In Uncertain, Threatening Times, New Double Threat Studios Sings a Happy, Welcoming, Supportive Tune
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Less than a year after launching their own musical theater company, Quad-Cities theater veterans (and best buds) Steph DeLacy and Megan Warren are flourishing, as are their students, in 3rd through 12th grades.
Double Threat Studios opened their latest musical, “The Addams Family,” Friday night (Oct. 29) at Assumption High School, 1020 W. Central Park Ave., Davenport, and performances continue today at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15, available at www.doublethreatstudios.com/store/p/the-addams-family-tickets.
A group photo of “The Addams Family” cast of Double Threat Studios at Assumption High School, 1020 W. Central Park, Davenport.
Will Emerle is 13 and an 8th grader at Bettendorf’s Lourdes Catholic School, playing the plum role of Gomez Addams, after performing one previous show with Double Threat, being “Newsies,” last spring. Will started taking tap lessons with DeLacy in August 2020, and loves every aspect of performing.
“This show has likely been one of the most unique ones I’ve ever done, considering all of the very weird and quirky bits of dialogue and strange, yet powerful songs,” he said of “Addams Family,” based on the popular, dark and quirky TV series and films. “My favorite part of theatre is watching the wonderful community of people that is built with each show, and all the friends I make. I have grown in many ways with Double Threat! I have become a significantly better tap dancer, have started becoming a vocalist, and I have learned multiple accents from performing in the shows.”
Jack Carslake is 12, and attends Pleasant Valley Junior High. He has been involved in Double Threat’s “James and the Giant Peach Jr.” and “High School Musical Jr.” (which were for the 3rd-8th-grade group). He is currently Lurch in “Addams Family” (grades 7-12) and will be Simba
A scene from the new Double Threat “Addams Family,” which will be performed Saturday, Oct. 30 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 31 at 2 p.m. at Assumption High School.
in “Lion King Jr.” in an upcoming production.
“Steph and Megan let you explore your character and add your own ideas to improve your onstage performance,” he said recently by email. “I have had the chance to do more comedic acting with them. I love getting on stage and seeing the final product come together. I have learned to experiment with my characters. I am also much more comfortable dancing on stage.”
Jack’s 15-year-old sister, Mallory has been in the “Newsies” and “Hairspray” casts (7th-12th grades). Currently she is playing the part of an ancestor in “Addams Family.”
“I have made lasting friendships with people from schools all over the QC of all ages,” she said by email. “Our ‘Newsies’ cast still gets together for coffee at least 2 times a month.
Megan and Steph spend a lot of time focusing on the details of the sets, costumes, and props which makes the show much more professional. As a cast, we are encouraged to be part of the process of helping with all aspects of the production giving me a better understanding of everything that goes into the shows.”
Being in theater overall, Mallory said: “I love meeting new people and getting to express myself in a creative way.”
Alisa Carslake, mother of Jack and Mallory, said: “My kids look forward to their time at Double Threat studios every week. As a parent, I am impressed not only by all the skills they are developing but also the confidence that they have gained. Steph and Megan develop special relationships with each kid, in addition to investing so much time into their students.”
Warren, a vocal coach and music director, and her musical theater pal Steph DeLacy (choreographer and dance teacher) opened Double Threat in January 2021 at 882 Middle Road, Bettendorf, a performing arts studio that provides high-quality comprehensive musical theatre instruction for young performers in grades 3rd-12th.
“We aim to encourage boldness, confidence, creativity and community through performance,” according to its Facebook page.
Tatum Kilburg in “The Addams Family.”
“Our students come from all across the Quad-Cities, and have a variety of performing experience — some very experienced, others participating in their first show,” Warren said in May. “I think I speak for Steph and myself when I say that the students have just absolutely blown us away. Their excitement and talent just radiate, and I think the coolest thing to see has been the cross-city/school friendships that have been forged. Our ‘Newsies’ cast actually has a huge group chat they’ve started (I don’t want to know what they talk about), but it’s super cool to think that young theatre lovers across the Quad Cities have been able to connect and create friendships with others they might otherwise never have known.
“Starting our own theatre company has been full of amazing joys and challenges,” she added. “This is the first time that both Steph and I have taken on complete full artistic direction of musicals, and the two of us have taken on the bulk of the responsibility.
“In these first two productions, we have given ourselves the task of costuming both shows, designing and creating most of the props, set designing, designing and programming both the lights and sound all while also doing the direction/music direction/choreography,” Warren said. “While we don’t have a team at this time (maybe in the future), we have been overwhelmed with the support from the community and parents of our students.”
Why start a business during Covid?
Starting a new business is hard enough in normal times, so how and why did they start theirs during Covid times?
“We were lucky enough to find a space – because of Covid – they were so ready,” Warren said recently. “Luckily, that did benefit us in that
DeLacy and Warren opened the doors to Double Threat Studios in Bettendorf in January 2021, serving students in grades 3-12.
regard. We’re so lucky to have a community of people, of family and friends, to support us and do all of that. We’ve been really lucky to have lots of people there to help us, that made it really financially feasible.”
“A lot of people have been very understanding of what we want to do and have been very supportive of that,” DeLacy said. “Because of that, they’ve been happy to volunteer their time or contribute their talents to what we’re doing. It really takes a village.”
Double Threat is not a registered nonprofit, so they’re not eligible for a lot of potential grants.
The Duck Creek Plaza space was formerly a Hallmark store, and was the first place they looked at for the studios. The renovations were done under budget, DeLacy said.
“We had been looking for a central location,” Warren said of a home within the Quad-Cities. “This was perfect.”
The student enrollment has been better than she hoped, especially with Covid being a factor, she said. They ideally wanted to serve students who didn’t have a theatrical outlet once they hit middle school, Warren said.
“There’s a very specific niche a lot of our kids find themselves in, where they’re not kids anymore,” she said. “But they’re also not adults. So a lot of children’s camps don’t work for them, or a lot of community theater shows, they can’t be Annie in ‘Annie,’ but they also can’t be Miss
Steph DeLacy (a 34-year-old choreographer and dance teacher) and Megan Warren (a 27-year-old vocal coach and music director) first met doing “Shrek” in 2018 at Music Guild.
Hannigan. They’re stuck in this niche, and they find themselves trapped. And a lot of these kids fizzle out of theater, because they don’t have the opportunities.”
Coming from teaching at middle school, Warren sympathized with choices kids make – often between playing sports and being in music and theater. “Our programming allows kids the chance to say, OK, I’m going to do track through my school and a production at night a couple days a week. We catch the 7th and 8th grade groups, and we actually have two students doing both shows with us this fall. They do ‘Lion King’ rehearsals for two hours and then ‘Addams Family’ rehearsals for three hours, on the same nights. And those are two of the most pleasant kids we have.”
Having rehearsals just two nights a week allows kids the chance to do other activities during the week, and for Warren and DeLacy to teach their students those non-rehearsal nights.
Warren was the choir director at Geneseo Middle School for three years, and quit to do freelance voice lessons, music camps, and music directed some shows for a year until Covid hit in March 2020, “then
DeLacy and Warren first kicked the Covid blues by starting a “Double Threat” musical theater podcast in April 2020.
everything went down the toilet,” she said. She now teaches about 50 voice students a week, and performs a little on the side. At Circa, Warren will be in “Seussical.”
DeLacy has about 40 dance students now, and will reduce that for next year. She’s added some students from the Double Threat shows. “That’s been pretty cool too,” she said.
In general, both DeLacy and Warren have seen about half of their students be in a Double Threat show at some point. Warren also teaches a lot of adults.
They named their studios Double Threat after the Double Threat podcast they started in April 2020, with each episode (typically once a week) focused on a particular musical theater theme. They’re taking a break from the podcast after a full year, which ended in April 2021, and the hiatus lasted until August. Since then, they did three more episodes. They sai they might recruit some substitute hosts, since their schedule is so crazy now.
Starting at Playcrafters, moving to Assumption
Their first show (“James and the Giant Peach” with 3rd-8th graders) was at Playcrafters in Moline, a small cast of 13. “That was a perfect space for it,” DeLacy said. The rest of their shows have been at Assumption High School. She’s been choreographing there professionally since 2008, and has choreographed at Davenport North for seven years.
Getting ready for the first Double Threat show last May, “James and the Giant Peach.”
DeLacy is going to start rehearsing the kids’ show at Davenport North, which will be “James and the Giant Peach” (which was picked before they started Double Threat). She’s also rehearsing with “The Little Mermaid” now at Clinton High School. Warren directed “James” for Double Threat and they alternate directing the older students’ shows. She directed “Hairspray” over the summer and is leading “Lion King, Jr.” now. “So we each kind of get to main the helm at different grade levels,” she said.
They wish they could use live musicians with the shows, but they use pre-recorded tracks – which makes it easier for kids to practice on their own and for DeLacy to lead dance rehearsals.
Compared with her pre-Covid schedule in schools, DeLacy will be choreographing for 4-5 schools this year, compared to like nine before, she said. This school year, she’s also working with United Township and Sherrard High schools, both of which she worked with before. UTHS actually will do “The Addams Family”
Warren and DeLacy at their new Bettendorf space (a former Hallmark store) at Duck Creek before renovations.
in spring 2022.
For Double Threat, they stage a spring, summer and fall musical for each age group. The spring and fall shows both run around the same time, and the summer ones are one after another. This past summer was “High School Musical, Jr.” and “Hairspray.” The high school-age musical in the spring was “Newsies.” For the diverse cast of “Hairspray,” the script calls for three Black named characters and an ensemble of Black performers. Double Threat had nine altogether (including the three main roles), Warren said.
DeLacy is thrilled with their relationship with Assumption, a private Catholic school.
“They’ve been so flexible with us and have been really very accommodating,” she said, noting she’s been on staff as drama director there since August. It’s not been hard to schedule shows; the school’s main musical is in the spring. “I’m creating their schedule, so I know right away what dates are available, what doesn’t work. It’s been very mutually beneficial.”
Jack Carslake (who plays Lurch in “Addams Family” at the Double Threat Bettendorf studio.
“Addams Family” has been in rehearsals since late August and is a little quicker rehearsal timeframe than “Newsies.” They’ve had many students participate in multiple Double Threat productions.
“It’s really been cool to see the kids that come back and I would say probably 75 percent or more of our ‘Addams Family’ cast has done a show with us before,” Warren said. Of the 13 kids in “James” cast, and 11 of them were in “High School Musical,” and a comparable number returned for “The Lion King.” “That’s been cool to see,” she said.
Junior productions based on Broadway shows are typically cut down to one act, 60-70 minutes, while keeping the big, most well-known songs, Warren said. They cut a lot of dialogue, but they’re simplified down to the necessary parts. “That’s nice, because it’s very manageable for the kids to get all the way through.”
“We try and give the same experience for the younger kids that we do for the older kids,” Warren said. “Obviously, it’s a different technical level, but it’s the same overall experience, they still get.”
For summer camps, the shows are put together in a shorter period – for “High School Musical,” rehearsals were five hours a day for two weeks, and for “Hairspray,” the kids were three hours a day for five weeks. Over the summer, they met more frequently, compared to fall and spring rehearsals two nights a week, DeLacy said. “I think they’re able to retain the information better because they’re meeting every day,” she said. “I don’t really do anything different on my end.”
“It’s more of a whirlwind getting it prepped, from a technical element,” Warren said of summer shows. “Addams Family” rehearsals were three hours a night, and two hours for “Lion King.”
Mallory and Jack Carslake both love musical theater.
“We both have very high expectations for the kids, and we’re very clear about those high expectations,” DeLacy said. “We provide them with resources – we have a Google Drive that’s accessible to every one of our cast members. Megan creates practice vocal tracks in addition to the rehearsal tracks that we have. I try to do videos and notes for all the choreography. While it’s a little fast and furious, we’re giving them a ton of resources to help them.”
“The kids who seek out our programming are the ones who want to do this,” Warren said. “They want to be in theater so very badly, that they are taking these extra opportunities outside of school. That helps a lot, having that intrinsic motivation of, I want to learn my part.”
They have some who auditioned for their school show and didn’t get in, or some schools may not have a fall show. Warren said some students may just want to do the Double Threat show over what their school picked. “It’s a little bit of everything,” she said.
Their most well-attended shows were “Newsies” and “Hairspray,” which had up to 220 people in the
The Double Threat cast of “Hairspray” featured nine students of color.
700-seat Assumption auditorium. They announced their 2022 season in early October:
- 3rd-8th grade will do “Mary Poppins” in spring, “Camp Rock: The Musical” in summer,” and “Frozen” in the fall.
- 7th-12th grade will do “Legally Blonde” in spring, “The SpongeBob SquarePants Musical” in summer, and “Pippin” in the fall.
Another goal is to do shows that will involve everyone as much as possible, Warren said. “I was a kid where I was on stage for two seconds and the rest of the show I sat in the back, and we have to take that into account. That has influenced a lot of our show decisions. What show could involve the most amount of people for the most amount of time on stage as possible?”
DeLacy said you can find creative ways to get more kids in stage for longer, like in “Lion King,” they get creative and use imagination.
“I’m not a parent, but when I have kids someday, I want to see them on stage as much as possible, and that’s what we try to do,” Warren said.
Mia Roldan, 16, was featured in Double Threat’s musical “Hairspray.”
For “Addams Family,” there’s an unspecified “ancestors ensemble,” where they could have 8 or 20 ancestors, and not affect the show, DeLacy said. “They’re doing a lot of the set change work for us, which is awesome,” she said. “I found ways to even walking through scenes and popping through once in a while.”
For this cast, there are 23 students altogether. For older students, those who are fully vaccinated can perform without a mask, and any unvaccinated students have worn masks, and they’re all very good about it, DeLacy said. They’ve been trying to adhere by CDC recommendations; for “Hairspray,” most of the cast was vaccinated and they didn’t wear masks while performing. For “Newsies,” they all wore clear masks.
Warren has done the atmospheric, spooky lighting for “Addams Family,” courtesy of a new light board at Assumption. “I have had the luck and ability to program lights for shows before, but having worked on Assumption’s light board, I’d like to say I’ve become more skilled each show,” she said. “It’s been really fun to play and program. They’ve got some great colored lights.”
“I also was not easy on her this show,” DeLacy said. “I want very little color, and she’s a very colorful light
Alex King with Megan Warren (left) and Steph DeLacy.
designer. This is what I want and that is all. Oh my gosh, it’s been gorgeous. The pictures I’ve been taking, it’s so good.”
Jack Carslake as Lurch was actually ironic casting, as the shortest member of the cast. “That was one role, it wasn’t really clear from the auditions,” DeLacy said. “He is so funny, so committed. Any time you look around the stage, he never breaks. He is always in character. It’s so funny. He’s adding little bits every night, that are tiny little things. He is great to work with.”
In the beginning of the show, in a group scene, Jack is standing on a step stool to appear tall, and then he steps down.
Their friend Luke Vermiere (who is directing Music Guild’s “Holiday Inn” designed the set for “Addams Family.”
“He is so wonderful. He is such a giving human,” Warren said. “He just enjoys the work so thoroughly, we are so very grateful.”
Other students’ rave reviews
A number of other Double Threat performers also like to sing the praises of the new company, including Micah Roldan, 13, a student at Trinity Lutheran School in Davenport, and his 16-year-old sister Mia, who attends Davenport Centra. Mia has been in “Hairspray” and
The Double Threat “Newsies” cast rehearsing last spring.
“Addams Family,” and wanted to grow her acting talent by exploring new theater companies.
“I was familiar with Steph from my experiences at Davenport Junior Theatre as well,” Mia said by email. “Hairspray was a musical I had always wanted to perform. I wanted to be in a show with my brother too!”
Micah, who is Lucas in “Addams Family,” was excited about the opportunity to work with DeLacy and Warren. He had worked with Megan before when he was cast in “Oliver” at The Spotlight Theatre, which was later canceled. “The environment they create is a ton of fun and is a safe place to be,” Micah said. “I enjoy learning from Megan and Steph.”
“They are both inclusive, non-judgmental mentors who help you reach your full potential on stage. They are very sweet,” Mia said, noting the shows are a lot of fun to be part of. “I look forward to rehearsal. What I most enjoy about theater is you get to be someone else to entertain your audience. They have
Rehearsing at Double Threat Studios at Bettendorf’s Duck Creek Plaza.
challenged my vocal skills and broaden my acting abilities. They have built my confidence through providing an encouraging learning atmosphere.”
“What I most enjoy is channeling different sides of me through characters and being a part of the drama community,” Micah said. “I have learned a lot about being professional and presenting myself that way.”
Music Guild’s “Miracle in Bedford Falls” featured Megan Warren as Mary and Alex King as one of her children.
Alex King, 14, a freshman at UTHS, said “Addams Family” is his second show with Double Threat after “Newsies” last spring. He knew both Warren and DeLacy from being in previous shows at Quad City Music Guild. “I was in ‘Miracle in Bedford Falls’ with Megan and Steph choreographed ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ They are both so nice and I was excited to work with them,” Alex said.
In “Addams Family,” he plays Pugsley, noting: “He is SO much fun to play!”
“Hairspray” was done this past August at Assumption High School.
“The thing that I enjoy most is the environment that they create,” Alex said of Double Threat. “While we are working hard, it’s always fun and relaxed.”
“I’ve loved every show I’ve done — whether at QC Music Guild or Double Threat. Everyone is so nice at both locations. But DT stands out because I’ve personally had the best social experiences and met really great friends. We hang out outside of rehearsal because we all share common interests,” he said. “I enjoy the thrill of the performance — when that curtain rises for the first time or if I can get a laugh from the audience. I also love the friendships that I’ve made. I feel like my dancing (not my strong suit!) has really grown since being at DT.
Tatum Kilburg, 16, a Davenport Central student, is playing Wednesday in “Addams Family.” Of the new company, she said: “I like the people and feeling of community. I love the opportunity to sing and to perform with my friends.
“Megan and Steph have helped me with improving on my acting and singing skills and given me the chance to perform this awesome role of Wednesday, and I’m so grateful,” Tatum added.
Rehearsing at Double Threat Studios at Bettendorf’s Duck Creek Plaza.
Chloe Knobloch, a 14-year-old Moline High School student, is in her show at Double Threat, but not her first time working with Steph and Megan.
“I got involved with Double Threat because I loved working with both of them in previous productions so I wanted to do more,” she said. “In my first production at Double Threat, I’ll be playing Morticia in ‘The Addams Family.’ I really enjoy the fact that Megan and Steph not only
The planned 2022 season at Double Threat includes “Frozen Jr.” and the new SpongeBob musical
are amazing directors and fun to work with, but they choose to get to know you on a personal matter and are always there no matter what.
“Megan and Steph truly care and know what they’re doing,” Chloe said. “They create an atmosphere where you feel accepted, which you can’t find everywhere. I enjoy theatre because at points it’s like escaping to your own reality and being with people who understand it as well. I have definitely grown so much at Double Threat. I now not only have gotten to meet some friends I’ll have for life, but I have really learned so much more why I choose to wake up and do musical theatre. This show for me has been nothing but personal acceptance and growth so I thank Steph and Megan so much for being such a lifeline for me and for many others.”
“The Lion King Jr.” is scheduled to go on stage Nov. 19-21, and tickets are $10. For more information, visit doublethreatstudios.com.
