Shortly after Larry and Linda Schexnaydre opened Center Stage Performing Arts Academy in Gonzales more than a decade ago, they were faced with a decision: pay the voice instructor or pay the rent.
The Schexnaydres have come a long way since those days.
Today, their academy boasts more than 430 students—some who are driven from as far away as Lafayette—and an assortment of alumni working on Broadway and in professional theaters around the country. And now they’re considering a franchise.
You might never see it on any Fortune 500 list or in the pages of Louisiana Economic Development’s Blue Ocean sectors, but the Capital Region has found a thriving industry in performing arts education.
Center Stage is joined by such businesses as the Dance Center & School of Performing Arts, the Center of Performing Arts, Upstage Theatre Company and the Cangelosi Dance Project School & Company.
The LSU Performing Arts Academy entered the arena in January, expanding what was once just a music academy to include theater, dance and digital media.
“Louisiana has a significant cultural heritage,” Academy Director Blake Wilson says. “People are seeing the value of their children experiencing this in their lives for pleasure or to pursue it more seriously.”
Other than the sign out front, there are no other indications of what takes place inside the beige metal building on La. Highway 74 that houses Center Stage. It looks like a machine shop, because that’s what it once was.
Inside, however, the lobby is packed with competition trophies, production posters and photographs of performances past.
Classroom walls are covered in mirrors, and the floors are hardwood.
In the back, there’s a stage production shop where, over the years, dads and students have sculpted the likes of a working jukebox, gramophone, an entire house and other props from Styrofoam.
The Schexnaydres started this studio in 2000 after searching unsuccessfully for professional training in the Capital Region for their daughter, Emily. They were drawing plans for a studio when they found this location for lease on their way home one evening. The owner, a longtime family friend, refused to lock them into a yearlong contract because he wasn’t convinced their business plan would fly.
And at first, it didn’t look terribly promising. The couple paid their first and last months’ rent. They installed hardwood floors and central air-conditioning. They hired a voice teacher who already had 14 students. Then they took a hard look at the finances.
“We started doing the math, and we were like, ‘When we get this money in from the students, we’re either going to have to have enough to pay her or pay the rent,” Larry Schexnaydre says. “We didn’t have enough for both.”
So in a matter of days, they hatched an idea to hold a summer camp in theater, put together a curriculum and recruited some experienced friends to help out. Seventy-two kids signed up.
“We were just stunned,” Schexnaydre says. “It was a big success, and we were actually able to do both—pay our teacher and pay rent.”
The Schexnaydres have since doubled the size of the building, and now offer classes in lyrical dance, jazz, ballet, tap, dance combo, musical theater, acting, flexibility/leaps and turns, hip-hop, voice and acrobatics. Many of their instructors have advanced degrees in music.
Their Center Stage STARS Company performs for community events and competes in regional and national competitions. And it routinely produces performances, including summer musicals and variety shows, for the River Center and other locations.
A sampling of prices: Private lessons in voice, piano or guitar will run you $170 a month for one 60-minute lesson per week. A two-week daily camp called Kids on Broadway is $325. And a Jedi Training Academy is $95. Scholarships are available.
“Over the years, you find your niche,” Schexnaydre says. “We’re at a point now where we know what we do, and we’re going to stay with that and do as best as we can.”
Center Stage alumni are proving successful in their respective fields. Three former students are attending the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, considered one of the top institutions for musical theater; two are at the Boston Conservatory; and another is at Emerson College.
One Center Stage alum, Megan Campanile, has appeared in The Little Mermaid and Little House on the Prairie: The Musical on Broadway and has performed in other productions around the country. She’s recently been signed as the cover for Glinda for the Wicked tour. Another alum, Bradley Sanchez, is now working in the marketing department at Roundabout Theatre Company, the nation’s largest nonprofit theater company.
“By the time they leave here, they’ve auditioned under pressure situations, they’ve performed under pressure situations, they’ve been judged more than they can shake a stick at,” Schexnaydre says. “They’ve had more competition than most kids in the country. By the time they leave here, they’re ready.”
The Schexnaydres are exploring the idea of franchising the Center Stage concept in such cities as Lafayette, LaPlace and Thibodaux. One of their primary goals for the future, however, is securing a theater in Ascension Parish, where students from Center Stage, Ascension Community Theater and other performers can put on creative productions. Schexnaydre jokes that he’s on the hunt for a “rich uncle.”
“We have so much talent in this area,” Linda Schexnaydre says. “It’s just a shame we don’t have anywhere in this area to keep it … and showcase it. We have to go off to Baton Rouge to do that.”
The LSU Performing Arts Academy is already off to a big start.
The studio offers 18 classes in theater, movement, digital media and music, as well as private lessons in acting, voice and 19 instruments. Instructors include graduate students, professional performers in the community and university faculty.
Among the more unusual offerings: Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines martial arts, music, song, dance and acrobatics; Aerial Silk Acrobatics, the use of aerial acrobatics; On The Spot, a class in improvisation; and Stage Combat, which teaches young actors onstage fighting styles, including slaps, punches and falls, for Shakespeare and modern-day performances alike.
While most of the classes range from $75 to $185 for weekly sessions ranging from one to three months, eight sessions of video editing will set you back $395. A series of 13 60-minute private lessons with a member of the LSU faculty runs $1,175.
Plans are to expand the academy’s relationship with schools and community centers to offer courses offsite, opening opportunities to students throughout the Capital Region. Wilson says summer camp offerings also will grow in the coming years.
The academy already is working with the Children’s Music Studio to offer Music Together classes to infants and preschoolers with their parents or caregivers.
“The best way we can contribute is to be a training ground for the next generation of musicians and performers,” Wilson says. “We can equip them with the skills they need so they can make their own creative decision about how to contribute to our area.”
