DAVID SEPULVEDA PHOTO
Dest at NMS.
Many have heard of it, but ask someone for directions just around the corner from the Neighborhood Music School, located at 100 Audubon St., and very few will be able to tell you how to get there, according to drama department founder and instructor Stephen Dest.
The film adaptation stars NMS students.
Celebrating the 15th anniversary of the drama department he started at NMS, Dest is hoping to raise his department’s profile with new programming and staff, as well as a special screening of his short film adaptation of Hamlet at the NMS Recital Hall on Dec. 7 at 4 p.m.
Dest teaches master acting class.
With an annual enrollment of more than 2,500 students and more than 130 faculty members teaching music, dance, and drama, NMS is the 10th largest community arts school in the country. Founded in 1911, it is also one of the oldest community organizations in the city. Over the course of its history, NMS has expanded programs and outreach, with locations in Woodbridge, Madison, and Guilford in addition to its main facility in New Haven.
New to the drama department is an afterschool creative dramatics class for ages 7 – 10, which provides instruction in singing, movement, and acting, with activities designed to encourage self-expression and creativity.
NMS- Audubon Arts program students.
An upcoming series of four free “Magical Musicals Workshops,” based on NMS’s Audubon Arts summer program for children ages 5 – 12, will follow popular children’s book storylines and culminate in “mini-musical” presentations. The workshops, presented by Dest and voice instructor Matthew Harrison, will feature H.A. Rey’s Curious George on Dec. 6, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., followed by Horton Hears a Who on Jan. 24, Thomas the Tank Engine on Feb. 14, and Look! Look! on April 25.
Actor-instructor Bruce Altman.
Recently added to the drama department’s roster of distinguished faculty is film and television actor Bruce Altman (Matchstick Men, Rookie of the Year, Running Scared, and The Sopranos), who is teaching an acting class for ages 15 and up.
MBJ’s New Haven premiere at the Criterion Theater.
Outside NMS, Dest has been building an impressive independent film portfolio. His full-length independent feature film, My Brother Jack, which he wrote, directed, and set in New Haven, was a film festival award winner in 2013, and is now in distribution by Nelson Madison Films.
Green, left, 5 years after getting shot.
Dest’s next film will again use New Haven as its backdrop. I AM Shakespeare (The Henry Green Story) is a true-life story of New Haven’s Henry Green, “a brilliant young actor and inner-city gang member who was brutally shot and left for dead just shortly after his inspiring performance in William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet.” Dest has been an acting mentor for Green and both developed the film’s script over the past year.
Dest with cinematographer on set of MBJ trailer.
As with My Brother Jack, Dest has turned to online crowd funding with a Kickstarter campaign to help launch the movie and assist with preproduction expenses. Dest said the campaign will “raise awareness, build a fan base and most importantly connect with people who have an interest in getting involved in the world of independent film.”