‘We don’t have a hangout. It’s always the movie, the mall, the same thing. This offers something new, fun and different from what we’re used to on the weekends.” ##M:[more]##
“It’s important for her to have a place to be able to be with other kids her age who enjoy the same things.”
“Safe. That’s the key word. It’s a safe place. That makes a big difference.”
Tthe new buzz in West Windsor and Plainsboro that’s got both parents and teenagers talking is a new teen nightclub, “Club Arts,” offered by one of the leading performing arts schools in the area, the Professional Center for the Arts in Hamilton. The school, which offers a full curriculum of dance, acting, and voice classes during the school year, will offer a different kind of place for teens, ages 12 to 17, to hang out, in addition to its summer menu of adult hip-hop and yoga, voice lessons, and kids art, dance, and movie-making camps.
“Just listening to teenagers talk about their summers, it became quite clear that they had a need for an activity that was different from camps or daytime things. There was nothing at night that was safe for them to do. We figured that having a place to be with other kids their age with similar interests, would not only make them feel better, it would make their parents feel better too,” says Michael McClure, a veteran of the Broadway stage and Hollywood and co-owner of the studio with his wife, Suzanne, also a performing veteran.
“Club Arts” will debut on Thursday, July 14, and operate every Thursday night for the next five weeks. A cover charge of $10 gets students into the club for the entire evening, from 7-9 p.m. The first 35 teens in the door at 6 p.m. will also get admission to a free hip-hop class. Pre-registration is not necessary, and space should not be an issue, since the studio’s capacity is up to 300 people.
There are three different dance rooms used for class during the day at the spacious and cheerfully lit studio, located on Tennis Court adjacent to Iceland. Each will be open for the nightclub and feature a different style of music, including hip-hop and club “house” music, similar to the stuff played in real clubs. The last room will feature slower, quieter music and if the teens are likely to sit and talk anywhere it would be in that room. Special effects will be created with fog machines, and McClure says light shows will also provide a fun and professional touch. There will be adult supervision inside the dance rooms and in the common areas.
Tanya Chanda, 15, who will be a sophomore at West Windsor Plainsboro High School South, is planning to recruit some of her friends to go with her. She takes ballet and pointe at PCA. She says there a quite a few boys in the dance classes and she’s hoping they’ll also recruit some of their friends so it can be a mixed teenaged crowd. “I think it’s a good age group to target through dance,” says Tanya. “It’s not as if we have lots of places to hang out, either. Maybe I’ll meet some new people who will also become more interested in dance.”
Born in Philadelphia, she lived in King of Prussia for nine years, then moved to West Windsor five years ago. She started dancing at age four and joined PCA two years ago. Her father, Dr. Pranab Chanda, is a biologist who works at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in South Brunswick. Her mother, Gargi Chanda, taught English and math at Stuart Country Day School up to last year.
Eva Petruzziello, who lives in the West Winds neighborhood of West Windsor and is a real estate agent with ReMax Greater Princeton is happy to send her daughter, Angela, who will be a freshman at Loyola in Maryland in the fall. “I think it’s a terrific idea. It offers both entertainment and fun and teenagers need a safe place to hang out. My daughter has been dancing since she was just over three years old and loves it.”
The Professional Center for the Arts opened in September, 2003, and has a regular enrollment of 325 students. There are 13 teachers on staff teaching 13 different styles of dance, acting, voice, and piano to students ranging from age three to adult. The studio’s teen dance troupe, “The Company,” performed over the 4th of July holiday for passengers aboard Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Sea. They were selected after someone from the luxury cruise line’s company saw a tape of them performing at Great Adventure.
Before he started teaching dance and acting 13 years ago, McClure had an impressive stage and screen career.
McClure didn’t start out life intending to be a performer. In fact, his father actively discouraged him from taking dance. He and a younger sister grew up on a farm in West Virginia. Their mother sold real estate and their father worked for the phone company. Influenced by an older cousin, he started doing community and school theater at age 10 and when he was 12 won a role in the play “On Golden Pond,” which toured the east coast. “Once I did this play all I wanted to do was theater,” he says. “I was allowed to take voice lessons, but when it came to dance, that’s where dad drew the line.” But when I got my drivers license I’d sneak off to Pittsburgh to take dance classes behind his back. Mom knew. She was supportive. I took ballet, jazz and tap on weekends.”
McClure graduated from high school in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1987 and attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music for two years before leaving to pursue his performing dream full-time. His career took off. He appeared on the legendary soap opera General Hospital for three years and won guest appearances on such hit TV shows as The Young and the Restless, Passions, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Murphy Brown. He founded PerfectReel Productions in Hollywood, California, where he directed, edited or produced over 300 films and commercials. On the professional stage, he choreographed the National Broadway tours of Gypsy and The Sound of Music. As a dancer and singer he has performed with such greats as Tommy Tune, Joel Grey, Jennifer Grey, and Placido Domingo, as well as the Broadway cast of Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime and Rent. He did a Tommy Tune show with Gene Kelly in the mid-’90s. “It was amazing. I’ve gotten to work with a lot of celebrities but he’s such a legend and he choked me up. I had just finished doing his role in Singing in the Rain in the Los Angeles production and I started crying when I talked to him.”
His wife Suzanne was doing a lot of work in New York and slowly he transitioned out of his life on the west coast. When the opportunity came up for a new dance school in the Hamilton location, “all the elements fell into place.”
If “Club Arts” is popular, McClure would consider holding it on Saturday nights during the school year. “Though many of the people who have expressed an interest so far are our own dancers, the club is open to the community and we’re hoping to attract people who have not been here or never heard of us. And if they see us and like us and become students, that would be wonderful.”
Club Arts, Professional Center for the Arts, 4 Tennis Court, Hamilton, 609-586-3008, www.ProfessionalCenterfortheArts. 6 p.m. Thursdays, July 14 through August 11.
