next generation of great stage talent.