As an equity theater, TheatreZone in Naples hires for its productions members of the Actors’ Equity labor union, which represents 51,000 actors and stage managers. To give the university’s theater students a working knowledge of the professional side of the industry, TheatreZone collaborates periodically with the FGCU TheatreLab on a musical.
“Universities, in general … are really good at teaching you your craft, how to act, how to sing, how to dance. But they don't teach you how to get a job in this business,” TheatreZone Artistic Director Mark Danni explains.
TheatreZone casts students like senior Mia Laboy Reyes to work with equity actors in a show such as “Cabaret.” She plays Sally Bowles.
“They are incredibly poised individuals,” said Reyes of her equity actor castmates. “They have been doing productions for a very long time and have a lot of experience in the professional field. They’re great role models.”
The equity actors don’t give the students tips or “notes,” observes FGCU theatre professor and Actors' Equity and SAG-AFTRA performer Gerritt VenderMeer, who plays Ernst Ludwig.
“Actors don’t really give one another notes backstage or on set. That’s the job of the [director, stage manager and choreographer],” he pointed out.
So, students learn instead by watching and imitating their equity actor castmates.
“What you learn in acting school is you learn to be observant,” said TheatreZone co-founder and choreographer Karen Danni. “So, I think just being around these equity performers is a big way to … just take in everything they can like a sponge.”
FGCU junior Cooper Stone plays the Kit Kat Club’s debauched androgenous emcee. He’s learned the importance of preparation.
“Seeing where they are at certain points in the rehearsal process, knowing that that's where I'll need to be in the future and that's how prepared I will need to be is a good benchmark,” said Stone.
He’s also seen how to properly interact with the production team.
“How [the equity actors are] communicating with the director and with the choreographer in order to stay comfortable in their character, and to be able to work with them clearly and quickly has been very eye-opening.”
TheatreZone also provides training for students in the technical side of theater.
“Our professional lighting designers, set designers, stage managers, sound designers, each one of them is assigned at least two or more students who are interested in that area and who are working with them hands-on,” Mark Danni added.
Student musicians are also included.
“We provide an opportunity for student musicians to get an opportunity to play in an orchestra pit,” said Danni, who was a pit musician in New York for a number of years. “Work in an orchestra pit for a Broadway show, regional theater, whatever, is steady work … so it's a supplement to your income if you're teaching, if you're freelancing.”
Says Karen Danni, working with professionals inspires confidence.
“They're like, well, if they can do it, I can do it, too,” she said. “So, it kind of brings up their level of expectation and changes their level of professionalism.”
Students also derive a sense of belonging.
“I've learned is that this industry is a lot less scary than it actually is because they want to see you succeed,” Reyes said. “The people who have been here for a long time want people who are newer to it to succeed.”
The theatre program’s collaboration with TheatreZone is also a boon to FGCU.
“I don't know of many other universities our size that have the opportunity to partner this directly with a professional theater,” said VanderMeer. “We're so fortunate that TheatreZone is so supportive.”
MORE INFORMATION:
“Cabaret” opens TheatreZone’s 2026-27 season.
Mark and Karen Danni started TheatreZone in 2005, after having worked in theater in New York City and internationally for more than 20 years.
The FGCU TheatreLab-TheatreZone collaboration grew from an informal exchange that began in the early 2000s, when both theaters were still young. TheatreZone founder Mark Danni started hiring students to operate spotlights and assist backstage, offering pay alongside résumé-building experience. Some students were hired as permanent staffers; one even went on to become a Broadway stage manager.
As FGCU sought to expand its musical theater program in 2012, the organizations formalized their relationship with a production of “Godspell.”
Every three years since then, the program reserves 12 roles for students who audition with singing, acting and dancing numbers. Students receive their scripts before summer break and, upon returning to school, rehearse for 10 fast-paced days before the curtains rise.
“Cabaret” is the sixth joint production between TheatreZone and FGCU’s Bower School of Music & the Arts, which is directed by Dr. Krzysztof Biernacki.
‘Cabaret’ synopsis
Set in Berlin as the Jazz Age gives way to political upheaval, “Cabaret” unfolds inside the Kit Kat Klub, where a Master of Ceremonies (Cooper Stone) presides over a seductive world of music, escape and shifting realities. The story follows American writer Cliff Bradshaw (Noah Patrick Zimmerman) and cabaret performer Sally Bowles (Mia Laboy Reyes), while relationships outside the club reveal the growing tensions of a society on the brink.
With a book by Joe Masteroff, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, “Cabaret” features songs including “Willkommen,” “Maybe This Time,” “Money,” “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” and the iconic title song.
“One of the most exciting parts of this collaboration is watching students grow as artists while working alongside professionals,” said Danni. “They experience firsthand the preparation, discipline and standards expected in professional musical theatre,” said Mark Danni.
Danni directs the production, with choreography by TheatreZone co-founder and choreographer Karen Molnar Danni.
The cast
The cast brings together professional Actors’ Equity performers and FGCU students in many of the musical’s most memorable roles.
Cooper Stone stars as the Emcee, the provocative Master of Ceremonies who welcomes audiences into the Kit Kat Klub and presides over the musical as the world outside it begins to change. He has previously been seen onstage at Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre in “Fiddler on the Roof” (Nachum/Vladamyr/Bottle Dancer), “Murder Down the Aisle (Ben Wolowitz) and the “Spongebob Squarepants Musical.” A North Fort Myers High graduate, Stone received Outstanding Principal Performer honors in 2023 at the High School Musical Theatre Awards for his portrayal of Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in “Anything Goes.”
Mia Laboy Reyes portrays Sally Bowles, the spirited English cabaret singer at the center of the story. A music education major and mezzo-soprano, Reyes has performed in “Joyful & Triumphant” (FGCU’s annual Christmastime four choir concert at Moorings Presbyterian Church in Naples), appeared in the ensemble of the last TheatreLab/TheatreZone collaboration, “Heathers the Musical,” and drew praise for her portrayal of Henrietta Leavitt in “Silent Sky” for the FGCU TheatreLab.
Sally Bowles marks Reyes’ first leading role with the company.
“This is a field that I want to break into,” she says. “These Equity actors guide us through the process, and it’s really helpful to get that insight from people who’ve been doing this for a while.”
Noah Patrick Zimmerman plays Clifford Bradshaw, the young American writer whose arrival in Berlin draws him into Sally’s world.
Actors’ Equity performer Frank Blocker plays Herr Schultz, the Jewish fruit merchant whose tender romance with Fräulein Schneider becomes increasingly threatened by the changing political climate. A Drama Desk Award nominee, Blocker is familiar to TheatreZone audiences from appearances in “Jersey Boys,” “Bonnie & Clyde,” “Heathers,” “Urinetown,” “Amadeus and Me” and “My Girl.”
Susan Dohan, also an Actors’ Equity performer, portrays Fräulein Schneider, the German boarding house owner whose relationship with Herr Schultz becomes one of the musical’s most poignant stories. She was seen most recently at Arts Bonita Performing Arts Center in “Titanic the Musical,” in which she played Ida Straus, who opted to die with her husband rather than board a lifeboat.
Gerritt VanderMeer, an Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA performer and member of the FGCU faculty, portrays Ernst Ludwig. VanderMeer has more than two decades of professional experience, with stage credits including the national tour of “The Music Man,” The Old Globe, Trinity Repertory Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Shakespeare Theatre Company, as well as appearances with TheatreZone and other Southwest Florida professional theatres.
Brittany Halen, an Actors’ Equity performer and TheatreZone veteran, appears as Texas in the Kit Kat Klub ensemble and serves as dance captain. An actor, singer, dancer and violinist, Halen also plays violin in the production.
FGCU students are featured throughout the company, including Nadya Smirnova as Fräulein Kost; Stephan Tatum as Kit Kat performer Bobby, also playing violin; Davian Jimenez as Victor; Payton Hilger as Lulu; Grace Duncan as Helga; Justin Price, who also plays alto saxophone; Gavin Regalado as Max; and Brielle Midler as the Customs Officer.
Shaelyn Crabtree plays Kit Kat Girl Fritzie. Both Mark and Karen Danni cited her as an example of the collaboration’s success. She’s still in school pursuing studies in business, theater and education, but has already landed a job as the marketing and education coordinator at Cultural Park Theatre. In fact, last month she directed and choreographed “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” for Cultural Park. The show was her 28th production as a director. Not only does she appear in “Cabaret” as one of the Kit Kat Girls, but also appeared for TheatreZone in “Carrie” and “Heathers,” along with more than a dozen shows at local community theaters from Cultural Park to Melody Lane Theatre.
About TheatreZone
TheatreZone is Naples’ premier professional musical theatre, presenting Broadway-caliber productions and concert experiences in an intimate venue in residence at Community School of Naples. Founded in 2005 by Broadway and Off-Broadway performers Mark Danni and Karen Molnar Danni, the nonprofit company features professional performers from across the country under its contract with Actors’ Equity Association.
About FGCU Bower School of Music
The Bower School of Music at Florida Gulf Coast University offers comprehensive training in performance, education and music studies. Through partnerships with professional organizations such as TheatreZone, students gain practical, real-world experience preparing for careers in the performing arts.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
