A Hearty Breakfast
Broadway producer Barry Brown, whose Tony Award-winning efforts include La Cage Aux Folles and Gypsy (starring Tyne Daly), had never seen the ’80s cult classic The Breakfast Club until his students selected it as the basis for their class project.

“When I finally saw it, I was happy with their choice,” says Brown, a Department of Theatre Arts visiting professor. “It’s not just a piece of fluff; it’s actually a movie about something.”

The task for this two-semester course was Herculean: conceive, write, compose, build, cast, rehearse, publicize, and perform an original musical. “I was going to teach the nuts and bolts of producing—what happens in my office right up until closing night,” Brown says. “But then I thought, why don’t I just have them do it.”

For both Brown and his students, the process was a labor of love. Two students, publicity director Stefany Allongo, B.A.M. ’06, and casting director Rebecca Johnson, B.A.M. ’06, graduated after the first semester but stayed on at the University to see The Breakfast Club Project all the way through. The 18 songs in the musical were written by Michael Dexter B.M. ’06, a senior at the time, whose contagious melodies in songs like “Virgin’s Revolt,” “Lamp Lament,” and “Remember This Day” earned rousing applause from a capacity audience in the Hecht Studio Theatre on opening night.

Taking a movie about five kids in detention hall and enriching each character’s depth through song and stage presence was a remarkable opportunity for the students of Theatre Arts 300, one that very few, if any, of their peers nationwide can boast. “I think it is groundbreaking,” Brown says.