A shot at center stage
They can sing. They can dance. They care about their community, and the 22 members of a newly formed youth song and dance troupe know they want
Posted: Aug. 9, 2008
Menomonee Falls - A new performing arts group for children already is making a splash on the local scene in the six weeks since it first hit the stage, but it is doing much more than singing and dancing.
The Main Street Song and Dance Troupe was created to provide a venue for kids, ages 11-18, from the Milwaukee metro area to showcase their talents.
The group's founders, though, added a twist, and it's not a dance move.
Off stage, troupe members are required to perform community service.
"We really try to focus on giving back to the community, looking outside of our own little world. We feel it is important to try to do what we can for others," said Eileen Curran, vice president of the Menomonee Falls-based troupe.
After their performances at Falls Fest last month, troupe members spent nine hours during the festival weekend running the children's games.
Curran, whose daughter Mackenzie performs with the troupe, says community service meshes with the group's mission that states: "At the end of the Main Street Song and Dance Troupe experience, it is our goal that our young performers will enter society as individuals with the core values of respect, honesty, responsibility and commitment in their daily lives and future endeavors."
Curran of Menomonee Falls was among a group of parents who decided to form the troupe after realizing there were limited performance venues for children who wanted to both sing and dance. Accompany of Kids, a non-profit youth ensemble, also is based in the Falls and has been performing for more than 20 years.
After auditions in May, 22 young adults began rehearsing in mid-June under the direction of Jeremy Nickolai, a dance and voice instructor with extensive theater experience.
"It's a great group of kids. Each sings and dances just as well as the other," he said.
In just six weeks, they were performing as if they had been together for quite some time.
"When people ask us how long we've been performing, they can't believe it's just six weeks," Nickolai said. "My expectations for the group always have been very high. I keep setting the level higher and higher, and they keep reaching it."
For its first summer season, the troupe has been performing "Broadway for My Generation," show tunes from the last 18 years. Among them are ABBA songs from "Mamma Mia!," "Masquerade" from " The Phantom of the Opera," "Footloose," "One Day More" from "Les Miserables" and "Circle of Life" from " The Lion King."
Nickolai said it's "always been a dream of mine" to work with young performers in a setting such as the Main Street Song and Dance Troupe.
"I always wanted to perform as a child, but there was nothing like this. I went to college seeking to be the greatest performer on Broadway. I learned my passion was teaching kids," he said.
Theater rehearsal space
The group practices twice a week at the old Marcus theater on Main St. in Menomonee Falls, and is sponsored by the Falls Fest group, which owns the theater.
In addition to performing at Falls Fest, the group performed Aug. 3 at SummerStage of Delafield at Lapham Peak State Park and Aug. 6 at the Tamarack Place, an assisted living center in Menomonee Falls.
For its winter season, Nickolai said the troupe will be working on Christmas songs, most likely from the 1940s. He's hoping to have a tap dance number, and even though the troupe's members aren't tap dancers, he's certain they will be up for the challenge.
Parent Lynn Gruman of Brookfield, whose daughter Brianna Gardner is in the group, attributes much of the success of the troupe to Nickolai and to the vision of the group's founders.
"The group had the vision that we wanted to see - trying to really create a positive environment for kids," Gruman said, noting that she had seen other groups in which performers' egos made participation an unpleasant experience.
"We're down to earth, friendly people who believe you should treat each other nicely. This group emphasizes that. The kids all get along. They are supportive of one another and congratulate each other. These kids realize it's a group, it's a team. It's just a beautiful thing to see," Gruman said.
"As a parent, I'm so thankful they came along and saw something in my daughter that allowed her dreams to flourish," Gruman said of the troupe.
Brianna, 13, said she wants to pursue singing and dancing as a career.
"I joined the group because this is something I really like. I thought it would be a great way for me to get a start," said Brianna, who also landed a role in the Lake Country Players production of the "King and I."
The troupe's performances have been crowd-pleasers.
"I think we're doing fabulous. The songs are just like really fun, and when we performed at Falls Fest that Saturday, we had a fairly large crowd. On Sunday, we more than tripled our crowd size. People brought people back," she said.
The singing was so good that some people wondered whether the group had been lip-synching.
"We weren't, so that was really cool," Brianna said.
From the Aug. 10, 2008 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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Main Street Song and Dance Troupe
