Carrie Wagner Demar (Hogrefe)

They say “One Person Can Change Your Life”. Well, that is so true for me, and that person is Wayne Smith. He came up to my Best friend Charlene Bowne and I, after we came off stage from a dance number in “Funny Girl”, our High School musical that year, and said, “Hey you two are pretty good, you should audition for The Atlantic Foundation for the Performing Arts School. It’s great and you get high school course credit!”   Ha! Well, Wow! Heck Yeah!! We auditioned together (a dance number from Funny Girl), and Got In!!

Mrs. Hall and Mr. Hill, Michael Scott Gregory and all our dance teachers, were monumentally instrumental in showing me the way  I Wanted To Live My Life. They prepared me for my professional career in New York City. Of course that’s where we go!

My Very First Professional Audition, I Booked. Flying across country at 18, right after graduation, to L.A. for “Princess Cruises”. Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Auckland, Sydney, all through the South Pacific. “Classic Cruise Shows.”

My Very First New York. Audition, I  Booked. “A Calvin Klein Industrial”. Tap dancing on a catwalk/fly bridge in a Broadway theater. (It was actually the reopening of Studio 54.)  40 feet  up in the fly space. “Rockette Style.”

My Second N.Y. Audition, I Booked. A six month tour of Italy. “This Is Dance”.  All Girl Classic Dance Review. Florence, Milan, Pisa, Monticatini and Venice.

This, I attribute to the training, preparation, and the “no sugar coating it” I  received from The Dillard Performing Arts High School as well. Living in Times Square was where I wanted to be!!It was so great. But all the shows, I was getting, were taking me out of the city and country!

Next,  “Jesus Christ Superstar”, and “Cabaret” with my wonderful  friend Michael Scott Gregory. I miss him dearly. Back overseas, to Japan in another contemporary dance show “Rhythm In Motion”. Where I also was a part of “the Presidential Library Tribute Concert” where we performed for Ronald and Nancy Reagan.   Back in the flyspace with “Lords of Illusion”. Where I had to partner with a tiger, (yes) in a “crowd pleasing” illusion, and wear a 3 foot “showgirl”  headdress in the finale.    “Annie” Mrs. Hannigan,    “First National Tour of “Ziegfeld: A Night At The Follies”.   

Atlantic City  and  The National Tour ,and of “Pippin”. Original Fosse Choreography. Ensemble and understudy Fastrada.

And then my Many Wonderful Years of “A Chorus Line” begin. A Serious 25+ Multitude of Beautiful Heartfelt productions of that One of a Kind Show. Val first, then Maggie, then Sheila and finally Cassie.  Atlantic City, and Numerous Regional, and Numerous Touring U.S and  Canada. When I joined Equity, there was already a Carrie Wagner in the union, so I changed my last name to Demar.

“She Loves Me” in the wonderful city of Cleveland. Seriously.  Back on the cruise ship with “Royal Caribbean”, and back to Japan again, with  “Splash” and then,   One afternoon My dear friend David Nehls (A Wonderful Composer and Lyricist) calls me in N.Y. and asks what I was doing this particular Summer. He said “Trust Me, you’re going to love it”….. “The Rocky Horror  Show”.  European Tour. He was right! Ensemble and Understudied Magenta. Italy, Germany, Austria and Amsterdam! Fabulous!   

So many more, then, after 2 decades of  living in Manhattan, with non-stop auditioning, working, touring, and all that that entails,  I decided to explore my options out West. I Sub-letted my apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, bought a car and drove across country, stopping in Vegas. Uh, No. Not for me. Kept going to L.A. where I booked a TV show called “V.I.P.”Super fun being on set at 5am.!    Went back east to Hilton Head and did “Cole”. Soloist and Ensemble. A wonderful show choreographed and directed by my dear friend Casey Colgan. Where I did a “ Can Can” and “double cartwheel”!  I will not tell you how old I was, but I was not in my 30s anymore!  And toured again with “A.C.L.”

I met my wonderful husband Casey the first month I was in Los Angeles .(Also an actor.) The Drive and Love I had to Perform and “Get That Next Show”, was replaced with a Love I had never felt before. We have a Great Life, and parlayed our “survival gigs”: bartending, into owning our own bars in Portland Oregon of all places!

Thank you Allen and Mrs. Hall , for teaching me how to “play to the back of the house”! And letting me think,

I Can Do It!  I am Blessed to have Discovered You. (Thanks Wayne!!)

Love To You All!   Carrie

Livelifeluckyc@yahoo.com

Robin Wakefield

Though it’s been a few decades since high school, I have fond memories of the training and experience I received in the first semester of my senior year at the Dillard Campus. I kept in touch with a few of my classmates over the years, unfortunately, two of them have passed far too soon. I have a very old photo, and a very old, faded resume from 1986. I stopped performing in 1993, and I went back to school. Since leaving show business, I have been a practicing attorney in New York City, and served as a JAG officer in the Army for nearly 14 years. The last big gig I had was opening at Sunrise Musical Theater for Joan Rivers, and the first was in a show called “10 Nights in a Barroom” at a dinner theater in Ft. Lauderdale that no longer exists.

Contact: roboesq@aol.com

Marshall Williams

Thailand?

Tom Williams

Co-conspirator with Joyce Hall and Allen Hill during all of the Performing Arts years. Conductor, in charge of instrumental music.

Tom joined the Nova staff in 1964. Joyce was already there. He had come from Ohio and she had moved from what was then Parkway Junion High as a part of the new Nova faculty. She, Ed Spry (the vocal teacher at the time) and Tom did Music Man and Can Can at Strannahan High before Allen came on the scene.

John Wittenborn

John left us May 27, 2019

SunSentinel – Obit (edited)

John Horace Wittenborn III

John died on Memorial Day, May 27, 2019, at Broward Health, the same hospital where he was born on January 24th, 1960. He attended Fort Lauderdale and Broward County Performing Arts High Schools and the Atlantic Foundation of the Performing Arts and studied dance with Revell Shaw and Ruth Petronovitch before performing with the Cincinnati Ballet and at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. He danced for Jean Ann Ryan on cruise ships, at the Lido in Paris and the Olympics in Korea. He worked with June Taylor as artistic director and choreographer for “The Show Offs”, a non-profit troupe that dances for charitable causes. An integral part of Miami Fashion Week, he was also the lead choreographer for Leadership Broward Foundation’s Lip Sync Battle. Johnny and his Dad, Jack toured South Florida for 7 years as the fabulous singing duo “Tow of a Kind” with his Mom Joan as president of their fan club. Tall and handsome, his many talents took him to exotic locations across the globe, making lasting friendships wherever he went, but mostly he enjoyed being home with his friends and family. He is very much missed.

Larry Wittenstein

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