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Legacy Theatre Programs: Toddlers, Youth, and Adults Register View Cart

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We are excited to partner with Legacy Theatre to offer many opportunities for the community to expand your creative arts and theatre experiences. Join a class today! 

Intro to Toddler Time! (Ages 2-3)
Instructor: Chelsea Dacey
Sing and dance! Each week will explore a new theme - Rainbow Day, Silly Outfit Day, Under the Sea, and Disney Day. Toddlers will engage in creative play, sing familiar songs, and learn age-appropriate choreography in a supportive environment.  Parents must stay throughout the class. Note: Parents must stay throughout class.

Toddler Time! (Ages 4-5)

Instructor: Chelsea Dacey
This class focuses on developing gross and fine motor skills, language skills, and social skills that will include singing, dancing, story time, and free play. Toddlers will engage in creative play, sing familiar songs, and learn age-appropriate choreography in a supportive environment.  Parents must stay throughout the class. Note: Parents must stay throughout class.

Musical Theatre Creates (Ages 5-10)
Instructor: Chelsea Dacey
Students will be stimulated to use their imaginations to create their own shows. Students work together to write a script, create songs, choose costumes, and design a show.

Musical Elementary Theatre (Ages 5-10)

Instructor: Chelsea Dacey
For elementary school ages, this theatre class is for those beginning or looking to hone their theatre craft. Students will use popular music songs and stories to perform musical numbers, including group numbers and solo opportunities. They will develop their singing, dancing, and acting skills. No prior
experience needed. 

 
Intro to Improv for Adults
Instructor: Mary Lou Lauricella
Enjoy the exploration of improvisation in seven weeks of fun and engaging exercises and scenes. Let yourself play again while improving your spontaneity, listening skills, and ability to be more present through the art of improvisation.
 
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Chelsea Dacey
Chelsea’s teaching experience ranges from: Director, Fairfield Summer Stage (Frozen Jr., Lion King Jr., Finding Nemo Jr., and Little Mermaid Jr.); Director, Independent Day School (Shrek, Singing in the Rain Jr.); and Music Teacher, Independent Day School and many more. At Legacy Theatre, Chelsea’s teaching experience has included teaching Toddler Time (theatre and music class for toddlers), Fairy Tale Musical (theatre class where students create their own musical), and an audition preparation class. Her Legacy Theatre performances include: Rapunzel/Book and Music (A Princess Tea), Piglet (The Tales of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh), Choreographer (You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown), Silly Dilly: The Musical, and Belinda (The Tales of Custard the Dragon). Other experience includes Off Broadway (Piggy Nation) and regional theatre shows. She is also a narrator on Audible (Romany Romance). For more information, visit: ChelseaDacey.com
 
Mary Lou Lauricella
Mary Lou Lauricella has worked as a professional actress in regional theatre before becoming a registered drama therapist. She holds a B.A. in Theater and English from Washington College and a Masters in drama therapy from NYU. She is trained in both Meisner (Neighborhood Playhouse) and Method acting techniques. She has been the director of the Veterans’ Homefront Theater at VA Connecticut, an outpatient PTSD theater group for over 20 years. The group was an improvisational theater group creating original works that were performed within the veteran and civilian communities. The group was the subject of a documentary film “No Unwounded Soldiers” created by award-winning filmmaker Rebecca Abbott. The film was screened at the Vail Colorado Film Festival, the Connecticut Film Festival and was aired on Connecticut Public Television. She has partnered with Quinnipiac University’s Theater for Community, the Clifford Beers Clinic and the Connecticut Coalition for End of Life Care facilitating theater workshops at the MacDougal maximum security prison and the prison Volunteer Bereavement and Hospice program. She has co-chaired the North American Drama Therapy Conference, presented at the Expressive Therapies Conference, NER-AMTA Music Therapy Conference.



Keely Baisden Knudsen
An award winning director, Keely has performed, directed, and choreographed internationally in plays, musicals, operas, and dance companies in hundreds of theatrical productions and has performed in 48 of the United States and in the UK. Realizing her vision of a new theater company on the Connecticut Shoreline, Keely’s ideals of inspiring, inclusive work that uplifts the human spirit and connects communities formalized in the creation of the Legacy Theatre with Co-Founder Stephanie Stiefel Williams, a performing colleague and dear friend. Keely has directed, choreographed,  and taught a myriad of performing arts courses at such institutions as Quinnipiac University, Yale University, Fairfield University, Hartt School of Drama, Southern Connecticut State University, Westminster College, and was the Director of Education of New Haven's acclaimed Elm Shakespeare Company for several years. Additionally a composer/lyricist and playwright, she is currently collaborating on two musicals and is a member of ASCAP. Her directing has been heralded by the Arts Paper as “…visually striking, emotionally moving” and “captivating” and of her direction of Hamlet it was said, “Knudsen has made the notoriously difficult Shakespearean language accessible.” Her creation of the Wheel Life Theatre Troupe has been an especially rewarding program as she acts and directs with those who ambulate with crutches and wheelchairs. Her BFA is from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, at which she graduated first in the class, and she received her Masters Degree in Drama on full scholarship from The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Keely, her husband Brian, and five children (Saviah, Liviana, Wynter, Emery, and Reeves) reside in Guilford, CT, where she thoroughly enjoys running the Legacy with a tremendous staff and community support.

Julie Fitzpatrick
Julie is delighted to be teaching with Legacy Theatre. Julie is a poet, playwright, performer, and teacher who has worked locally with St. Martin de Porres Academy in New Haven, Madison Arts Barn, GreenStage Guilford Live Arts, Moses Gunn Theater Company, Drama Works, Shoreline Arts Alliance, and Wheel Life Theatre Troupe. Her acting credits run the gamut from Off-Broadway to regional theater and her Film/TV work includes Law & Order and The OA. Julie is a member of the Guilford Poets’ Guild, The Playwrights Circle, and Ensemble Studio Theatre in NYC. Her play 77 U-Turn is published by Next Stage Press and can be purchased here. More info can be found at juliefitzpatrick.com. Julie lives with her favorite guys: her husband Pete and her sons, Fitz and Gracen.






Register Activity Ages Grades Days Date/Time Fees
 
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Intro to Toddler Time 2-3 yrs 
2y - 3y N/A Sa  01/25/2025 - 03/08/2025
09:00 AM - 09:30 AM

Joseph Trapasso Community House - Fitness Room - 2nd Floor
$140.00 Res, $150.00 Non-Res
 
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Toddler Time 4-5 yrs 
4y - 5y N/A Sa  01/25/2025 - 03/08/2025
09:30 AM - 10:15 AM

Joseph Trapasso Community House - Fitness Room - 2nd Floor
$150.00 Res, $160.00 Non-Res
 
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Musical Theatre Creates 
5y - 10y N/A Sa  01/25/2025 - 03/08/2025
10:15 AM - 11:00 AM

Joseph Trapasso Community House - Fitness Room - 2nd Floor
$150.00 Res, $160.00 Non-Res
 
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Musical Elementary Theatre 
5y - 10y N/A Sa  01/25/2025 - 03/08/2025
11:00 AM - 11:45 AM

Joseph Trapasso Community House - Fitness Room - 2nd Floor
$150.00 Res, $160.00 Non-Res
 
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Intro to Improv: Adults 
18y and up N/A Sa  01/25/2025 - 03/08/2025
10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

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$160.00 Res, $170.00 Non-Res
* Adjustments and discounts will be applied during checkout if applicable. *

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