Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
shipshape on land
Cruise performers get their acts
Carnival opens studio in Davie for its fleet of onboard entertainers
Where do cruise ship music performers go to get their acts together?
At Carnival Cruise Line, it’s the company’s new rehearsal venue called Carnival Studios, a 44,500-square-foot production facility in Davie that boasts eight music studios, five full-stage dance studios, a training room, a green room and offices for the line’s entertainment department.
Envisioned as a creative hub for some 500 onboard entertainers, the Doral-based cruise line spent $5 million on the complex, which opened last week. It’s loaded with the latest in digital sound, lighting and recording technology.
Every main theater stage across Carnival’s fleet of 25
ships has been replicated. Among the cutting-edge features is a 480-square-foot LED screen inside one of the dance studios, a key backdrop for the cruise line’s Playlist Productions shows.
Carnival is the latest cruise line in the past three years to establish a studio for performers to refine their acts and establish new ones. Royal Caribbean’s cast members practice in a $32 million studio opened in north Miami-Dade last year. Entertainers for Norwegian cruise lines rehearse in a studio in Riverview in Central Florida.
The idea is to improve onboard entertainment. Carnival also expects it will save money — entertainers used to practice in cruise ship cabins that now can be sold to paying passengers.
“We designed the space to encourage interaction and engagement between everyone who works on our shows — from cast members and musicians to technicians and backstage crew,” said Chris Nelson, Carnival’s director of entertainment.
Carnival’s new studios are expected to attract top talent from well-known theatrical hubs such as Broadway, Las Vegas and London’s West End. Most of the line’s entertainers perform under sixmonth contracts.
“Recruiting individual band members and rehearsing them shore side is an initiative we have been focused on over the past few years,” said Sarah Beth Reno, Carnival’s vice president of entertainment.
She noted that 50 percent of the musicians now rehearse on land. “This strategy has increased the quality and consistency of our music offerings across the fleet.”
Prior to building its own studios, Carnival had to take numerous ship cabins out of circulation for performers to use for onboard rehearsals. That meant a considerable revenue loss as the rooms couldn’t be sold to travelers. Now, the rooms will be freed up as most performers will spend four to six weeks in Davie perfecting their routines before heading to their respective ships.
In all, 14 shows are expected to be in rehearsal each week when entertainers and performers are in town. They will also develop new productions.
Among the new shows in rehearsals will be “Amor Cubano,” which debuted last year on Carnival Vista, the line’s newest ship sailing from PortMiami. The production is a Caribbean dance romance that features a sevenpiece Cuban-inspired band performing songs by Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz and others.
Other productions include the musicals “Latin Nights,” “Motor City,” “America Rocks,” “Flick,” “The Brits,” “Heart of Soul,” “Getaway Island,” “Epic Rock,” “88 Keys,” “Pop to the Max” and “Studio VIP.”
It took three years to develop the new studio, which is expected to break even in three years, Carnival said. The company chose Davie because of its location, convenience, cost, and the line’s ability to build to suit its needs.
Carnival’s performers, who put on 12,000 shows annually, range from first-timers to veterans who have been entertaining guests aboard its ships for eight years or more.
“We do have people that are 18 right out of college from the Midwest that come out and we have people that have been on national tours throughout London, so it’s definitely a mix,” said John Guglielmetti, Carnival’s manager of casting and booking. ”We recruit all over the U.S., in the UK, Australia and we’re going to South America in a little bit looking for some more Spanish-speaking performers for “Amor Cubano.” ”
Among the new recruits who appeared at the studios last week was Sahmahrah Guillaume, 24, of New York who left a job on Wall Street with a civil rights organization to pursue her dream of becoming a professional dancer.
“I look forward to the traveling the most and just the excitement and feedback that I’ll be getting from the passengers as I perform,” said Guillaume, a dancer since age 3.
Another newcomer is Emily Reeves, 24, of East Lansing, Michigan, who performed in New York before auditioning with the cruise line in March.
“It’s a great gig for a performer to have because it’s long-term,” said Reeves. “And you get to travel the world and get taken care of by the cruise line.”