Tarrytown Music Hall Academy Spotlights Local Talent Year-Round - The Hudson Indy Westchester's Rivertowns News - (2024)

October 23, 2024


And Spooky Halloween Productions Are on Tap

By W.B. King —

For nearly 140 years, The Tarrytown Music Hall has featured iconic acts like Irving Berlin, B.B. King, Levon Helm, David Crosby, Judy Collins, Dave Brubeck, Mavis Staples, Chita Rivera, Mandy Patinkin and Richard Lewis, to name just a few. The Music Hall not only shines a light on international stars but is also dedicated to cultivating up-and-coming young talent through The Music Hall Academy.

“We have had children who have learned how to focus, how to be part of a team, and how to dance and listen to music—some of whom couldn’t carry a tune before the came here,” said Theater Manager Karina Ringeisen. “It’s great if they make it to Broadway, but our first goal in the process is to get children to understand, learn and grow.”

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Betting on a Dream: All or Nothing

While The Music Hall Academy officially launched only in 2018, Ringeisen, a Tarrytown native, told The Hudson Independent that the concept of a community-based, theatrical education program was an outgrowth of her family’s history with the Music Hall, which dates back more than 40 years. Her father, Dr. Berthold Ringeisen, was a faculty member at Hackley School and later taught humanities and modern language courses at Marymount College. Her mother, Helen, a trained concert pianist, tutored local students.

“In the mid-1970s, Berthold spotted a rundown Victorian building on Prospect Avenue and convinced his wife to open The Mozartina Musical Arts Conservatory, the first music and dance school in Tarrytown,” said Karina, who noted that her father sadly passed away in 2007. “Together, they renovated the main house and old carriage house. This was in addition to her being a full-time piano teacher and mother. The school remains open to this day and Helen still teaches piano.”

Movie buffs, the Ringeisens enjoyed watching films in the Music Hall, which, at the time, was in an otherwise sad state of disrepair. The couple also served as board members on the non­profit organization, The Friends of the Mozartina Musical Arts Conservatory. When they learned that the Music Hall was facing possible demolition due to economic hardship, they devised a collective strategy to save the historic, 843-seat venue that once provided a speaking platform to former Presidents Woodward Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.

While a local banker, Stephen Byelick, approved a $50,000 loan, the Ringeisens were required to use their home, business and life savings as collateral. If the Music Hall failed, Harina shared, her family would have lost everything.

“I fell asleep on the floor after the shows while my parents cleaned late into the night,” Karina recalled. “I also remember waking up every morning (in my bed), wondering if the Music Hall would fail and [if] we would lose our home. We came close several times.”

The Power and Reach of Performing Arts Training

On Valentines Day 1980, the Tarrytown Music Hall moved forward under the direction of The Friends of the Mozartina Musical Arts Conservatory, with the managerial guidance of the Ringeisens.

“I basically grew up at the Music Hall seeing plays, such as Waiting for Godot and The Glass Menagerie and operas like Tosca and Don Giovanni,” Karina said, adding that she also caught performances by musicians like Wynton Marsalis and Bruce Springsteen.

Due to the hard work and dedication of countless employees and volunteers over the years, today the Music Hall thrives. The second generation of the Ringeisen family leadership began in 2003 with Karina and her husband, Bjorn Olsson, executive director of The Tarrytown Music Hall in charge. The talented couple met two years earlier while both performing on a European musical theater review tour—experiences like these helped to inform the foundational concepts of The Music Hall Academy.

Today, Kevin J. Kearins serves as the director of the Music Hall Academy as well as the artistic director of KJK Productions, the nonprofit arts organization he founded in 1982. Over the forthcoming years, he produced more than 75 mainstage and over 200 children’s theater productions in the tri-state area.

“We have provided thousands of children and adults with performing arts training,” noted Karina. “Together with Kevin J. Kearins, Lauryn Ciardullo and Hilary Sweeney, the Music Hall Academy has quickly grown to also include full vocal, theater and circus arts programs.”

Offering school theater residencies at no charge to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow’s Washington Irving School and its students, the Academy’s programming is wide-ranging. And while some Academy classes are fee-based, scholarships are offered through grants and other sponsorship. Students of all ages are provided professional, high-quality performing arts training in music, theater, voice, dance, aerial silk—all through lessons, classes, school residencies, youth theater productions, vacation camps and special events, Karina shared.

For many Academy students, hard work and dedication pays off. “Theo Lowenstein, a local 8th grader, just landed the role of Michael Hobbs in the Broadway National Tour of Elf,” Karina shared. “He studies voice with Ashley Brown at the Academy and has participated in several youth theater productions and master classes here. We’re arranging for students to go see him perform in November 2024 at the Palace Theater in Stamford, Conn. and cheer him on.”

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice Jr.

Among upcoming Academy performances and classes is the Teen Theater Production of Beetlejuice Jr.—the Music Hall is the first venue to present the show in Westchester. Taking place on October 27 at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., the show is directed by Lee N Price, who played the lead in the Broadway National Tour of Beetlejuice, and Jordan Singer. Sean McManus, also a cast member of Broadway’s Beetlejuice, serves as the choreographer. The upcoming production features students in grades 9 to 12 from all over Westchester, including Sleepy Hollow High School senior Erika Santocki who plays the role of Lydia Deetz, made famous by Winona Ryder in the 1988 film, Beetlejuice.

The day before that performance, Academy students will sing and dance in a pre-Halloween parade act on the stage of the Music Hall. There will also be arts and crafts and face painting for audience members. During the parade, Academy members will also march alongside Broadway performers, Karina shared, adding that the Academy often takes students to see performances at landmark venues in Manhattan’s Broadway district.

“Many of our students have gone on to Broadway or become professional musicians and a lot of other students have gone on to medical fields or have become scientists because music and theatre requires focus and discipline—so it can help them with any career they want to go in to,” she said.

The educational arm of the Music Hall also extends to its dedicated staff members and volunteers, many of whom use their creativity and talents to create exploratory dimensions, especially during the Halloween season. Among 2024 standouts is the Haunted Advent Calendar, currently displayed in front of the Music Hall.

“This is sponsored by Petchester Veterinary of Eastchester, crafted by Broadway set designer Steven Kendall, and imagined by Music Hall Production Manager Sylviane Sherwin,” Karina said. “Each day, someone from the community opens a door, counting down the days to the Halloween parade.”

Inspired by “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” the notorious black-and-white photograph of 11 ironworkers eating lunch on a steel beam of the RCA Building during the construction of Rockefeller Center in 1932, Cynthia Wyffels and volunteer Lee Parker, with assistance from Sherwin and Emma Armus, created a Halloween-inspired historical depiction. “Cindy did such a great job. She’s so talented—they all are,” Karina said. “We are lucky to have them.”

Wyffels, a longtime employee and Tarrytown resident, said she wears many hats at the Music Hall, including bar manager. An artist in her own right, creative projects like these are rewarding because she is proud to pay homage to Tarrytown’s rich and celebrated history.

“I spent a lot of time designing the décor—I come up with concepts and ways to go about achieving them. I do everything that I love and am so grateful for that,” Wyffels said, adding that she encourages people of all ages to come visit the Music Hall during the Halloween season, and beyond.

Among other current Music Hall interior highlights is another design by Sherwin, a pirate holding a handmade leather-bound notebook, which features a map made in 1780, when Tarrytown was known as “Tarwe-town,” the Dutch name for the grain they harvested and sent out to the ships in the Hudson River harbor. “The main roads and the Old Dutch Church are on the map,” Karina said. “Sylviane added a pirate’s black spot for the future location of the 1885 Music Hall.”

Paying Forward Quality Theatrical Education

Future Academy programming will include a musical in Spanish—students will sing and act entirely in Spanish, explained Karina. “We’re trying to find children who whose native language is Spanish, but also the dual language kids, so they have an opportunity to practice Spanish,” she said, adding that the name of the musical will be announced in the coming months.

“My idea is that a lot of times you will find Spanish speaking students will be part of our residencies. And I keep thinking, ‘First they have to translate, and then they act.’ So, it would be nice to give them the opportunity to act in their native language,” she said.

Additional Academy programs include a master class for grades four and up that is taught by Celia Nei Rubin who has performed in Broadway hits like Matilda and The Musical & Life of Pi. The class, which takes place on November 16, will focus on learning the lyrics and original Broadway choreography of “Revolting Children” from Matilda.

Michael Mindlin, currently the dance supervisor for the Broadway production of Hamilton and the Broadway National Touring production of Aladdin, will also teach a November 23 master class for high school students.

Like her mother, Helen, Karina, and the talented team at Academy Music Hall, remain dedicated to providing quality education to the community both near and far, including upcoming theatrical vacation camps that will be held this December and in February, April, July and August of 2025.

“Helen volunteered for over 23 years at the Music Hall—everything from booking, fundraising, painting and saving it from the wrecking ball so that it could be here for the community and next generation,” Karina said. She added that her mother has enjoyed countless performances over the years, including Joshua Bell, Pete Seeger, Tom Chapin, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Spanish flamenco guitarist, Sabicas.

“The Academy is proud to carry on this tradition and give kids, some of whom come to us shy or with no musical or acting experience, with the ability to freely express themselves, learn and shine,” Karina said. “The joy we get out of it and the growth the kids get out of it is very rewarding.”

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