Danny Garrity had never lived away from home on his own before he went to Texas last summer to act in one of the country’s best summer stock programs in musical theater. He left Myrtle Beach on Mother’s Day and arrived, two days later, in Granbury, the seat of Hood County, located about 35 miles southwest of Fort Worth. Two days later he auditioned for The Music Man at the Granbury Opera House, beginning a memorably grueling three-month immersion in the world of professional theater.

At 19-years-old, Garrity, now a sophomore musical theater major at Coastal, was one of the two youngest members of the company. Installed with 16 other college students from all over the country in an austere dormitory around the block from the Opera House, he worked an average of 13 hours a day from mid-May to mid-September, with only three days off a month.

Garrity as Harry in State Fair

“While we were doing one show at night, we would be rehearsing another one during the day,” says Garrity. The Opera House presents seven shows a week—two on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and one on Sunday—plus extra shows for special groups and events. All students are required to work in technical capacities on set construction, costumes and props.

A normal day begins at 9 a.m. with dance classes, sometimes led by visiting professionals, and ends with the final curtain call around 10 p.m. All summer shows include singing and dancing, and if a student is weak in one or the other, he or she receives special coaching from 8 to 9 a.m. “I got into the program on the strength of my singing,” says Garrity, who has been performing in local theatrical productions since he was a fourth-grader at Socastee Elementary School. “I had never danced onstage before, so I had a lot of 8 o’clock dance classes.”

The extra work paid off for Garrity, who won a lead part in the next show, State Fair. In the season’s final show, Crazy For You, he had a featured role in the chorus.

Garrity learned about the program from Coastal music professor David Bankston, who has family and professional ties in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and who recommended him for the internship.

The Granbury Opera House

Once a student is accepted into Granbury’s summer stock program, he or she becomes a professional. In addition to receiving a stipend, they earn points toward becoming full members of the Actors Equity Association, the national labor union representing actors and stage managers. During the summer, Garrity earned 18 of the 40 points required to become vested in the organization.
Even on their rare days off, the students did theater. “There’s so much great live theater in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we saw as many shows as our schedules allowed,” says Garrity, who was particularly impressed by Tony Curtis in the new musical stage version of Some Like It Hot in Dallas.

The summer stock intern program is one of the cornerstones of the Granbury Opera House, a professional organization with a long tradition of quality theater. “We first used interns, mostly students from this region of Texas, to fill out our programs while members of our resident company were away for the summer,” says Marty Van Kleeck, managing director of the Opera House and a member of the company since 1975. Later Van Kleeck began to recruit interns from the Southwest Theater Conference and then the Southeast Theater Conference. Gradually the program grew to employ 16 to 20 student actors a season.

“Our summer students get a real taste of what it takes to be a professional,” says Van Kleeck. “We are serious about the training we give the interns and we really try to nurture them. If they’re behind in a particular area we give them extra lessons, and they have the benefit of working with some of the most experienced professional voice and dance instructors in the business.” Dance director Jim Cooney, who tutored Garrity and his fellow students, was the dance captain of the national tour company of the Broadway revival of The Music Man. Another visiting professional was Randy Clements, a veteran Broadway actor who has appeared in CATS, A Chorus Line and Titanic.

Garrity with admirers, in Crazy For You

In addition to the expert instruction the students receive from professionals of this caliber, the career-boosting (or networking) opportunities that arise as a result of these associations are extremely valuable to an aspiring performer, as Garrity has already learned. “The Granbury Opera House has a great reputation, and a lot of show business and media people from the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area come see the shows. A Fort Worth photographer who was in the audience of State Fair one night saw me and thought I might be right for a photo shoot he was planning. It led to my first paid modeling job.”

Garrity chose to study at Coastal because it’s the only institution in the state that offers a bachelor’s degree in musical theater. If things go according to plan, Garrity will appear in lots of Coastal Carolina University Theater productions between now and graduation. If things go according to plan, one day a lot of Coastal students, faculty and staff will be saying, “I knew him when . . .”