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A new performance arts training center for youth is opening this month in Oak Park. Ovation Academy for the Performing Arts is setting up shop at 126 N. Oak Park Ave., in a 1,000-square-foot, lower-level studio space there.
Founders of the academy, Marcia Frank, Sally Prescott and Tina Reynolds, are Oak Parkers with ties to youth arts programs in the area.
Reynolds is director of Brooks Middle School’s BRAVO program. Frank, who has been involved with BRAVO for many years, is the former executive director of Oak Park’s Pro Musica Youth Chorus. Prescott, also a BRAVO parent, is former president of the program. Her daughter, who’s now at Oak Park and River Forest High School, started at BRAVO as a fourth-grader.
Ovation will start classes in October and is scheduled to have its grand opening next week, Sept. 30. The classes, for youth age 4-18, include voice, improv, singing and dance, as well as guitar and musical theater training.
Starting their own academy is a dream come true for all three women.
“I had the wonderful opportunity to work along side [Tina] and thought this would be a great way for the kids in the community to actually get what they need to get, which in a lot of places, unfortunately, is not available,” Prescott said.
Reynolds added, “It was always a dream to be able to expand the arts and make it available to our entire community and our surrounding community — not just having an incredible, excellent, highly-professional program at BRAVO, but offering it to our pre-schoolers and our elementary kids, and our high school kids even.”
While BRAVO, as well as CAST at Julian Middle School, are performance-based programs, Ovation is focused on training, said Reynolds, who will continue running the Brooks programs.
“This is more of an opportunity to come and hone your talent,” she said, noting that there’ll be opportunities in the spring for students to showcase their talents in small performances for classmates and families.
The studio space, located below the Oberweis ice cream parlor, includes a large open area for training and a small business office. Prescott and Frank are the on-site managing directors while Reynolds and about a dozen staff trainers will oversee classes.
Classes are open to anyone wanting to attend, not just Oak Parkers, Reynolds said. According to the directors, there is no other youth training academy like this in the area.
“We had originally started looking at having a collaboration with Open Door Theater,” Frank said. “But the more we talked about it, we realized that having our own space would provide us the flexibility to offer classes we think are needed in the community, but also gives us expansion possibilities so we can do more classes during the day, maybe late at night, and that way we’re not conflicting with anybody’s schedules; it’s just nice to have our own space.”
Ovation is a for-profit business, with classes averaging about $225 for a 10-week session. In the future, they’d like to set up a foundation to support scholarships, Frank said. The academy plans to start with 19 classes with about 15 students max.
“We’re hoping to start with 100 to 150 kids and then build it from there,” Reynolds said.
