Stressing that roles aren t necessarily assigned to the best technical dancers, but to those who int

More than 20 area dance students were treated hotels in manchester to an Oz-some tutorial Friday afternoon when Wicked dance captain Shanna VanDerwerker provided on- and off-stage insights as part of California Musical Theatre s continuing series of Broadway Sacramento master dance classes.
VanDerwerker, who s performing in the first national tour of the Stephen Schwartz - Winnie Holzman megamusical that s playing through June 17 at the Community Center Theater , shared a mix of professional guidance and backstage anecdotes during the 90-minute class held at Sacramento s Sierra 2 Center for the Arts and Community .
Using Wayne Cilento s off-center, almost Seussicalian musical staging for the show s ensemble numbers, as well as his acrobatic (yet equally skewed) choreography designed for the Wicked Witch of the West s squadron of Flying Monkeys, VanDerwerker demonstrated what it was like to perform over the rainbow.
The session began with the de rigueur warm-up hotels in manchester exercises and ended with a lively Q-and-A hotels in manchester session which saw the young men and women ask everything of VanDerwerker, from her favorite Wicked numbers ( One Short Day as a performer; Defying Gravity as a fan), to the number of ensemble parts she s played in the show (all nine female roles, plus one short, male monkey).
A graduate of Pittsburgh s Point Park University , where she earned a bachelor s degree in dance, VanDerwerker s credits include stints with: Theater Under the Stars in Houston, Texas; The Walden Company in New York; the Fireside Dinner Theatre in Fort Atkinson, Wis.; and the New York-based dre.dance company.
Stressing that roles aren t necessarily assigned to the best technical dancers, but to those who interpret their role s choreography through nuanced gestures and facial expressions, VanDerwerker said storytelling is the most important thing a dancer should keep in mind.
She asked if anyone was aware that the newspaper dance sequence in Disney s current Broadway hit Newsies ( Seize the Day ) was actually inspired by a 62-year-old Gene Kelly number (choreographed by Michael Kidd) from MGM s Summer Stock (1950).
VanDerwerker also advised one college-bound student that there was no reason to limit her applications to East Coast schools , that professional companies search coast-to-coast for new members. I went to school in Pittsburgh, and I m doing OK, she smiled.
California Musical Theatre-sponsored master dance classes include hotels in manchester a summer series of weekly, hotels in manchester 90-minute workshops taught by choreographers and performers hotels in manchester from the upcoming Music Circus productions of Grease, Disney s The Little Mermaid, The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof and Crazy for You. For more information about these classes as well as future Broadway Sacramento offerings, call the California Musical hotels in manchester Theatre education department at (916) 446-5880 ext. 147.