Education
Welcome to the TampaRep Education page.
The artists behind the founding of TampaRep come not only from a professional acting, directing, and design background, but are also teachers who deeply believe in the power of an arts education. TampaRep has a strong history of offering workshops, master classes, and other educational opportunities to the greater Tampa area and beyond.
See below for our current offerings:
UPCOMING CLASSES
Questions? Email info@tamparep.org
Registration opens April 1
Registration opens April 1
About the Instructors
Alexis Carra
Born and raised in Tampa, Florida, of Spanish, Cuban and Argentine descent, ALEXIS CARRA graduated with a B.A. in Theatre Studies, Cum Laude from Yale University. Dance has always been her first love and she has studied from places such as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Princeton Ballet, and with the Broadway legends Ann Reinking and Gwen Verdon. During her junior year at Yale she toured the country with the Tony Award winning musical, Fosse, which cemented her love for musical theater. Upon graduation she headed to New York and quickly procured roles in Broadway shows including Wicked, Sweet Charity, understudying the role of Nickie opposite Christina Applegate, and Fame on 42nd St. Her favorite regional credits include, Lola in Damn Yankees, Cassie in A Chorus Line, and Gypsy in Gypsy.
After closing the Broadway show, The Pirate Queen, she moved to Los Angeles and since then has worked continuously. She has guest starred on drama series such as Grey’s Anatomy, Castle, The Mentalist, Bones, and NCIS. While also working on comedy shows such as Young and Hungry, Anger Management, and The Tracey Ullman Show. She was a series regular on two TV series, a comedy on ABC called Mixology, created by the writers of The Hangover, as well as the Freeform series, Recovery Road. Most recently Alexis has a prominent guest star role on the highly anticipated, critically acclaimed miniseries Fosse Verdon on FX starring Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams. Her most recent film is a Disney feature film directed by Andy Fickman called Christmas Again, starring opposite Scarlet Estevez and Daniel Sunjata.
She continues to take and teach dance, and has been focused most recently on choreographing and directing. Alexis just finished choreographing Damn Yankees at Musical Theatre West and has also directed and choreographed shows such as 9 to 5, West Side Story, and Bye Bye Birdie. She has assisted on Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance as well as assisting Tony Award winning choreographers Andy Blankenbuehler and Wayne Cilento. She leads a creative, artistic life teaching across the globe as an educating artist and mentor with her performing arts educational company, www.BroadwayArtsCommunity.com, co-founded with her best friend, Chryssie Whitehead. She lives in Tampa, Florida with her husband, 4 year old firecracker son, Pierce and newly born son, Xander. You can follow her on IG @alexisacarra or her website www.alexiscarra.com
Emilia Sargent
EMILIA SARGENT, Producing Artistic Director/CEO of TampaRep, is an award-winning professional actor, director, singer, and educator with an M.F.A. in Directing and Arts Administration from the University of Idaho and a background in vocal performance from Auburn University and acting at The Atlantic in NYC. A proud member of Actors Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, she has appeared on several Tampa Bay stages including TampaRep, American Stage, Jobsite Theater, StageWorks, Gorilla Theatre, Hat Trick Theatre, Straz Center Ferguson and Jaeb, and the Mahaffey. She is best known in Florida for her portrayals of The Pilot in the one woman show, Grounded (Best of the Bay Best Actress and Theatre Tampa Bay Outstanding Lead Actress), Henrietta Leavitt in Silent Sky (TTB Outstanding Lead Actress), and Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (Best of the Bay Best Actress). Florida regional favorites include A Doll’s House, Part 2, Heisenberg, A View from the Bridge, Betrayal, I Do! I Do!, The Glass Menagerie, Metamorphoses, A Christmas Story, Boston Marriage, Much Ado About Nothing, and My Fair Lady, among many others. She has directed The Elephant Man, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Copenhagen and The Children’s Hour at TampaRep, as well as numerous theatre education musicals at the Patel Conservatory and Corbett Preparatory School. Her passions for the creation of theatre as well as for training artists in a rigorous, meaningful way and helping them bridge to professional careers are as deep as her love of performance. Her teaching is rooted in Uta Hagen, Practical Aesthetics, Chuck Jones and Edith Skinner, and Viewpoints. She has taught at the Patel Conservatory, TampaRep, Corbett Preparatory School, and the Community School of the Arts, and has recently completed her teacher certification in Alba Technique. Her specialized intensives and techniques classes draw students from all over Tampa Bay.
A co-founder of TampaRep, Emilia served as Director of Education Programs for TampaRep for nine years. She runs the Emilia Sargent Studio where she teaches voice and acting, coaches professional and college auditions, and serves as a talent scout for agents and managers. Emilia has taught hundreds of students who have soared to premier collegiate programs and professional careers which reach to Broadway.