By: Michelle Bless
Editor’s note: This article is the third in a series of stories about Lubbock’s Moonlight Musicals.
The Moonlight Arts Academy provides a full-size rehearsal stage for their performers. (Photo By: Michelle Bless)
In 2015, Moonlight Musicals started an after-school program dedicated to teaching children in the Lubbock community the triple-threat theater craft of singing, acting, and dancing.
Frank Rendon gained control of the project as the director of Moonlight Arts Academy in January 2019.
“There had never been a centralized focus for the academy,” Rendon said. “And I think the reason for that is there’s never been a centralized focus of what the academy was or what it needed to be.”
Frank Rendon was named the director of the Moonlight Arts Academy in January 2019. (Photo By: Michelle Bless)
Rendon said Moonlight conducted weeklong camp programs during the summer, but the company’s board members wanted to spread it out to the school year.
“The academy was meant to be the educational arm of the big company of Moonlight Musicals,” Rendon said.
Wendy Needham, a former theater arts teacher, had been performing in Moonlight with her 14- and 10-year-old daughters for 5 years.
“I thought it was a great way to be together as a family,” Needham said. “I’ve always liked to perform, and I felt like getting the girls on stage to see if they enjoyed it.”
Needham said she feels like performing with each other has helped the girls develop their self-confidence. The Needham girls, Olivia, 14, and Anna Belle, 10, attend a private school and have been able to grow in Moonlight.
“I like the academy,” Anna Belle said, “because I get to be with other kids and I get to see how funny they are and get to learn their personalities.”
The Needhams: Wendy (right), Anna Belle (middle) and Olivia (left) in Annie, 2019. (Provided Photo)
Rendon said the academy was essential, outside of the community theater program already offered in Moonlight Musicals because it taught students what they would not learn elsewhere. The focus of the program, Rendon said, is to provide opportunity for these kids.
“If we are teaching children at this age to love to perform,” Rendon said, “to love to enjoy and come to shows, we will ultimately grow the next generation of performers and patrons of the arts.”
Rendon’s efforts have not been wasted, and Anna Belle is living proof of that.
“Moonlight Musicals has really inspired me,” Anna Belle said, “and I figured out I really liked musical theater. And now I want to be an actress when I get older.”
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