{"id":198,"date":"2015-11-13T21:05:36","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T21:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/?page_id=198"},"modified":"2025-12-06T14:37:54","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T22:37:54","slug":"broward-county-performing-arts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/broward-county-performing-arts\/","title":{"rendered":"Broward County Performing Arts"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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BCPA – BROWARD COUNTY PERFORMING ARTS<\/h3>

THE MOVE FROM NOVA TO DILLARD WAS A COMPROMISE<\/h6>

\"bcpa_logo\"<\/p><\/div>

After a long battle between Nova Performing Arts supporters, and the Broward County Schools\u00a0administration. The excellent track record and the future development and direction for a\u00a0professional training Performing Arts High School had been established except for one big\u00a0mistake. Nova\u00a0Performing
Arts had dared raise its achievement and expectations above mediocrity.<\/p>

In the public school system then as well as now, with very few exceptions, reaching the level of ‘better’ or ‘special’ or even ‘different’ attracts many enemies. Actually, this was a problem for the Nova schools in general.<\/p><\/div>

Of course an area of training specializing in the Performing Arts marks its achievement with an\u00a0audience and\u00a0in glaring lights so the enemies made their presence known. The staff and inner circle of\u00a0parents\u00a0and\u00a0friends felt without a doubt that the success had been too visible (shows at the professional
theatre Parker\u00a0Playhouse with revues and supportive articles in the major newspapers of the Fort Lauderdale and\u00a0Miami\u00a0area). In slang terms, some thought they were too big for their britches.<\/p>

The attempt to close the program at Nova had failed and a compromise was made to move the\u00a0program to\u00a0Dillard\u00a0High School as a magnet school. This was during the height of forced integration and Dillard had\u00a0a\u00a0primarily\u00a0black enrollment. Putting an ‘attractive’ program at this location and allowing students from\u00a0the\u00a0entire\u00a0county school system to ‘choose’ to attend would advance the cause of integration without\u00a0conflict\u00a0from the\u00a0community. Part of the deal was a new Performing Arts building on the Dillard site.<\/p>

It was a remarkable day at the Dillard campus when the performing arts representatives from the parents association and the school board representatives headed by the boisterous William Dandy met for a\u00a0tour.\u00a0Waving his arm he gestured to a large area to the south and east of the main campus saying \u201cthat\u00a0is\u00a0where\u00a0the new building and theatre will go\u201d. This sounded workable, so Joyce, Allen and Tom were moved\u00a0to\u00a0Dillard\u00a0to create the new Broward County Performing Arts training program. The move and ultimately the\u00a0program\u00a0itself had many problems along the way. The first of which was a delay in starting.<\/p>

The first quarter of the following year, performing arts construction had not even begun and\u00a0there\u00a0was no\u00a0place for the program, so Joyce and Allen spent the time looking at each other in a small\u00a0cubicle in\u00a0the\u00a0administration building of the Dillard campus. Boy, was that fun \ud83d\ude41 Upon the completion of a\u00a0new\u00a0cafeteria
for the Dillard campus (about mid way into the school year), the Performing Arts program was\u00a0assigned to the\u00a0old cafeteria and a starting date was planned.<\/p>

Starting in the middle of the year, the first day was quite a site. Later it became clear that\u00a0‘some’ of the\u00a0‘powers that be’ fully expected the program to fail and finally, be out of their hair. But that\u00a0didn’t\u00a0happen. Around 30 kids climbed off that first bus (10 to 20 others drove) with their tap shoes\u00a0and\u00a0tights\u00a0and exploding spirit. The collection of ‘suits’ that had assembled to watch was literally
open-mouthed. (think of the ‘arriving at school’ shots from the movie Fame)<\/p>

\"jazz\"In spite of delays and far from adequate facilities, the staff and\u00a0students didn’t bat an eye but launched
their intensive program of training in acting, singing and dance, and began plans for their\u00a0first show –
at Parker Playhouse! Taking the title from the Broadway Musical Chicago (shortly after the
opening of its\u00a0first run on Broadway), the first show for the new BCPA (Broward County Performing Arts) was\u00a0\u201cPerforming\u00a0Arts and All That Jazz\u201d at Parker Playhouse in 1976.<\/p>

FIRST HUGE SETBACK!<\/span><\/div><\/div>

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After what seemed like a very long time, construction finally began on the new PA building. The building was NOT where Dandy had said it would be, but instead, between existing buildings in the middle of the Dillard campus. This alone eliminated the possibility of an adjoining theatre. Again, in spite of everything, we all looked forward as the building slowly came to shape.<\/p>

Joining Joyce, Allen and Tom as part of the BCPA school were Revel Shaw (dance) (a public\u00a0school teacher\u00a0with affiliations to the Atlantic Foundation for Performing Arts, a private dance school.\u00a0Well, that\u00a0lasted a short year and a half with the spectacular production of Applause as the final\u00a0production under
school system’s jurisdiction.\u00a0\u00a0 [[dismissal demanded clip, mavredies, Dandy and Bonner with\u00a0clips about\u00a0their demise – and dynamic duo clip]]<\/p><\/div>

\u00a0<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/td>
    1. Performing Arts and All That Jazz, May \u201976<\/a><\/li>
    2. Applause, October \u201976 Show<\/a><\/li>
    3. One For Performing Arts<\/a><\/li>
    4. Hard Knock Life, October \u201977<\/a><\/li>
    5. Dames At Sea, June \u201978<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/li><\/ol><\/div><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

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      BCPA – BROWARD COUNTY PERFORMING ARTS THE MOVE FROM NOVA TO DILLARD WAS A COMPROMISE After a long battle between Nova Performing Arts supporters, and the Broward County Schools\u00a0administration. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-blank-3.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-198","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":77,"href":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5327,"href":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/198\/revisions\/5327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hallhillpa.org\/hhpa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}