08/26/2026
🎭 TNP & Broadway - One Great Community!!
Last week, a group of high school students from TNP’s after-school and Baker Day School programs traveled to New York City alongside members of our production team for the fourth annual TNP trip to NYC!
Each year, students experience a mix of Broadway classics and some of the newest work arriving on New York stages. This year, they packed five shows into the week: "Schmigadoon!", "Hamilton", "Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)", "The Lost Boys", and either "Wicked" or "Paranormal Activity". They also took classes at Broadway Dance Center, museums, and spent time exploring the city.
And along the way, they had the opportunity to hear directly from Broadway professionals who have some pretty special connections to TNP.
After "Schmigadoon!", students met Tony Award-winning director and choreographer Christopher Gattelli, whose credits include "Newsies" and "Schmigadoon!" (among many others); and Broadway actor Max Clayton, currently starring as Danny Bailey in "Schmigadoon" after prior appearances in "The Music Man", "Moulin Rouge!", "Chicago", "Hello, Dolly!" and "Bandstand". Christopher is a longtime friend and colleague of TNP Artistic Directors Dawn Lebrecht Fornara and Charles Fornara, while Max is a former student of Dawn and Charlie!
Following "Hamilton", students met Amina Faye, who currently plays Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds and understudies Eliza Hamilton (Amina will make her debut as Eliza TONIGHT!!). Amina previously performed in a production directed by our own Artistic Director Phillip Fazio.
Meanwhile, the trip gives our production team time for professional development, strategic planning, team building, seeing great work, and reconnecting with colleagues throughout the industry.
That included Braden Chudzik, a national touring music director and conductor whose credits include "Suffs", "The Book of Mormon", "Mean Girls" and "Legally Blonde". Braden also has deep TNP roots, having worked on "Mary Poppins", "Something Rotten!", "She Loves Me" and "Sister Act!"
They also connected with Abby May, a New York-based lighting designer whose Broadway credits include "Paranormal Activity", "Hell’s Kitchen", "Merrily We Roll Along" and "The Fear of 13". Abby has designed numerous TNP productions, including "Les Misérables", "9 to 5" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", and she’ll be back in Naples later this season designing "Come From Away" and "Hello, Dolly!"
And joining Abby was her husband, Henry Wilen, a New York-based lighting designer and moving light programmer whose Broadway credits include "A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical", "Spamalot" and the Tony Award-winning "Leopoldstadt". Henry has also brought his talents to multiple productions at TNP.
That’s one of the things that makes this trip so important to us. These aren’t just people we meet in New York. They’re part of a growing artistic community that connects Naples to Broadway and beyond.
You never know which of these artists might be the next to visit Naples to lead a workshop, work on a production, or share their experience with our students, volunteers, and artists - but stay tuned this year to find out!!
When TNP talks about building community, we mean locally AND nationally. The artists we connected with in New York are just some of the professional colleagues who are part of a growing TNP artistic community that stretches across the country.
Some we see when we travel. Others come to Naples to design, direct, teach, perform, mentor, and create alongside our local artists, volunteers, and students. This season, that includes Abby May returning to design, Broadway sound designer Joshua D. Reid returning to TNP, and other professional artists from New York and across the country joining us throughout the year.
And importantly, we believe that exchange goes both ways and makes all of us better.
We bring some of the best ideas and artists from around the country back to Southwest Florida, while sending a little bit of what makes TNP special back out into the larger American theatre community.
They experience a different model of what a theatre can be: Broadway professionals creating alongside volunteers. Students learning alongside working artists. Education, accessibility, wellness, and community impact existing right alongside artistic excellence. A place where the goal isn’t simply to produce great theatre, but to use theatre to build a stronger community.
Those relationships give us an opportunity to challenge some of the traditional ideas about where great theatre happens, who gets to participate in it, and what a theatre can mean to the people it serves.
And there’s a place for you in that community, too.
Take a class. Audition for a show. Volunteer backstage. Bring your family to a performance. Support the work. And if you’re a student in one of our programs, join us next year in New York.
Whether your first step is through our doors in Naples or onto a Broadway sidewalk in New York City, come be part of what we’re building. ❤️🎭
