Joe Bousard
Joe Bousard has worked professionally in music and theatre for over 50 years. Since 1962 when he moved from Phoenix to New York, he has been a teacher/performer and coach of voice, acting and Musical Theatre. Joe was born in Boston, moved to Phoenix at age ten, and is a graduate of West Phoenix High School and Phoenix College. He received his BA degree in Speech Arts and Theatre from San Diego State College, where he performed and directed operas, plays and musicals. After a stint in the US Army where he furthered his musical career, he went to the “Big Apple”. He continued his work in piano and voice, honing his skills as accompanist and composer/lyricist for a variety of singers, while directing choral groups and producing his own Musical Theatre productions, under his own banner, JBL Productions.
Joe has won awards for Children’s Television: Ohio State Ed. for ‘The Pied Piper Of Hamelin’, collaborating with Evan and Joan Thompson, and for a series entitled ‘Sons and Daughters’ for Channel 33, Hershey, Pa. He is a member of ASCAP, from which he received an annual “cash award for encouragement” for several years. He was listed in JCC’s “Outstanding Young Men of America-1968”. He has been a guest teacher at colleges, secondary schools and professional training schools in the USA and Japan, and continues to make an annual trip to conduct special Workshops and classes at Showa Academia Musicae, just outside of Tokyo. His students have appeared in numerous professional productions and in their own cabaret performances around the world. He is a member of Theatre Artists Studio, a non-profit organization in Phoenix (Paradise Valley), and has performed and created many cabarets and fund-raisers for them. The performers in these shows have been close friends and family. His other cabaret and musical performances have taken place at the Herberger Theatre Center –Lunchtime Series, for the past several years, with his daughter, Shana, wife, Lorraine and son-in-law, Dominik Rebilas. Their cabarets have played in many other venues around Phoenix.
Joe Bousard has made a living in the Arts and has been in Music and Theatre all his professional life. His goal was to be a working professional, as well as have a complete life with family, creativity, and process. He has been blessed with that and wonderful people with whom to work and collaborate. He continues to create new ideas for shows,words/lyrics, songs, cabarets, and musical workshops. He also acts on stage playing a variety of characters and is still an active member of Actors Equity: AEA. He teaches every year in Japan, his 'other' home,and continues to be 'un-retired' and busy!!