By Coral Gables Gazette staff

Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre is adding a different kind of Monday-night performance this summer: not a show to watch, but a class for adults who want to move like they belong onstage.

“Hot Broadway Summer,” a six-week Broadway jazz dance series for adults, begins Monday, June 29, at Actors’ Playhouse. The program is led by Catherine Hamilton, a performer, choreographer and teacher whose career has taken her through New York performance spaces, opera stages and musical theater classrooms.

The class is open to adults 18 and older at all experience levels. No audition is required. No previous dance training is necessary. The invitation is simpler than that: show up, learn the combination and find the character inside the movement.

What the class offers

Each Monday session runs from 7:30 to 9 p.m., with check-in at 7:15 p.m.

The class structure follows the shape of a professional dance room, scaled for adults who may be returning to dance, trying it for the first time or looking for a more theatrical alternative to a standard fitness class. Sessions include a warm-up, strength work, across-the-floor progressions and a new choreographed combination built around a Broadway or musical theater song.

The series is organized around themes of freedom, empowerment and self-love. The movement vocabulary draws from Broadway jazz, contemporary, Fosse-inspired style and street jazz, reflecting how wide the musical theater dance tradition has become.

The opening class on June 29 is built around “Don’t Lose Your Head,” from Six the Musical — a brash, rhythm-forward number suited to a series that is as much about confidence and presence as steps. Subsequent weeks move through “Holding Out for a Hero” from Footloose, “My Strongest Suit” from Aida, “Big Spender” from Sweet Charity, “One Night in Bangkok” from Chess and “Out Tonight” from Rent.

Each combination is designed to stand on its own, allowing participants to attend a single class or follow the full six-week arc.

A teacher with stage-world credentials

Hamilton brings a broad performance and teaching background to the series.

She has worked as a performer, choreographer and teacher, with credits that include Carnegie Hall, New York City Center, NBC’s Saturday Night Live, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Metropolitan Opera. Her favorite role to date, according to her professional biography, is Margot in Susan Stroman’s The Merry Widow, a role she premiered at both the Metropolitan Opera and Lyric Opera Chicago.

As a choreographer and assistant director, she has worked on large-scale musicals and operas including Parade, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Peter Pan, Fame and The Merry Widow. She has also taught at Steps on Broadway, The Stage Theater School and the University of Illinois.

For this series, that background matters less as résumé display than as a teaching promise. Hamilton is bringing professional theater-dance tools into a room designed for adults who may not consider themselves performers. The class asks participants to learn choreography, but also to inhabit attitude, musicality and character — the qualities that turn dance steps into theater.

A schedule built from musical theater

The six-week series reads like a compact tour of Broadway jazz styles.

The June 29 opener, “Don’t Lose Your Head,” leans into pop-theater confidence. “Holding Out for a Hero,” scheduled for July 6, brings the big-energy language of Footloose. “My Strongest Suit,” on July 13, is a prop night, with participants asked to bring a sweat rag or small towel.

The July 20 class turns to “Big Spender,” from Sweet Charity, one of the most recognizable examples of Bob Fosse’s theatrical vocabulary. The series then moves to “One Night in Bangkok,” from Chess, on July 27, before closing Aug. 3 with “Out Tonight,” from Rent.

The appeal is not only nostalgia. These songs ask for different kinds of performance: wit, swagger, precision, release, theatricality and stamina. For adults who miss the energy of a dance studio — or always wanted to try one — the series offers a structured way in.

A Miracle Mile setting

The venue adds its own resonance.

Actors’ Playhouse has been based at the historic Miracle Theatre since the mid-1990s, after a public-private partnership with the City of Coral Gables helped transform the Art Deco movie house into a permanent home for live theater. The company’s official history describes a $10 million renovation that saved the building from big-box retail redevelopment and helped anchor the revival of downtown Coral Gables as a cultural district.

Today, Actors’ Playhouse remains one of the city’s central performing arts institutions, producing mainstage and children’s theater while also offering education and community programming.

“Hot Broadway Summer” is not a mainstage production, but it fits that broader role. It opens the theater’s doors to adults not only as audience members, but as participants in the performing arts life of Miracle Mile.

If you go

Hot Broadway Summer — Broadway jazz dance adult series
Mondays, June 29 through Aug. 3
7:30 to 9 p.m.; check-in at 7:15 p.m.
Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables
Ages: Adults 18 and older; all experience levels
Cost: Individual class, $35; six-class package, $180 with promo code CLASSPACK; industry rate, $25 with proof of affiliation, available at the box office only
Tickets: Actors’ Playhouse box office or (305) 444-9293

Schedule
June 29: “Don’t Lose Your Head” from Six the Musical
July 6: “Holding Out for a Hero” from Footloose
July 13: “My Strongest Suit” from Aida — prop night
July 20: “Big Spender” from Sweet Charity
July 27: “One Night in Bangkok” from Chess
Aug. 3: “Out Tonight” from Rent