April 27, 2025 • 12 mins
We spoke with Founder Billy Dicrosta about the theater programs offered to children.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
Alison Demurz. My guest today is Billy da Crossta. He
is producer and owner of the Cabaret on Main Theater
in East Haven. Good morning, good.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Morning, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
So for people who don't know the background of the theater,
how did it come about?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
So the theater was born through my performing arts academy.
My husband and I started an arts academy called New
Haven Academy of Performing Arts and it teaches all things
performing arts, music lessons, dance lessons and acting lessons. And
we started doing shows right out of the gate when
we first opened. And we always knew that we wanted
a facility where we could have our performances and I'd
(00:39):
have to rent other spaces, and it just so happened
that the building that we house our New Haven Academy
Performing Arts and had a space that opened up and
we just jumped on that space and had everything planned
to create this incredible theater and then COVID hit and
that for two years without a theater, but eventually we
(00:59):
were to turn a curve and open in September twenty
two and since then We do about twelve shows a
year in that space and growing. And two of the
shows that we do per year are part of our
community outreach program which is called Broadway on Main Theater Company.
It is a nonprofit theater company that focuses on mental
(01:21):
health awareness, using theater arts as its vehicle to educate
our youth. And they are shared stage productions, mostly with
adults and youth together. And that's what we are about
to do right now. We are embarking on Shrek to
Musical with eleven performances and it is from artists from
all over the state of Connecticut, and it is a cast.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Of forty and is it people of all ages?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It is. So the youngest cast member currently is seven
years old and will leave the oldest cast members age
off because we don't want to throw them under the
bus with their age.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
No, but they could be elderly.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, they're definitely up there in age. Some people are
longer too than others.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
So what is the theater like inside? I've never been.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So the theater is a really unique space. It is
a cabaret theater. It seats cabaret style seating, traditional seating,
So we move it around depending on the show that
we're doing. But what makes our space so unique compared
to other traditional theaters in Connecticut is we're the only
theater that's fully immersive. So when you come to see
a show, instead of just sitting in the audience and
(02:25):
looking at the show, you're sitting inside the show. My
husband is a technical genius and he not only directs
our shows, but he designs two hundred and eighty degrees
of projections that go all the way around the audience.
So it's incredibly visually stimulating when you're sitting in our
shows because there's videos and pictures and all these special
(02:47):
effects that go on around you. So it's kind of
like a miniature version of what the sphere would be
in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Wow, very cool. Why did you decide to advocate for
mental health and how do you incorporate rate that?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, so we did that because, especially throughout COVID, we
saw the shift happening in our in our kids, the
depression starting to roll in, and that they needed a
way to voice how they were feeling and get through
the problems that they were having. And I realized that,
you know, it wasn't just the kids, that the adults
were going through that as well. So our way of
doing it is we always choose a show that has
(03:24):
some type of trauma within the show itself, whether it
be heavy or lighthearted. So even though this show is
a lighthearted comedic cartoon that has been turned into a
music goal, it still hits really heavy points of things
like bullying and rejection and learning to love yourself and
not care what other things other people think about you.
(03:45):
I mean, it's just such a beautiful story that Shrek
and all the fairy tale creatures embark upon and finding
out that, you know, Princess Fiona supposed to be this gorgeous,
perfect princess, but in the end she's actually an ogre
hiding basically in the closet and then comes out at
the end as an ogre and learns that she has
to love herself for who she is and be true
to herself. And I think that's a beautiful message to
(04:07):
be teaching our youth for a better tomorrow. Yeah, I was,
unfortunately one of those kids that really was bullied growing up.
I was. I grew up in a sports invested town
and I was one of the only boys that performed,
so it wasn't the easiest experience for me, and I
moved during my high school years to a different town
because the bullying back then was so bad and there
(04:28):
wasn't really a support system in place for kids like
there is today. And so when we first opened our school,
that was one of the reasons why I opened was
I wanted a facility that kids can come to learn
arts and just be whoever they are and find their
people and their friends and be loved. And it only
has blossomed into more and now we're able to do
(04:48):
it as an outreach program with people from across the
state through this program. And then a lot of our
students are also on scholarship program, so depending on like
donations come in and different things like that, we don't
have to turn anybody away. We're able to find assistance
for them.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
But people can always make donations too, right, so people can.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Make donations any time. However, we do participate in the
Great Give that is coming up this coming month through
the Community Foundation in New Haven where one of the
participants for that. So if people donate to us during
the Great Give, the funds are matched at a higher
rate because we get money back from the Community Foundation
from the donors as well, and we participate particularly during
(05:31):
the Great Give. There's a special time for theaters which
is on the opening night. I think it's from seven
to eight pm or eight to nine pm. It's sorry,
I'm not there the computer. It's in my head right now,
but it's called the Bank of America Power Hour, and
there's an additional five thousand dollars in donations that theaters
can receive during that time. Plus we have an additional
(05:52):
anonymous donor who's donating one thousand dollars for a match
during that time as well, to try to encourage people
to donate to our organization scholarship more kids.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So let's talk about Shrek. I mean, I've seen the movie,
I have not seen the show on stage. What would
you like people to know about it? You know?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I think again we go back to the message of
acceptance and loving one another. I think that we're living
in a tumultuous time in our world right now, and
learning that we can love other people who are different
than us is not a bad thing. It's a good thing.
And I think the message just rings so strongly in
(06:31):
who I am and what I believe in, and also
the people that I surround myself every day. When we
set out on our initial journey to open our school,
my husband and I always said from day one, we're
very lucky. We have a lot of kids that go
on to work professionally in the industry on Broadway and television,
et cetera. But we're not trying to make superstars on
(06:53):
Broadway and television. We're trying to create superstar human beings
for a better world. And that is truly the past
power that the arts have, and I believe that's also
the power and the message of this show as well.
I think it just ties them beautifully.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I guess what I'm saying is is donkey, because I
know the correct word is junky, but in the show
it's donkey. Is there a costume? Is there a green person?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
So there's there's tons of costumes and makeup. So, you
know Shrek the movie, obviously it's funny. There's a lot
of adult jokes in there that kids don't get that
totally ring you know, in our brains, and you just
sit there with this chuckle like, oh, the kids have
no idea like what that means. So that's there's nice
that there's something for the adults as well. However, you know,
(07:37):
when you add in music and tap dancing and costumes
onto anything, it really just makes the show elevated so
much more. And the music really sticks with you, like
it just has that hook that when you're walking out,
you're you're gonna you're gonna see you're gonna be singing
the songs. And one of the songs, which is in
the end, which is a really famous song, is I'm
(07:59):
a Believer. And so, you know, believing is just a
great thing. I think it stands for so many things,
believing in the power of change, believing in yourself, believing
in others, and also believing in the magic of theater
and what theater can do for others.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
What do you hope people walk away with after seeing this, Well.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I hope that they walk away wanting to be kinder
to other people around us and not judge people. I think,
just as human beings in general, we naturally tend to
judge what is different than and what we see as perfect.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And if I.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Can help another person like people who are different than them,
not believe someone and hopefully change the life of the
person that is going through some kind of believing, etc. Again,
like I did our other kids are going through and
not have to go through that trauma and make their
lives a little bit easier. I think that's great.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So tell me about some of the shows that you
will have coming up.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Sure, So, I don't have our show out just yet
for our community theater program for the fall, but we
will want to have one for a fall. We usually
do something around the holiday time in November to kick
off holiday season. We're working on that right now. But
we do have a summer series of shows coming up,
plus a comedy show, so we do adult comedy shows
in our cater. We have one coming up next month
(09:20):
where we bring New York City comedians in for an
adult only evenings so the parents could come in and
have a relaxing night without the children. And then in
the summertime we have our summer Youth series. Our little
kids are doing Beetlejuice Junior and Susicle Junior. And then
we have a special teen Broadway training intensive for four
weeks where teenagers get to work with people from Broadway
(09:43):
and universities and television and my staff as well, and
they get trained to be triple threats in the arts.
And then they put on full entire Broadway style musical
and they'll be doing head over heels of musical which
is all based on the music of the Go Gos
from the eighties.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Wow, that sounds amazing fun show. Yeah, when I was young,
we called it a triple treat instead of a triple threat.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Oh, I love it. That's so cute. You know, it's
funny enough. I know triple threat used to be so important,
but believe it or not, and that's part of the
reason why we teach all the things that we do today.
We really highly encouraged student say, you can't even be
a triple threat anymore. You have to be at least
a quad triple threat. So you know how to play
an instrument as well. It's really crucially important, so for.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Our listeners who don't know it's singing, acting, dancing, and
you would say also the instrument.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, yeah, totally, absolutely, So I encourage all especially we
work with a lot of vocal students because so many
kids want to go into theater and stuff, and I'm
constantly getting them to learn to accompany themselves and not
rely on having a company.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So whether that be.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Playing the piano or a guitar or another instrument learning
how to be self sufficient and take care of yourself
and not always have to rely on an instrumentalist to
a company is really really important.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I say life is a cabaret and people should take
a chance on something that they don't know. And even
if you're not a theater person, I think that people
come all the time to our shows not knowing what
to expect, and they leave just telling us that they
want to come back for more, and they do. And
we've only been open for two years, and in those
two years, we've won Best Theater in New Haven County
multiple times. So I think that the work is really
(11:18):
out there. I think that it's not an average community
theater show that you're going to expect to see or
a children's show. People usually come saying, I thought I
was coming to see a kids show, but in fact,
I just saw a show that had kids in it.
I can't believe the caliber of talent that's on your
stage and the show that we just saw, So I
think that I can only speak so highly. They have
to experience it themselves.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Absolutely. I'm speaking with Billy da Crossta, producer and owner
of the Cabaret on Maine Theater in East Haven. It's
Shrek the Musical April twenty fifth through May eleventh. You
can go to Cabaret dash on dashmain dot com. You
can donate, you can hear about the programs and services,
you can go see the show and more. Thank you
(12:00):
so much for being here today, Billy Oh.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it was
a great conversation.
Good morning, thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
Alison Demurz. My guest today is Billy da Crossta. He
is producer and owner of the Cabaret on Main Theater
in East Haven. Good morning, good.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Morning, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
So for people who don't know the background of the theater,
how did it come about?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
So the theater was born through my performing arts academy.
My husband and I started an arts academy called New
Haven Academy of Performing Arts and it teaches all things
performing arts, music lessons, dance lessons and acting lessons. And
we started doing shows right out of the gate when
we first opened. And we always knew that we wanted
a facility where we could have our performances and I'd
(00:39):
have to rent other spaces, and it just so happened
that the building that we house our New Haven Academy
Performing Arts and had a space that opened up and
we just jumped on that space and had everything planned
to create this incredible theater and then COVID hit and
that for two years without a theater, but eventually we
(00:59):
were to turn a curve and open in September twenty
two and since then We do about twelve shows a
year in that space and growing. And two of the
shows that we do per year are part of our
community outreach program which is called Broadway on Main Theater Company.
It is a nonprofit theater company that focuses on mental
(01:21):
health awareness, using theater arts as its vehicle to educate
our youth. And they are shared stage productions, mostly with
adults and youth together. And that's what we are about
to do right now. We are embarking on Shrek to
Musical with eleven performances and it is from artists from
all over the state of Connecticut, and it is a cast.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Of forty and is it people of all ages?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
It is. So the youngest cast member currently is seven
years old and will leave the oldest cast members age
off because we don't want to throw them under the
bus with their age.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
No, but they could be elderly.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, they're definitely up there in age. Some people are
longer too than others.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
So what is the theater like inside? I've never been.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
So the theater is a really unique space. It is
a cabaret theater. It seats cabaret style seating, traditional seating,
So we move it around depending on the show that
we're doing. But what makes our space so unique compared
to other traditional theaters in Connecticut is we're the only
theater that's fully immersive. So when you come to see
a show, instead of just sitting in the audience and
(02:25):
looking at the show, you're sitting inside the show. My
husband is a technical genius and he not only directs
our shows, but he designs two hundred and eighty degrees
of projections that go all the way around the audience.
So it's incredibly visually stimulating when you're sitting in our
shows because there's videos and pictures and all these special
(02:47):
effects that go on around you. So it's kind of
like a miniature version of what the sphere would be
in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Wow, very cool. Why did you decide to advocate for
mental health and how do you incorporate rate that?
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, so we did that because, especially throughout COVID, we
saw the shift happening in our in our kids, the
depression starting to roll in, and that they needed a
way to voice how they were feeling and get through
the problems that they were having. And I realized that,
you know, it wasn't just the kids, that the adults
were going through that as well. So our way of
doing it is we always choose a show that has
(03:24):
some type of trauma within the show itself, whether it
be heavy or lighthearted. So even though this show is
a lighthearted comedic cartoon that has been turned into a
music goal, it still hits really heavy points of things
like bullying and rejection and learning to love yourself and
not care what other things other people think about you.
(03:45):
I mean, it's just such a beautiful story that Shrek
and all the fairy tale creatures embark upon and finding
out that, you know, Princess Fiona supposed to be this gorgeous,
perfect princess, but in the end she's actually an ogre
hiding basically in the closet and then comes out at
the end as an ogre and learns that she has
to love herself for who she is and be true
to herself. And I think that's a beautiful message to
(04:07):
be teaching our youth for a better tomorrow. Yeah, I was,
unfortunately one of those kids that really was bullied growing up.
I was. I grew up in a sports invested town
and I was one of the only boys that performed,
so it wasn't the easiest experience for me, and I
moved during my high school years to a different town
because the bullying back then was so bad and there
(04:28):
wasn't really a support system in place for kids like
there is today. And so when we first opened our school,
that was one of the reasons why I opened was
I wanted a facility that kids can come to learn
arts and just be whoever they are and find their
people and their friends and be loved. And it only
has blossomed into more and now we're able to do
(04:48):
it as an outreach program with people from across the
state through this program. And then a lot of our
students are also on scholarship program, so depending on like
donations come in and different things like that, we don't
have to turn anybody away. We're able to find assistance
for them.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
But people can always make donations too, right, so people can.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Make donations any time. However, we do participate in the
Great Give that is coming up this coming month through
the Community Foundation in New Haven where one of the
participants for that. So if people donate to us during
the Great Give, the funds are matched at a higher
rate because we get money back from the Community Foundation
from the donors as well, and we participate particularly during
(05:31):
the Great Give. There's a special time for theaters which
is on the opening night. I think it's from seven
to eight pm or eight to nine pm. It's sorry,
I'm not there the computer. It's in my head right now,
but it's called the Bank of America Power Hour, and
there's an additional five thousand dollars in donations that theaters
can receive during that time. Plus we have an additional
(05:52):
anonymous donor who's donating one thousand dollars for a match
during that time as well, to try to encourage people
to donate to our organization scholarship more kids.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So let's talk about Shrek. I mean, I've seen the movie,
I have not seen the show on stage. What would
you like people to know about it? You know?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I think again we go back to the message of
acceptance and loving one another. I think that we're living
in a tumultuous time in our world right now, and
learning that we can love other people who are different
than us is not a bad thing. It's a good thing.
And I think the message just rings so strongly in
(06:31):
who I am and what I believe in, and also
the people that I surround myself every day. When we
set out on our initial journey to open our school,
my husband and I always said from day one, we're
very lucky. We have a lot of kids that go
on to work professionally in the industry on Broadway and television,
et cetera. But we're not trying to make superstars on
(06:53):
Broadway and television. We're trying to create superstar human beings
for a better world. And that is truly the past
power that the arts have, and I believe that's also
the power and the message of this show as well.
I think it just ties them beautifully.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
I guess what I'm saying is is donkey, because I
know the correct word is junky, but in the show
it's donkey. Is there a costume? Is there a green person?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
So there's there's tons of costumes and makeup. So, you
know Shrek the movie, obviously it's funny. There's a lot
of adult jokes in there that kids don't get that
totally ring you know, in our brains, and you just
sit there with this chuckle like, oh, the kids have
no idea like what that means. So that's there's nice
that there's something for the adults as well. However, you know,
(07:37):
when you add in music and tap dancing and costumes
onto anything, it really just makes the show elevated so
much more. And the music really sticks with you, like
it just has that hook that when you're walking out,
you're you're gonna you're gonna see you're gonna be singing
the songs. And one of the songs, which is in
the end, which is a really famous song, is I'm
(07:59):
a Believer. And so, you know, believing is just a
great thing. I think it stands for so many things,
believing in the power of change, believing in yourself, believing
in others, and also believing in the magic of theater
and what theater can do for others.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
What do you hope people walk away with after seeing this, Well.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I hope that they walk away wanting to be kinder
to other people around us and not judge people. I think,
just as human beings in general, we naturally tend to
judge what is different than and what we see as perfect.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
And if I.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Can help another person like people who are different than them,
not believe someone and hopefully change the life of the
person that is going through some kind of believing, etc. Again,
like I did our other kids are going through and
not have to go through that trauma and make their
lives a little bit easier. I think that's great.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
So tell me about some of the shows that you
will have coming up.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Sure, So, I don't have our show out just yet
for our community theater program for the fall, but we
will want to have one for a fall. We usually
do something around the holiday time in November to kick
off holiday season. We're working on that right now. But
we do have a summer series of shows coming up,
plus a comedy show, so we do adult comedy shows
in our cater. We have one coming up next month
(09:20):
where we bring New York City comedians in for an
adult only evenings so the parents could come in and
have a relaxing night without the children. And then in
the summertime we have our summer Youth series. Our little
kids are doing Beetlejuice Junior and Susicle Junior. And then
we have a special teen Broadway training intensive for four
weeks where teenagers get to work with people from Broadway
(09:43):
and universities and television and my staff as well, and
they get trained to be triple threats in the arts.
And then they put on full entire Broadway style musical
and they'll be doing head over heels of musical which
is all based on the music of the Go Gos
from the eighties.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Wow, that sounds amazing fun show. Yeah, when I was young,
we called it a triple treat instead of a triple threat.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Oh, I love it. That's so cute. You know, it's
funny enough. I know triple threat used to be so important,
but believe it or not, and that's part of the
reason why we teach all the things that we do today.
We really highly encouraged student say, you can't even be
a triple threat anymore. You have to be at least
a quad triple threat. So you know how to play
an instrument as well. It's really crucially important, so for.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Our listeners who don't know it's singing, acting, dancing, and
you would say also the instrument.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, yeah, totally, absolutely, So I encourage all especially we
work with a lot of vocal students because so many
kids want to go into theater and stuff, and I'm
constantly getting them to learn to accompany themselves and not
rely on having a company.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
So whether that be.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Playing the piano or a guitar or another instrument learning
how to be self sufficient and take care of yourself
and not always have to rely on an instrumentalist to
a company is really really important.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I say life is a cabaret and people should take
a chance on something that they don't know. And even
if you're not a theater person, I think that people
come all the time to our shows not knowing what
to expect, and they leave just telling us that they
want to come back for more, and they do. And
we've only been open for two years, and in those
two years, we've won Best Theater in New Haven County
multiple times. So I think that the work is really
(11:18):
out there. I think that it's not an average community
theater show that you're going to expect to see or
a children's show. People usually come saying, I thought I
was coming to see a kids show, but in fact,
I just saw a show that had kids in it.
I can't believe the caliber of talent that's on your
stage and the show that we just saw, So I
think that I can only speak so highly. They have
to experience it themselves.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Absolutely. I'm speaking with Billy da Crossta, producer and owner
of the Cabaret on Maine Theater in East Haven. It's
Shrek the Musical April twenty fifth through May eleventh. You
can go to Cabaret dash on dashmain dot com. You
can donate, you can hear about the programs and services,
you can go see the show and more. Thank you
(12:00):
so much for being here today, Billy Oh.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it was
a great conversation.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com