Creating a SKETCH

How Sketch Began

In the Spring of 2016, Stephanie Figer was asked to write the script and lyrics to a new musical that would be performed by middle school students at The American School in Switzerland (TASIS) over the summer. The original intent of the piece was its use as curricular material for a musical theatre course for middle school students. Stephanie reached out to her favorite musical geniuses, Mikey Rosenbaum and TJ Liquori, to breathe tuneful life into her words. Many Skype meetings from Boston, New York City and Upstate New York were followed by a whirlwind week on-site at the school in Switzerland, and Sketch was born.

TASIS boasts an enrollment that includes children from 60 nations worldwide. The first premiere of Sketch took place on July 20, 2016, and featured a cast of 10 middle schoolers from 9 different countries. A revised version, which adjusted for an enrollment of 22 students from 16 countries, premiered on August 12, 2016.

We are incredibly pleased with how Sketch helped our students in both sessions to grow as artists, and have since married the best parts from the first session premiere and the second session premiere to create a cohesive vision from which to move forward. The second Swiss production contained 8 musical numbers, and had a run time of 39 minutes.

The Creative Team was very excited when the Auburn Players announced that Sketch would be presented as part of their season. Figer explains, “The opportunity to revisit the piece 2 years after it was first created has been surreal in a sense; this was our first collaboration as a team, and it will always hold a special place in our hearts. We’ve been able to give the cast a huge hand in creating the North American premier—everything from staging and choreography to elements of the set design came from them. 40 kids from 7 area districts turned out to audition, and we immediately got to work on updating the show to feature a larger cast. The biggest change was the addition of an entirely new musical number—“Embrace the You.”

Come see this special production of Sketch on Friday, April 13th at 7:00 PM and Saturday April 14th at 2:00 & 7:00 PM at the new West End Theater (the former West Middle School) in Auburn.  Ticket prices are $5 to the general public with every student admitted for FREE.  Tickets are available at www.auburnplayers.org.  Groups are encouraged to call (315) 702-7832 to reserve seats.

Meet the Sketch Creative Team

Stephanie Figer resides in Auburn, NY. A proud veteran of Merry-Go-Round Youth Tour, she spends her summers teaching acting, voice and speech and musical theatre at The American School in Switzerland. She has also taught locally with Auburn Public Theater, and throughout the Northeast as an actor-educator with Children’s Stage Adventures. She has penned three world premiere musicals: Same Sky, produced in 2017, Sketch, produced in 2016, and The Happy Prince, produced in 2015. She has two more pieces that are in development: That Chicken Play, which will tour Upstate New York as part of the MGR Youth Tour season, and Cry Wolf, a musical that will be performed by children and adults throughout the Northeast and Canada. A graduate of Point Park University, Stephanie hopes to someday use her writing skills in the growing field of Drama Therapy.

TJ Liquori (composer) is an avid music educator and composer in the greater Boston, Massachusetts area. He earned his undergraduate degree in Music Education at Berklee College of Music. During his time at Berklee, TJ directed the student classical chamber choir, “Crepusculum”, for two years. He was then a recipient of the Music Education Most Promising Alumnus award upon graduation from Berklee. TJ currently teaches elementary general music at five schools in Woburn, MA. He also runs an after-school music theatre program in Woburn where students learn to sing, act, and dance in an original musical they create. In addition, TJ works during the summer as a teaching artist at The American School in Switzerland (TASIS) as a drama and music educator for international elementary, middle, and high school students.

Mikey Rosenbaum (composer) is a man of many hats. As an actor, Mikey’s favorite recent credits are Albert in Einstein is a Dummy (Nashville Children’s Theater), Elliot in Nerve (Spaghetti Theater) and Tom in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Sierra Madre Playhouse). Mikey graduated with a BM in Musical Theater from Belmont University and has additionally enjoyed a career as a musical composer/lyricist, having just finished his fourth produced score, Famous, this year (TASIS). Most recently he acted in and produced an Off-Off Broadway play, Shotz Abroad at the Kraine Theater in Manhattan. He is a proud member of Actors’ Equity Association.