Beyond acting and singing on stage, Elon University musical theater students also dabble in directing and writing, creating works of their own. Senior Renee Schiazza recently wrote and directed a musical revue, “Revue-ing A Century of the Songbook: Who Could Ask For Anything More?” as a part of her Elon College Fellows senior thesis.
Schiazza, a double major in music theater and arts administration, had always planned to dedicate her senior thesis to the “Great America Songbook,” a collection of the most influential American pop songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century.
But she was not quite sure how she was going to express her passion through her senior thesis.
Schiazza began her fascination with the “Great American Songbook” when she was just in high school while she was a part of The Great American Songbook High School Vocal Competition.
“I always loved listening to Standards and old American classics,” Schiazza said, “but being a part of Michael Feinstein’s Vocal Competition really sparked my knowledge for the research behind this and the relevance of this genre across American culture.”
The Great American Songbook Academy designs a curriculum for the younger generation to introduce and teach them about the American Songbook, something that Schiazza had contemplated doing for her senior thesis project.
With the help of her mentor Linda Sabo, associate professor of Performing Arts, Schiazza decided that writing an original musical revue would be the best way to teach the Elon community the importance of the “Great American Songbook.”
Schiazza completed her research on the “Great American Songbook” over her last three years here at Elon and spent her senior year writing the show.
“I wrote the show partially during the process [of directing],” Schiazza said. “I finished the show after I knew my cast [and] I could really tailor it to them.”
Looking back, Schiazza never saw herself as a director. She had only pictured herself as a dancer and a singer since that was what she had always been trained to do.
During her junior year, she had her first experience directing by being the assistant director of Titanic alongside Cathy McNeela, director of the music theater program and professor of performing arts, which taught her to “look at things from a different picture” and allowed her to find a passion for the directing side of shows.
“I originally didn’t intend to direct this show,” Schiazza said. “I was going to music direct it. But as I was researching, I really felt like I had a great knowledge of this genre and the history surrounding it.”
Schiazza was inspired not only by her love for the “Great American Songbook” and the Michael Feinstein’s Great American Songbook Academy, but also by other shows and musicians who appreciate the American Songbook just as much as she does.
After Schiazza’s freshman year of college, she went back home to Indiana and saw a show put on by the Actors Theater of Indiana about Frank Sinatra that shows the audience the music behind Sintara and how his music has affected American music today.
“I didn’t really think about it until I sat down to write this show, but that show left such an impression on me that it lead me to where I took this show,” Schiazza said, “I wanted this show, to make this work an education work and not just a performance.”
Schiazza’s main intention for this revue was for her audience members to recognize that this type of music is extremely familiar in our everyday lives, even though it is not something we think about when we listen to music today.
Schiazza was able to pursue this dream of teaching people the necessity of the Great American Songbook with the help of the musical theater program at Elon.
“Whenever a student is interested in doing something else — directing, being on the production side of things, choreographing — they are extremely supportive of that and the faculty helps make that happen,” Schiazza said.
Directing her own musical did not only help Schiazza as a director but as an actress as well. Through sitting in the director’s chair, she now looks at her acting decisions in a completely different way, especially in ways to connect with her audience.
“Putting different lessons that I have learned in high school and learned through music theater into directing has really opened my eyes for different ways to get to an audience,” Schiazza said.