Today we’d like to introduce you to Emma Cantrell.
Emma, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Our company is actually a large gymnastics, tumbling, cheer, dance and theatre facility. I have danced my whole life and when I applied as a poor college student, I got a job coaching gymnastics. After about a year of coaching, I found out the dance and theatre program was under a new Director, starting fresh, and needed a new dance teacher. I then moved from coaching gymnastics to instructing dance (which is where I really wanted to be).
After a couple of years doing that and finishing up my college education in English Lit, we decided we wanted to start a competitive dance team and that I would head that up. We got to be very successful winning multiple awards and scholarships for our studio which then led to our manager and owner making the decision to have me take over and head up our Dance program as a whole (after previous directors decided to move on). I work closely with some amazing staff members and my fellow Theatre Director to help our program continue to grow and become the successful place that it is for our students.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Unfortunately, the road has been a bit bumpy with several different Directors taking over the program without a consistency of someone at the head of everything, we really went through a lot of ups and downs trying to figure out what worked for our program. When I first moved to the dance program, we were rebuilding the program and with that director, she really helped us grow tremendously! We had a large enrollment in both our theatre and dance programs and the musicals that we were putting on were close to professional level type performances.
Once that Director got a little overwhelmed we split the program up (which is when I took over the competitive dance company). Things started slowly sliding and our program suffered. Finally, two of the previous directors moved on with their careers with some really great opportunities and myself and our theater director have been working hard over the past 6 months to really bring our program back up and things have been looking up since then. Our musicals are back to being high quality and our enrollment has grown by over 100 students since June. We are looking forward to our Dance Company’s competitive season and our future musical performances.
Please tell us about Cypress Academy of Performing Arts.
We have this really rare situation with our studio and theatre that we are also attached/a part of a highly successful and widely known gymnastics and cheer program. We have had 3 male gymnasts come from our facility and make it to the Olympics in the past decade. With that, I get to work closely with all the Directors of these other programs in order to help each other out to make our company, as a whole, the success that it is. Within my facet of the company, the performing arts program, I work alongside our Theatre Director on all things from the administrative side of the program to teaching classes. I think if we were known for anything, it would be producing triple threats!
We offer classes in acting, dancing, and singing so we have students who take them all to make them a well-rounded performer. Staying within our program for all three provides discounts for our parents as well, so financially it is a wonderful option. With our program, I would have to say I am very proud of the staff that we have constructed here! It is obvious we all love our jobs and what we are doing as well as the families that come in our doors. Our staff also truly cares about our program and the growth and success that they make sure to do as much as they can inside and outside their class time to ensure this.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I don’t know if I can pinpoint one memory specific. Growing up, we were always very family-oriented. There was one day a week that we ALL had to be home for either the whole weekend, just a day or for just a couple of hours and my parents made us either go camping/boating on the lake, go out and do something together somewhere close to home, or just stay in and have a movie/game night.
So I have little snippets of memories from these times with my family that I don’t think will ever have a negative feeling with them (even though I never wanted to do these things in my teenage years). It is because of this that I now do the same with my family. .
Pricing:
- Auto-pay prices: $78/month for first class
- Non Auto-pay prices: $83/month for first class
- Second child: 10% discount on first class
- Third+ child: 30% discount on first class
- Any additional class per child: Only $45/class
Contact Info:
- Address: 11707 Huffmeister Rd.
Houston, TX 77065 - Website: cypressacademypa.com
- Phone: (281) 469-4599
- Email: emma@cypressacademypa.com
- Instagram: @capadanceprogram and @capatheatreprogram
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Cypress-Academy-of-Performing-Arts-199621023415228/
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