Kimmel Center's SHOW STOPPERS Set for Perelman Theater, 5/13

After a semester of learning, collaborating, and developing their theatrical skills, Kimmel Center Education Department's Show Stoppers celebrates the end of its spring session with Rave Revues, a program of works featuring the music of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Bernstein's West Side Story, and Porter's Anything Goes in Perelman Theater on May 13 at 7 p.m.

This free community concert showcases the musical theater, dance and vocal talents of over 30 passionate students, grades 9 to12 from throughout the region. Familiar tunes such as "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'," "America," and "Anything Goes," are part of the evening's program. To reserve your seat for this free performance, click here.

The weekly after-school program launched this season under the leadership of Kimmel Center Education Manager Carole Frazier. She has brought together a critically acclaimed group of teaching artists with acting, dancing and Broadway credits to their names, to instruct the inaugural Show Stoppers program with weekly after school instruction sessions. Show Stoppers encourages young musical theater artists to explore their talents in acting, singing, and dance, engaging them in a weekly instructional group setting with other enthusiastic young singers, dancers, and actors from area high schools.
For more information on Show Stoppers, visit kimmelcenter.org/education/showstoppers.php

Show Stoppers teaching artists currently instructing the Spring session include:

Comedian Jennifer Blaine, known for shedding light on socially relevant newsworthy topics through comedy, teaches Show Stoppers' Theater Arts. Blaine has opened for George Carlin, and has performed with Chris Rock and Joe Piscopo in the past. She is a graduate from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and founder of "5,000 Women," which supports artists and activists committed to creating works that inspire change in the world.

Dancer Jaquetta Colson received her B.F.A in Dance Education from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She has performed with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and abroad in X'oa, China and Holland. Colson is the founder of the Living Arts Dance and Fitness Studio in Fairmount, where she teaches dance and fitness classes to adults and children.

Reginald Pindell is a baritone, versatile artist who teaches jazz vocals. He represents a broad and diverse repertoire that ranges from standard classical to popular works. Pindell has performed as a soloist with several orchestras, including, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. He has also worked with conductors including Robert Shaw, David Zinman, Sarah Cladwell, Peter Nero, and Erich Kunzel. Pindell's voice has taken him far and wide as he has sung internationally in Bermuda, France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg Russia, Italy, China, and Japan.

Program Director Carol Frazier is a graduate of Oberlin College Conservatory of Music (Bachelor of Piano Performance and Masters of Music Teaching) and Southern Methodist University, where she received a Master of Sacred Music with an emphasis in Choral Conducting. A former twenty-four year veteran teacher of the School District of Philadelphia, she is the 1996 recipient of the Rose Lindenbaum Award for excellence in teaching. Frazier is the Minister of Music at the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia, and performs as an artist here and in Europe on jazz festivals with her gospel group Agape/New Spirit, which earned the 2005 "Grand Prix du Jazz/Gospel Disque" from the Hot Club of France.

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