Award-Winning Actor, Composer Teach Master Class
12/07/2018
Two-time Tony Award winner Christine Ebersole, and Grammy Award winning composer and performer Billy Stritch were on campus Thursday to give a Master Class to students in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts’s Music and Theatre programs.
During the two-hour Master Class at SLU, Stritch and Ebersole shared their knowledge of musical performance with students.
The two are the latest stars to teach Master Classes at SLU, through a partnership with The Cabaret Project of St. Louis and SLU alumnus Tim Schall (A&S ’84). Earlier this year, Broadway luminary Norm Lewis, the first African-American to play the lead in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s The Phantom of the Opera, led students through mock auditions.
Ebersole took home her first Tony Award for her work in 42nd Street. She won the award again for her performance as Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, “Bid Edie,” and Edith Bouvier Beale, “Little Edie,” in the musical Grey Gardens. Ebersole has also appeared on the small screen as Mrs. Newberg in the USA series Royal Pains and in guest appearances in Madam Secretary and the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
She can also be seen in films including the Oscar-winning Amadeus, Three Men and a Baby, Mac and Me, and The Wolf of Wall Street.
Stritch won a Grammy in 1994 for the country song, “Does He Love You?” that was recorded by Reba McEntire and Linda Davis. He was cast with Ebersole in 2001’s 42nd Street and performed with her on The Rose O’Donnell Show and on CBS’s This Morning. Stritch has appeared on The Today Show, The Charlie Rose Show and The Oprah Winfrey Show in addition to recording his first solo album “Billy Stritch.”
The pair was in town to perform their cabaret show Snowfall at the Bistro at Grand as part of The Cabaret Project’s lineup on Wednesday, Dec. 5, and Thursday, Dec. 6.
Other recent SLU Master Classes have been taught by Kyle Barisich, the first actor of Latino descent to play Raoul in the 25th anniversary production of The Phantom of the Opera. Barisich came to SLU through his connection with assistant professor Stephanie Tennill.
The department has also been able to open up community stages to its students thanks to community partnerships with groups like the Cabaret Project and through an agreement with the Kranzberg Arts Foundation. As part of that agreement, SLU theater productions perform on Grand Center stages owned by the foundation.
Story by Amelia Flood, University Marketing and Communications