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Music Department to Stage Cabaret Theater
EMU's music department will host The Profession, Inc. (TPI) theater company's song-filled, multi-media, celebration of life, "Go-DIVA! - of song, silence, & the abuse of chocolate," starring Jennifer Anne Cooper.
The show will be presented 7 p.m. Friday, Mar. 16, in Lehman Auditorium at EMU.
In this play, Cooper, currently a Harrisonburg resident and voice instructor at EMU, once lived a far more glamorous life.
Blessed at birth with an amazing vocal instrument, a strong work ethic, and a Type A personality, she spent her youth as a rising star, pleasing audiences and impressing critics, and was shamelessly thrilled to do so.
Jennifer Anne Cooper in full diva regalia
at the Florida Grand Opera.
By age 28, Cooper was poised on the threshold of international Diva-dom, celebrating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of contracts and preparing to sing 12 lead roles with top opera companies in Europe and North America.
Then - in a wink of fate's eye - the gift that seemed divinely given was gone, and the proverbial party was over.
Pianist Michael Santana, director of the Chesapeake (MD) Choral Arts Society, is Cooper’s long-suffering musical muse as the feisty chanteuse shares a life filled with irony, ambition, tears, hubris, a serious chocolate addiction and a stubborn refusal to believe that nothing is forever.
A Lesson Learned
"Perhaps along the way," says "GO-Diva" writer-director LB Hamilton, "we, like our hapless Diva, will discover that what is really important is never completely lost - just temporarily misplaced."
The artistic team for "Go-DIVA!" met when Hamilton guest-directed EMU's production of "Music Man," for which Cooper was music director.
Cooper later played the featured role of Olga in Hamilton's "Wild About Harry," a musical mystery dinner theatre produced by Blue Ridge Theatre Fest.
This past summer Cooper was named TPI's associate artistic director. She then served as vocal coach and supervising Musical Director on Hamilton's "a Nother Midsummer Night's Dream (let's revue)" for Rocking Coyote, TPI's youth theatre program.
The artistic team developed "Go-DIVA!" upon the request of La Plata's Grace Lutheran Church as a fund raiser for Southern Maryland's Compassion House. The show premiered as a dinner theatre this past October to standing ovations.
More Info
The audience is invited to stay for a post-show talkback session with the artistic team responsible for this original work. Complimentary refreshments will be served.
The play is intended for general audiences. Tickets are $12 adult; $10 non-EMU students, EMU faculty/staff and seniors 65 and over; $8/person for groups of ten or more.
Tickets are available in advance by calling the EMU Box Office at (540) 432-4582. Tickets will also be on sale at the door for an added fee of $2/ticket.
At the request of TPI, a portion of ticket sales will go to the EMU music department student scholarship Fund.
