Mon, 21 Jul 2003 04:00:00 -0400
window-stories

A Future Light on Broadway

Doug Yetter, who has directed, written and/or conducted over 200 musicals, was one of seven finalists for UMBC’s 2003 valedictorian and graduated in May with a 4.0 GPA. This fall, he begins the world’s only graduate program in musical theatre writing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he has received a full scholarship and housing allowance.

Yetter originally came to UMBC’s music department as an accompanist in 1998 and enrolled in the undergraduate program the following year. He began his career in musical theatre in Denver and has been involved in productions across the United States. He has been named “Baltimore’s Best Piano Bar Entertainer” numerous times, and is the former co-owner of the Chesapeake Music Hall, a dinner theatre in Annapolis, Maryland.

His work has been performed off-Broadway and around the country. Locally, his version of “A Christmas Carol” has become an annual tradition at the Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park, where his adaptation of “Dracula” will also be performed this spring.

At Tisch, MFA students in the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program have the opportunity to participate in assistantships at New York theatres, and in their final year they each compose an entire Broadway show, which will be read for Broadway producers. Yetter says, “Without the depth of education I received at UMBC, and the life-changing experience I had in the music department, I would never have been accepted by an institution such as NYU.”