When was the last time you heard “Broadway” and “Wilmerding” in the same sentence?
Westinghouse Arts Academy Charter School (westinghousearts.org) in Wilmerding brought on two new instructors this fall, a Broadway actress and a Broadway casting director, and recently added a third New York actor.
Jarrett Reiche and Lindsey Brett Carothers have known each other from their days at Penn-Trafford High School. Mr. Reiche recalled being starstruck as a kid seeing Ms. Carothers in a production of “Seussical.” Years later, Ms. Carothers was hitting the boards in Broadway’s “Bring it On: The Musical” and “Gettin’ the Band Back Together,” as well as the national tour of “Wicked.” Mr. Reiche took his business and performance background and became a casting director.
When Mr. Reiche’s agency was casting a reimagined version of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” for New York City Center, he saw a headshot of Ms. Carothers and recommended her for an audition. While she got the part, the pandemic was just around the corner.
Now out of work, the two found themselves in Pittsburgh. In August, they decided to launch a fall program of classes and promote their skills as a business endeavor. An opportunity opened up in October after a teacher abruptly left Westinghouse. A faculty member remembered Mr. Reiche and Ms. Carothers from Penn-Trafford and suggested Westinghouse CEO Rick Fosbrink meet them. The following week, they were in the classroom.
“Even though the world is on pause and theater is on pause, we aren’t on pause,” Ms. Carothers said. “Let’s just train as if we were training for Broadway, we were training for the next audition. We still have dance class with them. We have high expectations of the students, and they’ve really been rising to the occasion.”
With the class motto of “training, not complaining,” the two instructors have pushed students to discover abilities they were anxious to explore, leading to breakthroughs in class. Ms. Carothers recalled a few students who were uncomfortable singing in front of their classmates.
“Now they’re getting up and singing in front of everybody and singing full cuts of songs and there’s acting involved,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Wow, you didn’t even want to come up before, and now you’re doing it, willingly excited to share.’ ”
Westinghouse Arts Academy is a relative newcomer to the Pittsburgh region, having opened in 2017 as East Allegheny School District’s first charter school. The school took up residence in the former Westinghouse Elementary next to the historic Westinghouse Air Brake Co. general office building.
Mr. Fosbrink admitted having Broadway-level talent helps with promoting such a young school, but he said Westinghouse had a good relationship with more established performing arts schools such as Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter in Midland, Beaver County.
In spite of 2020’s difficulties, enrollment had increased this year, and students from 34 school districts across the region are now attending Westinghouse, Mr. Fosbrink noted.
As the pandemic impacted schools across the country, Westinghouse moved to a hybrid schedule with four online instructional days and two in-person days for hands-on arts. When Gov. Tom Wolf announced a return to fully online classes, they had to return to creative strategies.
For instance, dance teachers have had 55-inch TV sets with webcams affixed to them wheeled to the studio to host virtual dance class. Visual art teachers put webcams on their desks to have live drawing lessons. The school also produced a radio show of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” and broadcast it online in December.
Fellow Penn-Trafford alumnus Eric Phelps has also stepped in to teach classes in acting and theater, bringing in experience from New York University and from starring in regional productions as Jack Kelly in “Newsies” and Sam Wheat in “Ghost.”
How long the three new instructors will stay at Westinghouse is largely unknown, but they plan to help Westinghouse develop a curriculum that makes a lasting contribution to the school’s drama offerings.
Mr. Reiche said he never expected to start a business or become the head of a musical theater program, but he was encouraged that they were able to make something positive out of a tough time. He and Ms. Carothers intend to remain involved with Westinghouse and stay on as advisers to the program.
Given the hardships of the past year, Mr. Fosbrink acknowledged the value of giving students this opportunity as much as having Broadway-caliber instructors strengthened the school’s program.
“Obviously, we’re seizing a moment right now,” he said. “I also understand they’re not necessarily going to put their career on hold to stay here with us. Even if all we said at the end of this year was, ‘This particular group of kids got an experience that we might not be able to duplicate,’ [that] would be enough for us.”
Tyler Dague: rdague@post-gazette.com
First Published: December 31, 2020, 12:00 p.m.