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Curtain rises on arts school
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Teri Nobbs, owner of Stage Door Fine and Performing Arts School in Poland, leads a tap-dance class. The recently opened school teaches all types of the performing arts but does not participate in competitive events.
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Elizabeth Harger, 6, a student at Stage Door in Poland, takes part in a tapdance class at the school operated by Teri Nobbs. Nobbs operates a similar school in Liberty.
POLAND
The hallway wall along the Stage Door is a blackboard, filled with chalk drawings and messages from students.
Near the far corner, at the height limit of a child’s reach, is a drawing of a half-open door with the words “Where dreams begin” scrawled underneath it.
Notes like that one, and even the silly ones such as “Monologues make me crazy,” tell Teri Nobbs that she made the right decision to expand her business.
Nobbs opened The Stage Door School for Performing Arts last month at 23 W. McKinley Way. It is her second location; the original is in Liberty.
“Our goal is to teach students to love the arts,” Nobbs said.
About 60 students are enrolled in the Poland location, which Nobbs said she opened because some of her students in Liberty were traveling from Columbiana and North Lima.
Students can be as young as 5 up to adults, and the classes vary from acting, singing and dancing to art and speech and debate.
Melissa Masternick of Poland, whose daughter Alyssa Masternick, 10, attends several classes at The Stage Door said a school for the arts was “absolutely missing” from the Poland area.
“It helps make her well-rounded, and I like it because there’s no competition,” she said.
Nobbs said although the school’s students will have showcases and performances at the end of the 12-week sessions, they do not travel to competitions.
“It’s about education,” she said.
Nobbs owned Teri’s Dance & Baton Studio locally for 30 years, and her students did go to competitions. Her husband, Harry, was transferred to Las Vegas for work, and Nobbs taught dance with Hollywood Kids, a program that developed triple-threat performers in singing, acting and dancing.
When she and her husband returned to the Mahoning Valley, Nobbs opened The Stage Door and wanted to provide a variety of classes. She knew there already were many dance studios and music instructors in the Valley.
“We’re not in competition with anyone. A lot of the students will take vocal lessons here and dance somewhere else or dance here and take vocal lessons somewhere else,” she said.
Her main priority, she said, is to make sure children are leaning.
“Everyone here has a degree in the fields they teach,” she said.
In art class, 10 students raise their hands and answer questions about shading and textures as they use a pencil to draw a football.
“I like learning about artists and the color wheel,” Alyssa said.
Her classmate, Vinny Manna, 11, said in past classes, they painted on leaves and used water color.
“It’s inspiring and I want to keep on going,” he said.