I had heard WNMTC was planning to do Mary Poppins in the fall of 2015, and thinking it would be fun to have an opportunity to do a show with Roslyn, we both auditioned. I got cast as George Banks, and she was a Broken Toy and a Kite Flier. Super fun to have that experience with her.
Susan Boulanger and I decided to do Pippin in the Spring of 2015 for the LTCC musical. I did the music direction and conducted the band this time. I can't seem to find a program for this show, but the poster is below.
Man of La Mancha was one of Susan Boulanger's favorite shows. We decided to do that for the Spring of 2014. Susan asked if I would be interested in doing Quixote, and before I reread the script I told her yes, thinking it would be great to get a chance to sing "The Impossible Dream." Plus I'm not really the right physical type for Quixote, so it seemed like an opportunity not to be missed. I didn't realize that out of a 96-page script there were only about 14 pages or so where he DOESN'T have lines. Whoa! I also did the music direction, but we got Donna Axton to conduct the band.
The poster was again by Ginger Janssen-Winters.
We got the front page of the Tribune and a nice feature in the Action as well.
After Phantom in 2011 who would have guessed that Stephanie Arrigotti at WNMTC would get the rights for Les Misérables for the fall of 2013. I remember trying to think of who could possibly sing Valjean. The high B at the end of "Who Am I?" is not easy. I went for it not particularly successfully, but fortunately Nick Favero, a lyric tenor with great high notes, had auditioned and he ended up getting the role. I was thrilled to be offered Javert. Way easier to sing and a fun acting challenge.
Stephanie had two posters made that featured both of our young Cosettes. The girl featured on this one was actually named Cosette Chamberlin.
LTCC produced Rent in the Spring of 2013. I did the music direction, conducted the band, and played synthesizer. We were the first theatre group in the area to take on this show. We had a great ensemble including Matt and Jen Coogan, Matt Ault, Rhonda Keen, Chris Yarrow, and some newbies, Andrew Collins and Adriana Avitia.
Ginger did another of her amazing posters
If I recall correctly Susan Boulanger helped me with several fundraisers that we did in order to raise funds to purchase the concert grand piano that was in the Duke Theatre. One of those was a greatest hits concert from Les Misérables and Miss Saigon (hence the name) both by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. Little did I know then that Stephanie was planning to do Les Miz the following year.
Ginger Janssen did the poster which as usual was awesome.
It had been three years since we had done Guilty Pleasures. Dave asked if I was up for another run and we decided to have a go at it. I can't seem to find a program, but there definitely was another poster in the usual style.
Our next show at LTCC was The Rocky Horror Show in the Spring of 2012. The show is based on the well-known movie. I did the music direction and conducted the band while also playing synthesizer. We were short of guys, so we reverse gendered a couple of the roles, particularly we cast Rhonda Keen as Frank-N-Furter, usually performed by a man in drag (Tim Curry in the movie).
The colorful poster used the traditional lips and font.
April Foiles played Riff Raff and Rhonda Keen got this shot of us hanging out in the dressing room at intermission.
Our third musical "Valentine" fundraiser was in February of 2012 and was called To Love or not to Love: A Musical Valentine.
When I found out WNMTC was going to do the full version of The Phantom of the Opera in the fall of 2011 I was as excited probably as all of the theatre community in the Carson/Reno/Tahoe area. The opportunity to play and sing The Phantom is the dream role of a lifetime and I was fortunate enough to be cast in the title role.
There were nice articles in the Nevada Appeal and the Entertainment Buzz.
Stephanie also rented billboards up in Reno. It was weird to see my picture on those.
I made a photo montage with a recorded clip I had of "Music of the Night."
Most of the photos were ones I had used to make this collage.
We were still doing fundraising in the summer of 2011 to purchase the concert grand piano for the Theatre. I had a done a mini-recital of Phantom songs with Maria Arrigotti at WNC that she had called "Music of the Night." I stole her idea and added some songs from Jekyll and Hyde for my own version of Music of the Night.
Dave, Rexanne, and I had been talking about doing Chicago for years, but by the time they had released the rights, Dave was gone, and Susan was using Kelly Alvarez as her choreographer. I did the music direction and conducted the band. That was a great group. The program had these newspaper headlines which was also cool.
Ginger Janssen designed an awesome poster with photos by Pat Leonard-Heffner featuring Rhonda Keen and Mitzi Nelson as Velma and Roxie.
The Action gave us a nice featured article.
