ABOUT our CREATIVE TEAM

Music composed, arranged and performed by

Grammy-winning and Guinness World Record holding

Pianist and Composer, Charles Segal. 

 

The Plays, Lyrics, Workbooks and

Lesson Plans are by Colleen Segal,

Pro Musician, Singer, Director, Actress, Author,

Theatre, Drama, Music and English educator,

Owner/director Theatre schools in

Cape Town and Boston. 

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Colleen comes from a musical theatre background, having been a professional stage performer, as actress and singer, since childhood. 

She holds degrees in Drama, Speech, English, Psychology, Theatre and Music, as well as post-graduate degrees in Teaching these subjects.

 

Charles and Colleen co-wrote and produced musicals and children’s programs for SABC broadcasts, as well as children’s albums with stories and songs. While director and owner of Centre Stage Theatre Schools in Cape Town, South Africa and Boston, Massachusetts for over 30 years, Colleen successfully trained students for stage and film acting and also for teaching diplomas through Trinity College of London.  Much to her delight, many of her former students are now professional actors and/or theatre teachers. 

 

Valuing originality and creativity, Colleen began writing her own musicals early on, partly to encourage her students to be original and not to rely on mimicking, partly because she finds “copying” boring, preferring the challenge of originality, and partly because she encountered a lack of high quality original musicals with family-friendly, age-appropriate, meaningful themes and dialogue and "meaty" roles for more than just a few leads. 

 

Segal plays are structured with the director and actors in mind: 

Separate scenes for actors of the same age and/or abilities help offset the child actors’ boredom and the feeling that their scene is not important.

In our plays, every rehearsal group feels their scene is valuable. 

The rehearsal process is easy because each class has its own scene, with a few “leads” woven through.  This alleviates a tremendous amount of stress on the director.

 

Charles Segal, who creates the music, has been a professional musician for decades. Trained in classical and jazz piano performance and composition, Charles was a staple on SABC broadcasts and won a South African equivalent of a Grammy award for song of the year – a hit in South Africa and Europe.  His songs have also been on the US hit parade. 

Now a Guinness World Record holding pianist and composer as the world's most recorded pianist (with over 30,000 recorded titles), Charles continues to add to his rich and varied catalogue

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You can see more information on our Music  page.

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We hope you enjoy the material on this website as much as we enjoyed creating it. 

 

A bonus for directors is that the creators have practical experience in producing our material, are flexible and available to assist in any way we can to make your experience satisfying and exciting, so please don't be shy to reach out with questions, suggestions and any way we can help you. 

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Thank you for your interest.

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