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About

Musical Theatre

University

David Green's

WHAT IS MTU?​

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MUSICAL THEATRE UNIVERSITY (MTU), celebrating its tenth anniversary season in residence at Rancho Mirage High School, is a comprehensive, pre-professional training ground for young people, grades 8-12, selected by audition, from The Palm Springs Unified School district and, where space allows, neighboring school districts and communities in Riverside County. MTU is sponsored and presented by The Palm Springs Unified School District so that the Conservatory program is provided free of charge to all participants. MTU students have aspirations for careers in professional theatre, most specifically on Broadway, and the Conservatory program provides them with cutting edge, hands on instruction and the state-of the- art tools and techniques necessary to begin, and sustain, a professional career.

WHAT DOES MTU OFFER ITS STUDENTS:

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The after-school Conservatory program offers intensive, professional-level educational and performance experiences taught and facilitated by a faculty of professional artist-teachers, the vast majority of whom are Broadway Veteran actors, dancers, singers, choreographers, casting agents, producers, composers, writer and directors. Concurrent with their classroom education MTU produces three to five professionally produced and directed main-stage performances where Broadway Veterans join the students in rehearsal and onstage as peer-actors and serve as mentors in the craft of stage production.

HISTORY OF MTU​

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MTU was founded in the desert in 2012 by David Green, in partnership with The Palm Springs Unified School District. Prior to coming to the desert, Mr. Green was the founding director of two of Southern California’s most prestigious Arts Conservatory programs — The Orange County School of The Arts and The California Conservatory of the Arts. MTU was given a home at the newly opening Rancho Mirage High School and soon after its founding The PSUSD determined to fully fund the program and make it accessible to students throughout the district, and neighboring communities asw space allows, free of charge to all students.

WHO IS DAVID GREEN?​

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Founder and Director David Green has spent thirty-plus years training and mentoring young people for careers in professional theatre, most specifically on Broadway, and his alumni include Tony Winners Stephanie Block and Lindsay Mendez, Tony Nominees Susan Egan and Matthew Morrison, Krysta Rodriguez, Grace McClean and hundreds more actors on stage, and in film and television. In it’s tenth season in the desert MTU has its very first “desert luminous” making her Broadway Debut in the 2022-23 Season. Mr, Green was recognized by The Broadway League’s Tony Awards as one of the nation’s leading arts educators. He has produced, directed and/or written over 500 stage productions for both professional and educational theatre.

CELEBRITY AFFILIATIONS​

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In addition to the core faculty, MTU students have the opportunity to work with the most celebrated actors, directors, producers, choreographers and composers in the professional theatre as guest master teachers including Tony winning composers and lyricists Stephen Schwartz (Wicked), David Zippel (City Of Angels), Andrew Lippa (The Addams Family), John Bucchino (A Catered Affair) and Adam Guettel (A Light In The Piazza), Broadway Directors Phil McKinley (The Boy from Oz) and Stuart Ross (Forever Plaid, Starmites), Tony Nominated Choreographer Larry Fuller (Evita), Tony Winning Actors Randi Graff, Donna Mckechnie, Penney Fuller, Matthew Morrison, Stephanie Block, LeeRoy Reams and more, and entertainment icons Lucie Arnaz and Lorna Luft, to name a few.

ACHIEVEMENTS​

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Over the past ten years. MTU of the desert has:

 

  • Trained over 400 young people with career aspirations

  • Performed over fifty charitable shows for non-profit organizations

  • Produced two successful dinner theatre at two local Valley Restaurants

  • Produced a twenty-four episode television series for KESQ-ABC TV with an estimated 30,000 viewers

  • Produced 30 Mainstage musical productions

  • Produced a full-length original movie musical that screened in multiple local movie theatre and streamed on Broadway On Demand in 2021

  • Produced four holiday television specials for KMIR-NBC and KESQ-ABC television

2022-2023 PROGRAM SPONSORS & PARTNERS

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