Irvine’s Own Broadway Star
Broadway Arts Studio owner Darcie Magino. Photo credit Holly Ireland Photography Studio
Performers often say timing is everything. For former Broadway star and current Irvinite Darcie Magino, opening her performing arts studio at the start of a pandemic posed significant challenges. But those challenges ultimately yielded rewards for the students, teachers, and owners of Broadway Arts Studio.
“You can't ever forecast something like that's going to happen,” says Magino, who planned the launch of her studio for late March. “It was hard because we've been working on it for several years. The amount of work that goes into that is huge.”
Magino’s dream of running her own studio stems from her childhood studio experiences.
“When I was growing up my grandmother had a dance studio in the back of her house,” recalls Magino. “It was just in a one room studio. So I grew up dancing there. My mom was teaching dance at different little studios, but really didn't make enough money to support the family.”
After a tragic accident left Magino’s father paralyzed, her family moved to Kansas for her mother’s education.
“Since my dad could no longer work., my mom decided to go back to school,” recalls Magino. “She wanted to get her degree in ballet so that she could then maybe get a higher paying teaching job to support the family.”
The move to Kansas allowed Magino’s mother to attend Friends University in Wichita. It also lead Magino to stumble upon a life-changing experience in musical theater.
“I got involved with the local theater, Music Theatre Wichita, which is a huge regional theater,” explains Magino. “They bring in a lot of professionals from New York. That's where I met my mentors and started really hitting my training hard. And from that experience, it sort of opened up my eyes to Broadway and the professional side of the entertainment industry as a dancer and performer.”
Two years later, Magino’s family moved back to California, but she didn’t stay long. As soon as she graduated from high school, Magino leapt at the chance to start working in musical theater.
“I didn't go to college,” says Magino. “I went straight to New York and got an audition for a Broadway show within weeks. And got the job. So that really launched my career.”
Magino starred on Broadway (Curtains, Aida, Dream, and Crazy For You), and in touring productions (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Copacabana, Aspects of Love, and 42nd Street), as well as film (Every Little Step) and television (All My Children). From performing at Lincoln Center with Sutton Foster to doing regional theater, Magino never lost sight of her love for teaching her craft. After returning to California with her husband, and settling into Irvine with their four children, Magino began offering voice lessons. She realized many of her students were missing out on the formative experiences she had in Wichita.
“I was teaching private voice a lot, and many of my students were in the eleven to fourteen-year-old range,” says Magino. “They were not taking dance anywhere, but they wanted to do Broadway musical theater. I would ask, ‘Why aren’t you taking dance?’ They would say, ‘There isn’t not a studio that I like to go to. I don't want to be a competition dancer.’”
Magino realized these kids needed a studio that offered a creative outlet without the rigor and stress of competition.
“There was really no place for them,” says Magino. “The more I thought about it, I thought, ‘We need a full training place where people can come and get everything in one spot: acting classes, voice lessons, their dance classes and musical theater.”
Once Magino formulated the idea, she began to work on making it a reality. It took all of her experience and a little luck, plus years of work, to bring her dream to life.
“I began the process of training myself on how to be a dance studio owner,” Magino says. “We looked into what that process is and all of the elements that go with that. It took us a few years before we were even ready to start looking at an actual retail space.”
While Magino hoped to settle in Irvine, they wound up in nearby Lake Forest. Finding a space for the studio meant finding a place that met with a very long list of needs.
“A dance studio presents a unique challenge,” says Magino. “You need to have enough space, the specialty floors, and mirrors and all the equipment. So we had to find a place that wasn't just like a former shoe store. We began driving around and looking for places.”
As luck would have it, the perfect spot for her studio had just been vacated.
“We ended up finding this space in Lake Forest that used to be an indoor play space,” Magino says. “It worked out perfect for us. We were able to get just about the size for what we needed. We began our build out in January of 2020 and finished our build out in February of 2020. We were putting our finishing touches on a few things in the first weeks of March, and we had scheduled our opening to be the last week of March. But the pandemic hit and so we did not open.”
With the studio opening canceled, the Magino family took a pause and adjusted to pandemic life.
“We shifted our focus to just our family at that time, like many other people, dealing with the crisis at home,” says Magino. “We did what we needed to do, getting my husband set up to work at home and all of those things. And then we started with just online classes. I was teaching from my garage and we had hired a couple of teachers. They were also teaching from their garages or living rooms, and we were just offering free classes through the month of May.”
A Broadway Arts Studio class in session. Photo credit Troy Magino
Magino realized her studio could fill a void created by the pandemic. The isolation of social distancing was evident in her students as well as her own children.
“We saw a real need for kids to be able to be creative to, to have fun, to find some joy, to hear music, to have their brain stimulated in a creative way,” says Magino. “And we felt like that was sort of our calling in that moment to just be able to be able to serve our community and give kids the opportunity to learn and to be creative.”
As with many other businesses, Broadway Arts Studio briefly opened in June before closing again. They honed their skills at running a virtual season of performing arts classes. When September came, Broadway Arts Studio opened its door again, and it has remained a safely operational performing arts studio ever since.
“It's been amazing,” says Magino. “We've been growing very slowly but growing. And more and more people are wanting their kids to be able to come to a safe place to dance and move and sing and be creative. It's been a blessing, actually, to be able to be the place that these kids come to for maybe the only thing they do outside of their house.”
As Broadway Arts Studio hits its stride, Magino is focused on the culture of her studio. In contrast to the intensity her students and children have encountered at at other studios, she believes that acting, singing and dancing should be (gasp!) fun.
“There's a lot of different dance studios and performing arts studios out there, and we know they all have their own personality,” says Magino. “We want to provide a place where everyone belongs. Dancers with special needs and actors with special needs are welcome at our studio. We just want to be a place where anyone can come, feel welcomed, and to grow as an artist. And whether that means going on to a career in the entertainment industry or maybe becoming a teacher or just doing it for fun, we want it to be a place where everyone is welcome to come and be a part of our community.”
Magino’s commitment to welcoming her students is inspired by her own experiences of being ignored as a parent in other studio lobbies while she waited for her children.
“There was a huge lack of personal interest,” explains Magino. “I would sit in the lobby by myself. There was nobody else in there and I would not be greeted by the people at the front desk. And I thought, ‘This is not the culture I want to have at my studio.’ I know every single one of my students’ names. And that's important to me because we're not just a place where you drop off and come in and do your thing and leave. We want to be a part of your students’ growth. We want to know your kid, and we want to make a difference.”
Broadway Arts Studio offers in-studio, hybrid, and online classes. Check out their schedule online.