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Kevin
Connors
(Executive Artistic Director
& Co-Founder)
Professional musical theatre composer and director for over 30 years. Off-Broadway credits include Prime Time Prophet, Jukebox Saturday Night, The Abandoned Loves of Frederick R., Life Anonymous, Lover - The Valentino Musical, Babes Off Broadway(finalist for the Michael Stewart Production Award), Saloon and Suzy Q. Connecticut directing credits include numerous professional productions including The Fantasticks, It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Babes in Toyland, Bah Humbug! (all at Stamford’s Rich Forum); Grand Re-Opening of the Palace Theatre starring Skitch Henderson, Louise Pitre, James Naughton and Joan Rivers; Baby (Polka Dot Playhouse), Christopher Columbus andOperetta in Red, White and Blue (New England Lyric Operetta). Mr. Connors began his career as a performer touring his own act with Bob Hope, Henny Youngman and Johnny Mathis, and his debut CD - The Things We Never Say - was released in October 2000. In 1987 he co-founded Music Theatre of Connecticut with Jim Schilling, and has since directed many of the Equity MTC MainStage productions including Yours, Anne (Connecticut Critics Circle award nominee), It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (2008 Moss Hart Award Winner), A Little Night Music, Edges, john & jen, Doubt, My Way: The Music of Frank Sinatra and The Last 5 Years; as well as writing original music and lyrics for more than 10 children’s musicals. His latest work, Mothers and Sons (with playwright Joe Landry) had its critically-acclaimed World Premiere on the MTC Mainstage in January 2009 and is currently in development for Off-Broadway. He has served as Adjunct Professor of Musical Theatre at The Hartt School of Music/University of Hartford, Guest Teaching Artist in Acting at Sacred Heart University, the University of Bridgeport, and at Musical Theatre Works in NYC. He has created many of MTC’s educational programs including the nationally-recognized College-Bound in the Performing Arts, which he now presents at theatre schools throughout the country. Kevin is a proud member of AEA, ASCAP and The Dramatists Guild. www.kevconnors.com
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Jim
Schilling
(Managing Director
& Co-Founder)
co-founded MTC in 1987 and has served as teaching artist, Artist in Residence, director, general manager, actor, producer and currently as Director of the School of Performing Arts. He has directed a number of MTC MainStage productions including Something’s Afoot, Some Enchanted Evening and I Do, I Do. He has also directed numerous Student Productions including Anything Goes, Oliver!, The Music Man, 42nd Street, Guys and Dolls, Annie (all at the Westport Country Playhouse) The Sound of Music, Grease (3x),Godspell (3x), Funny Girl, (at the Quick Center) Annie, Annie Get Your Gun, Once On This Island, Zombie Prom and Lucky Stiff. Acting credits include Upper Broadway starring Nanette Fabray (Westport Country Playhouse), Hamlet (starring Tony Roberts), The Fantasticks (Rich Forum), It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play (3x), and on MTC’s MainStage in Jacques Brel is Alive and Well..., Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down,and Yours, Anne. Film credits include Bullets Over Broadway, Cadillac Man, Soapdishand Dead Man Walking. As an arts educator, Jim has created a number of programs for MTC School of Performing Arts and for MTC’s ArtReach programs in area schools including Briggs High School (Norwalk),Weston Public Schools, Minds In Motion (Westport/Weston/Wilton), Rogers Magnet School (Stamford), Six-to-Six School (Bridgeport) and Coleytown Middle and Elementary Schools in Westport. Jim holds a BFA degree in Musical Theatre from Otterbein College with an emphasis on children’s theatre, was trained at the Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, Playwright’s Horizons in New York City and Improv Asylum in Boston. Jim, a graduate of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts’ AMICI Arts Management Program, continues as a Blue Ribbon Panelist for the Daytime Emmy Awards, and a member of “Who’s Who in the American Theatre” from 1991-present. Member AEA, SAG, AFTRA and the Theatre Artists’ Workshop. |
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