By Natalie Mollinet | [email protected]

Out of thousands of applicants, two students from The Salt Lake School for Performing Arts (SPA) were accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts Special Program at New York University. The summer internship is a great honor not only for Kaybri Wolff and Caden Tudor but also for their school located at 2291 S. 2000 East.

“I am really excited and hopeful that when I get back I will be so much better than I am now,” said Wolff, a junior Musical Theatre 3 student. “I want to get to know people in New York so I can get my foot in the door, hopefully, with my career in musical theatre.”

For admission into the program, the students completed an application that required them to write a 1,500-word creative essay and send in a theater resume, along with three letters of recommendation. This program is offered to performing arts students around the world and Tudor and Wolff are excited to be spending a part of their summer at NYU.

“I got into theater when I decided to go to SPA, and there I signed up for acting 1 and theater 1,” said Tudor, also a junior Musical Theater 3 student. “As a freshman, I was incredibly shy but after I walked off stage, all I wanted to do was get back on.”

Both students are from Idaho: Tudor is from Boise and Wolff is from Montpelier. Wolff used to compete in equestrian events, cheerleading and basketball. Tudor loves hanging out with his friends and when he’s not training in theater, he’s working on dance to help build his musical theater repertoire to become what theater people call a triple threat.

Tudor performed in SPA’s fall 2016 musical “Guys and Dolls” and most recently performed in the school’s production of “Baby with the Bath Water”. Tudor recently won second place in contemporary scenes at Utah’s State Drama Competition with his scene partner Kay Brown. Wolff stage managed “Guys and Dolls” as well as performed as a soloist and as a group member in SPA’s musical theater review “Inspirations” in January.

The NYU program is a high school program that is tuition-based and culminates in six college credits. Students spend four weeks on campus with a highly-structured class schedule. Tudor and Wolff will live at a NYU residence hall during the program and will get training from professionals in the field.

“I hope to further my training and learn what taking college/university/conservatory training is like,” Tudor said. “I’m so excited to do the thing I love most in the theater capital for four whole weeks.”

“The toughest part is probably working out time management,” Wolff said about being a theater student at SPA. “Another hard part is the constant criticism. It’s there for you to learn and get better but on a bad day it’s hard when all you want to hear is ‘that was perfect,’ but I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there.”

The two students admit that if it wasn’t for their hardworking teachers at SPA, that they wouldn’t have been able to get into this program or learn to become better performers and people. The two also wanted to thank their parents.

“I would love more than anything to give a shout out to my mom and dad,” Wolff said. “They have sacrificed everything to support me and provide me with whatever they can to make sure I have opportunities like these.”

“I would like to thank my parents, Janet and Rob Tudor, for being so supportive and being there at every single performance with a bouquet of flowers,” Tudor said. “I realized that performing is for me, and I cannot live with doing anything else. There is nothing for me but theater.”