Bebe Neuwirth Set for ARTS PROJECT WITH MADDIE ORTON Tonight

Lessons Learned by Bebe Neuwirth will be featured on the next THE ARTS PROJECT WITH MADDIE ORTON, airing tonight, 4/23 at 8pm.

In this episode, Maddie Orton talks to stage and TV star Bebe Neuwirth, who's fame stretches from Cheers to Chicago on Broadway. She reminisces about her early years learning dance, wanting to be a ballerina, and talks about the importance of good teaching guiding her life choices, and the epiphany that came to her while watching Pippin when she was 13, making her realize she could transition her passion for theater to musical theater.

Eventually, she went on to work with Bob Fosse and expanded her roles to television (perhaps best known for playing the intellectual wife of Kelsey Grammer's character on Cheers and Frasier). But she is adamant about how good teachers were crucial to her career, and the way that dance class preps individuals for the real WORLD through discipline and respect.

In another segment of this episode, the American Repertory Ballet (from which Neuwirth hailed when she grew up in the Princeton area) puts its spin on gym class for hundreds of New Jersey students, teaching them discipline and the importance of fitness, emphasizing that dancers are athletes in their own right (one example: Baryshnikov could leap over five feet, the average basketball player up to three!)

Plus, the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra takes on a movie, Casablanca, putting live music to film at NJPAC.

Learn more about The Arts Project with Maddie Orton here. Follow updates on The Arts Project with Maddie Orton on Tumblr and Twitter: @MaddieOrtonNJTV;TheArtsProjectNJTV.tumblr.com and #TheArtsProjectNJTV.

Viewers may also send arts story ideas to ortonm@njtvnews.org.

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