In December of 2002, Clay Nichols asked me if I was inter­ested in starting a boarding camp for the arts at St. Stephen’s in the summer of 2003. I was looking for a new project and jumped at the idea. I left his office and drove straight over to my friend, John’s house. John had music directed a few shows with me and had just began a new career path as a graphic designer. We had a meeting and came up with a plan. After many meetings, brochures went out, a staff was hired, plans were made and TAP Camp was born. John started out as TAP Camp’s man­aging director, graphic designer and musical director and con­tinued that for the first four summers. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 2004 to study graphic design. John has con­tinued to be instru­mental in the success of TAP Camp from afar. As the graphic designer, John has created beau­tiful print mate­rials every year and helped us with our mar­keting efforts. He spent the better part of this year making us a new website and con­tinues to provide us with beau­tiful materials.

When John decided to go into a career as a graphic designer, I worried that the musical artist in him would be lost. But Boston has embraced all of his many talents and allowed him to flourish. John has been musical director for nearly a dozen musicals with Stoneham Theatre Company, where he has also been hired as a director on a number of pro­duc­tions. He has con­tinued teaching classes in private and group voice and musical theatre history. John has worked as a musical director for Suffolk University, Arlington Children’s Theatre, Riverside Theatre Works and he is slated to work on a pro­duction of Bat Boy: The Musical for the Metro Stage Company this summer. This year, he was hired as the Musical Director for Sunfish, a new musical, pro­duced at Stoneham Theatre.

I am very excited to have John at TAP Camp this summer…as a musical director, edu­cator, designer, musical theatre geek and general artistic guru. I look forward to col­lab­o­rating with him this summer and I am excited to see the growth of our campers after working with him for three weeks.

–Ginger, TAP Artistic Director