Student Blog: Hartt Junior Cabaret

Hi guys! My name is Erika Spondike, and I'm a junior BFA music theatre major at The Hartt School in West Hartford, CT.

This past year has been pretty crazy, and so many of us have been looking for opportunities to perform and pursue our passions.

The Junior Music Theatre Class at the Hartt School has been looking to create these opportunities for ourselves alongside the digital performances we've been able to put on amidst the pandemic. So we're putting on a cabaret!!

Completely student-organized, about 2/3 of the junior MTs have banded together to show off our skills. We are so excited to upload and stream our work this Sunday, March 28th at 8pm EST.

This week I sat down with my incredibly talented peer who has been putting it all together behind the scenes: Emily Dunn!

ES: Hi Emily!! I'm so happy to have you with me today. Would you mind just telling me a little bit about yourself! Who you are, where you're from...

ED: Yeah! So my name is Emily Dunn. I'm a junior musical theatre major at the Hartt School. I'm from Medford, New Jersey which is South Jersey. I have a passion for musical theatre! I wanted to pursue it, and I wanted to come to Hartt! It's a great school, I recommend it. I've been learning so much these past three years, and I'm excited to get the ball rolling for the future.

ES: Lovely! And you are - I do not remember the title, I'm not gonna lie, you're our performance chair?

ED: I think - Yes! I think that's what it is. Performance chair.

ES: Something like that. So that means you are in charge of our Junior Cabaret which will be super fun! I'm so happy that we're finally doing this.

ED: Me too, cuz it's been- we've had many detours!

ES: Because wasn't it supposed to be a sophomore cabaret?

ED: Yep, and then, you know... Miss Corona came right in!

ES: Oh yes... Love to see it... because then COVID sent us home, and then in the fall I think we tried and then scrambled, but here we are now!

ED: Yes! We're ready we're doing it!

ES: And we're all doing it together! What our class is like thirty-some people?

ED: Yeah, I think 32 in total.

ES: 32 in total and I think we have 20 of us involved?

ED: Yeah, sounds about right.

a??ES: It's just really nice. I was just thinking about how sad it was that we got our sophomore projects taken away, or a lot of us did just because of COVID. And we really missed out on some of those original performance opportunities. So I love this, I love that we're doing this as a way to bring that back, and we're making this a fundraiser!

ED: And we're donating a portion of our proceeds to the Harriet Apothecary Foundation which is a charity that benefits BIPOC and their physical and mental health in lower-income communities! So trying to make a difference as well as support our Senior Showcase.

ES: Absolutely! And our fundraiser went live a couple days ago?

ED: It went live on Friday! And we've already raised - wait I actually just checked it - we've raised $950!

ES: Yes! That's awesome! Our goal was $1,000 and [the cabaret] hasn't even happened yet! I'm so excited. What will you be serving us in this Cabaret, Emily Dunn?

ED: I will be serving - Yoni Haller and I, my roommate, will be giving Two People in Love from Baby!

ES: I love that! Oh, wow, Baby is such a good show for you.

ED: I know, I know! I'm so excited - giving a little 80s! It'll be fun and cute.

ES: A little moment from our MT History class.

ED: (laughter) exactly.

ES: That's awesome, I'm so excited. And Yoni - I know we're recording the opening to A Chorus Line tomorrow in our jazz class.

ED: Yes! I'm so excited! It's all gonna be really good. It's coming together.

ES: I'm sure you've already been editing away.

ED: Yes, I've been editing away. I'm in a Computer in the Arts class because I'm a Performing Arts Management minor. So I'm learning all about garage band and iMovie which is perfect cuz now I'm incorporating it into Cabaret. And I'm editing everyone's voices together for a group number which is coming along really nicely! It sounds really good so far!

ES: We're doing For Now from Avenue Q, which I think is so fitting.

ED: I know. It's fitting, it's cute. We changed up the words a little bit to make it trendy.

ES: We love to see it! And I think there's lots of different trios and duets. We're all singing with our roommates or doing solos, which I think is really smart.

ED: Yeah we're just trying to showcase - our class is very diverse in terms of what we can show. And I think that we're all showcasing our best, and it's going to have a lot of different performances. I think it's going to be great, and I'm really excited for it.

ES: I'm just really excited because I feel like I haven't seen our class perform!

ED: Literally, like it's going to be exciting for us too. Just to see everyone perform.

ES: And remind me when it's coming out!

ED: Sunday, March 28th, 8pm on YouTube. It will be on the event [Facebook] page, the link.

Follow Emily on Instagram @emilydunn03 as well as our class page @harttmtat22.

Be sure to tune into the Junior Cabaret when it goes live this weekend! For more info about the cabaret and Harriet's Apothecary, check out the links below.

Harriet's Apothecary: http://www.harrietsapothecary.com/who-we-are

Facebook Event Link: https://fb.me/e/2lVwx6dwA