Theater teacher is Artist of the Year

A Mount Vernon High School teacher has been recognized for his contribution to the region's arts community.
Dana Taylor, theater and choral director at the high school, was recently named the Arts Council of Southwest Indiana's Artist of the Year.
Taylor has worked in choral music and theater at Mount Vernon High School for about 22 years, but if you ask him what he does, his answer — “I work with teenagers.”
“We do so much work,” Taylor said of his technical theater group at the high school. In addition to MVHS and MVJHS productions, the group does lighting design for the Evansville Philharmonics pops concerts and Sight By Night, they build the set and do lights for ARC's Really Big Show and work with the Evansville Ballet. Over the past 10 years, the technical theater students have done about 80 shows, Taylor said. They now have a standard season of shows they work, he added
Taylor said he thinks he's been able to make this kind of progress in Mount Vernon because he doesn't have to deal with issues that some larger corporations face.
For example, he never hears, “you can't have it, because we can't give it to everyone else,” he said.
He also said his students have been very interested and involved, and he gets lots of support from the school corporation.
Taylor said his goals with the technical theater program are to enhance the skills of the students and prepare them to do this kind of work once they leave high school.
He said that Mount Vernon's technical theater crew is well-known and recognized within the industry.
The school's theater department, in general, works to give students a variety of performance opportunities, but the technical theater group has found a “nice little niche,” Taylor explained.
In choral music, Taylor tries to introduce his singers to a variety of music and prepare them for performance in college.
Taylor also took his attitude of looking beyond the four walls of the school for opportunities to the choral music department. Earlier this spring, the group was working on a piece by contemporary choral composer Michael McGlynn who is based in Dublin, Ireland. The group was having some problems with some parts of the piece, so Taylor orchestrated an hour-long Skype session between McGlynn and the chamber choir.
“You can find opportunities if you just reach out,” Taylor said.
The choral group Angelus also gets many opportunities at home and abroad. The group performs Middle English-style sacred music. The group is finishing its third year and has toured New York and Europe as well as performing locally. Taylor jokes that he doesn't want the group to grow to more than six members, because they can all fit into his SUV. There's not a set number, “as long as they sound good together,” he added. This year, Angelus will be losing five of its six singers.
Taylor grew up in Princeton and received his bachelors of music education from Indiana University in Bloomington. He returned to Florida, where he had once lived, and began working as a singing waiter. He was eventually promoted to music director for the company and worked a Department of Defense tour of Europe for a cruise line.
He came back to Indiana to get a job with the dinner theater in Evansville and got his Masters in choral conducting in 1989. His dinner theater job didn't materialize, and he learned about the opening in Mount Vernon.
In addition to his work in Posey County and southwest Indiana, he works with the nation's Educational Theater Association. This summer, he taught a class in Lincoln, Neb. For high school teachers wanting to learn more about technical theater.
Taylor was nominated by local musician Teresa Bloodworth, and some letters of support came from the school corporation.
He said he was “very honored and surprised” to be picked as Artist of the Year. He said his students are talented and motivated and he's fortunate to have a family who understands that he loves his work and wants him to be happy doing it. He also said the rest of the theater and music staff are very supportive and good at their work.
Taylor and Mount Vernon High School have started the Fine Arts Academy of Mount Vernon at the high school, which will allow students who want to focus on a career in technical theater or fine arts in general, to get more experience and education while still in high school.