CMU Drama Professors and Alumni Encourage High School Students To Find Their Voice

A group of high school theatre students discovered the power of self-expression through the performing arts during a day-long master class with Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama faculty.

The master class at Creators Academy in Brooklyn, New York, was part of the annual Excellence in Theatre Education Award(opens in new window), presented at the Tony Awards by CMU, in partnership with the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League. This year’s recipient, Gary Edwin Robinson, and his theatre students spent an October day with CMU faculty who shared their expertise in acting, musical theatre and dance.

“This was an opportunity for Mr. Robinson’s students to spend time with our teachers and to get a taste of what a day at CMU is like,” said Robert Ramirez, head of the School of Drama. “But it was also a wonderful opportunity for our teachers to work with new students who are at the very beginning of their journeys.”

Along with Ramirez, this year’s guest faculty were School of Drama professors Bria Walker-Rhoze(opens in new window) (acting), Rick Edinger(opens in new window) (music theatre), and Tomé Cousin(opens in new window) (dance).

Walker-Rhoze kicked off the day leading the students through a warm-up that taught some of the fundamentals of preparing their bodies and voices for acting work before introducing them to cold reading techniques. This is when actors are given a script shortly before they are asked to perform (usually for an audition) and have to quickly analyze and make choices based on the text.

“It’s important for actors to be able to think on their feet and make big, bold choices,” Walker-Rhoze said. “And it’s also about bringing themselves into the work.”

The idea of bringing oneself into the work was a theme that carried throughout the day, and a message that resonated with 12th grader Keshawn Flemming.

“In the acting session, I learned that to be yourself is the most important thing,” he said. When he found himself getting hung up on the blocking or the lines, he came back to Walker-Rhoze’s initial prompt:

“It’s about getting up there and giving your interpretation of what the text is. I want to see the choices and ideas you have.”

In the room where it happened

Following the acting session, the students gathered for a Q&A session. Robinson knew that the CMU faculty would be bringing along one of the School of Drama’s working alumni to talk to his students about a career in the performing arts, but just who that alumnus would be was kept a secret. Ramirez gathered the students for a special surprise.

“We are super excited and very happy because we have with us today an actor, singer, author, and star of the smash Broadway hit ‘Hamilton’ — Mr. Leslie Odom, Jr!”

Odom, Jr. walked into a room of shocked and smiling faces, including that of Robinson. The two met during Tony Awards weekend and Robinson had asked Odom, Jr. if he would come and speak to his students someday.

“I don’t think he knew I was coming today,” Odom, Jr. said with a laugh. “But I said yes because I’m so thankful for how he has chosen to spend his life and use his time on this planet, because I don’t know where I would be without my teachers.”

In a discussion led by Ramirez, Odom, Jr. told the students what it was like to make his Broadway debut in “Rent” at just 17 years old, and why he decided to attend CMU to study drama.

“I went to Carnegie Mellon University to get a foundation and to get a process,” he said, “and I walked away with those things and so much more. I walked away with lifelong friends. I walked away with a craft that continues to evolve.”

Odom, Jr. spent an hour talking with the students about what has shaped him as a human and as an artist, lessons he’s learned along the way, and sharing pearls of wisdom as they begin their own journeys into adulthood. One piece of advice he gave was to be mindful about the world they curate for themselves.

“What are you watching, what are you listening to, what are you taking in that is affirming you? That is making sure you see yourself as beautiful, as valuable, as important, as sensitive, as special, as a human being?” he posed. “If there are times when you feel off, or not as powerful or as special as you want to feel, look at what you’re taking in.”

His overall message to the students was one of self-affirmation, encouraging them to trust and say yes to their own instincts as they begin to step into the world as adults.

“The hardest yes is the one you give to yourself,” he told the students. “‘Yes. I am valuable. I am enough.’ It takes practice, but you’ll get good at it. Start saying yes to yourself.”

Following Odom, Jr.’s session and a lunch break, the students were back to work — this time in a vocal session with Edinger, who taught them the song “Seasons of Love,” fittingly, from “Rent.” The students started by splitting into four vocal sections and learning their parts. Once they had a handle on the notes and the technical aspects of the song, Edinger encouraged them to dig into the meaning of the lyrics and to connect the message of the song to their own lived experiences. He asked the students to close their eyes.

“I want you to think about your last 525,600 minutes — your last year,” he said. “When you sing about ‘a moment so dear,’ what is so dear to you? When you say ‘in daylights,’ what are daylights like for you? What’s your favorite time of day?”

He continued this exercise through each lyric of the verse, prompting the students to make personal connections with the song before their final sing-through of it.

Khyasia Cornelius, a 9th grader, said the vocal class was her favorite part of the day.

“I like to sing a lot,” she said, “We learned how to put our own emotions into the song and how to think like we were in the song.” 

The last session of the day was a dance class with Cousin. He started with a fast-paced, energetic warm-up, then divided the students into two groups. He told them that choreography is storytelling and asked each group to take four minutes and choreograph a short piece that told the same story as the acting pieces they worked on earlier in the day with Walker-Rhoze. The students came up with two distinct pieces of choreography, learning the power of movement in storytelling and the challenges in creating under time pressure.

Cousin then introduced an exercise called “Monster” that he learned as a young dancer and now teaches to his students at CMU, which is about channeling and unleashing each person’s inner monster. The practice inspired students to release their inhibitions and bring themselves into the movement.

“It’s important to teach Monster because everyone has this energy inside of them that they want to unleash,” Cousin said. “And once they identify that energy, they can free that out of their body and begin to apply characters to it.”

Finally, the students learned a piece of choreography set to Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” — a high-energy way to end a day packed with creativity and inspiration.

For Robinson, the master class provided an opportunity to observe his students as they learned, and to recognize talents and interests that they may not have known were there.

“One of the most beautiful parts about this experience is giving my students exposure to these disciplines at a different level,” said Robinson. “I got to see my students discover new things about themselves.”