Donald Keough, News Editor–

As a Wednesday night rehearsal of “9 to 5” progresses in the Eisner Center, director Brad Frenette leads his actors with advice, humor, and a bit of his own acting. 

Carter Anderson ‘25 was one of the students rehearsing under Frenette’s direction and described his teaching as “down to earth.” 

“He’s personal and definitely likes to joke around with everyone,” Anderson said. “But he’s a great teacher. When we are rehearsing with him, he’ll tell us what he wants from us, and then we’ll go through it. He’s definitely a ‘no scene is a small scene’ type of person.”

As Anderson pointed out, Frenette makes sure to “keep the process moving,” and during the rehearsal he helped break down each scene while making sure to account for all of his actor’s thoughts. 

“He’s really open to different opinions. He always has what he thinks is the right way, but he’s never firmly set,” Anderson said. “He’s always open to hear other people’s opinions, especially if it’s about their character, because he assumes that you’re gonna know the character better than he will in the end.”

This is the fourth show that Frenette has directed at Denison after joining the staff as an assistant professor who works the music theater program in the fall of 2023. He also directs the Music Theatre Workshop, which is the ensemble that rehearses and puts on a musical once a semester. 

Since his time at Denison, the music theater department has also added its own minor.

For most of his life, Frenette has pursued a career in acting. He first found a love for singing in middle school. Although he was originally apprehensive about telling his parents about his passion, he found an opportunity to sing through a local community college. 

“The thing that I wanted more than anything in the world when I was 14 was to go to Macomb Community College, and I wanted to be a part of the show choir group. [Back then], I thought there’s no way if I audition, I’ll ever get in,” Frenette said.

Fortunately for him, the college had a show choir group for middle school students, and his friend gave him a flyer for the group, encouraging him to join. 

“That was the excuse I needed to go to my parents and be like, ‘well, I don’t really want to do this, but my friend is going to do it. So can I do it?’” Frenette said. “That changed my life and helped me build my passion for singing.”

It wasn’t until high school that Frenette started doing musicals. Musicals helped him combine his love for singing with acting. He started finding success at a national level, winning competitions and performing with students around the country. 

After auditioning and getting to act in the Music Theatre International’s and the Educational Theatre Association’s production of “Hairspray,” Frenette realized that a career in acting could be possible. 

“I was finding success in different things… and so as those things started happening, my goal of being in the show choir group at the community college [changed], and I started saying, ‘well, what if I actually went and got a degree in this?’” Frenette said. 

Although he often doubted whether or not he would find success in his goals, he said that he “slowly started building confidence,” and that his goals began to grow. By the end of high school, he applied to several undergraduate programs, moving away from his original goal of being a part of the community college. 

“I auditioned for several programs, just desperately hoping I would get into any of them,” Frenette said. “I was really lucky, and I got into all of them. That was also a clue into [that] maybe I can be serious about this.”

Following his acceptances, Frenette chose to attend Penn State’s theater program, which currently has an acceptance rate of less than 1% and is commonly ranked as one of the top programs in the country. Frenette described the program as “the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

After graduating, Frenette decided to go directly into the theater industry. His first job was performing in a remount of the 1989 Broadway revival of “Sweeney Todd” at the Penn State Centre Stage.

He then went to Europe for six months for a role in the “Madagascar” musicals, which he remarks as something he is “hesitant to tell people, but my students all know, so I can’t hide it anymore.” 

He returned from abroad to act in musicals such as the 50th anniversary tour of “Hello, Dolly!” as well as Broadway’s national tour of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” He also performed in regional theaters and on a cruise ship for a year. He lived in New York City for 10 years while he was performing.  

But throughout his work as an actor, Frenette also noted that it hasn’t come without challenges. 

“It’s easy for me to tell these stories and be like, ‘I went on tour, and then I did this,’ and it sounds like I never struggled, and that’s not true at all,” Frenette said. “[After] I spent a year on the road with “Hello, Dolly!” I came back, and I had a year where I didn’t get any work. I had to audition a lot, and I spent years building relationships with casting directors and choreographers.”

During his later years in New York, Frenette began contemplating going into another field of work involving acting. 

“Every performer in New York has to supplement their income in between performance gigs,” Frenette said. “There would be maybe two or three months throughout the year where I’d have to do other work to pay the bills, and so I was doing catering work. It was the perfect in-between job, but it was also really hard. I got to the point where I hated the work that wasn’t performance.” 

One of the best moments of his career was in December of 2019. It was during a tour that featured “White Christmas.” Normally, he played a relatively small role as a tap dancer. But he was understudying the lead (Bob Wallace) and got to play him during a two-day showing in Boston.

He also knew that he was likely going into a graduate degree program soon after this tour, which made this show bittersweet for him. He was close with many of the other actors in the ensemble, some of whom he had known for over 10 years. 

“This group was full of my best friends, [and] the people I respect most in the industry,” Frenette said. “At the end [of the opening number] the leads offer Happy Holidays, and they reference each other. Then before they turn to the audience, they turn upstage to the entire ensemble and say ‘to you.’ And in that moment I’m looking at the people that I love most in the world, the people that I’ve been working with for 10 years, who I know so well, who I respect so much. I had the realization that this might be the last time that I get to turn around and lead this company. I could win a Tony Award, and it wouldn’t beat that moment. That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced on stage.”

After “White Christmas,” Frenette began applying to graduate programs. Although he considered continuing to act in New York, the COVID pandemic hit in 2020.

“I kind of used [COVID] as a way to say, ‘yeah, this feels like the time,” Frenette said. “It was the best decision I’ve ever made, going back to school.

He earned his M.F.A. at Texas Tech in Performance Pedagogy and then applied for positions at colleges. 

“I came to [Denison] and interviewed, and I totally fell in love with [the school], Frenette said. “I think our philosophy of the importance of meaningful, rigorous music theater training, combined with other interests and being curious about other things. The philosophy of Denison and my personal philosophy totally clicked. I worked with some of the students, I got to meet a lot of the faculty, and I completely fell in love with the place. I called my partner that night and said, this is the greatest place in the world, and they are so nice to humor me, but there’s no way that I’m getting this job.” 

Now in his fourth semester, Frenette is directing his biggest production, “9 to 5,” which they have been rehearsing for since January. 

“Part of it is a little scary to be trying something that is as big as this is, but also we now have three semesters of this foundation of trust and collaboration,” Frenette said. “That makes me think, ‘of course we can do it because we have this incredible support system and we have three semesters now of experience to that we’re building on.’” 

Looking ahead, students like Anderson say that they’re continuing to be excited to work with Frenette. 

“He’s just- you can tell he’s really interested in what he’s doing,” Andersons said. “Everything I’ve heard is he’s really trying to push us and Denison to keep moving things forward.”

Editor’s Note: The professor spotlight is a recurring feature. Email [email protected] if you would like to suggest a professor to be featured.