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Tonight’s chorus concert to feature actor Steve Ayers
The Western Carolina Community Chorus will assume a lighter character in its spring concert tonight (Thursday), at 8 p.m. when the singers present a program that includes medleys from three Broadway musicals along with choral arrangements of several folk songs.
The musicals include “The Fantasticks,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”
“The Fantasticks” is the longest-running show in American musical theater history; “Fiddler on the Roof” was the longest-running show on Broadway until its record was eclipsed recently by “The Phantom of the Opera,” which also holds the record for producing the most revenue.
The concert adds a new dimension with the appearance of Steve Ayers, who will be featured as guest artist and assume the role of principal characters in each of the musicals, providing brief observations and passages from the scripts of the plays.
Ayers, who is an associate professor in Western Carolina University’s Department of Communications, Theatre, and Dance, is also the creator and artistic director of the Western Carolina Stage Company. In addition to many acting and directing credits for the University Players and WCSC, he has accumulated numerous film and television credits. Audiences may remember him as Ed Bronson on “Matlock,” Jack Buchanan on “Savannah,” Perry Meachem on “In the Heat of the Night,” Tim Underhill on “I’ll Fly Away,” Kevin Broderick on “Dawson’s Creek,” Dr. Goddard on “The Chronicles of Young Indy” and Shannon Dougherty’s father, Eugene, in “The Margaret Mitchell Story.”
The first part of the program will include a suite of American folk songs, titled, “Americana,” by Luigi Zaninelli, a protégé of Gian Carlo Menotti (composer of “Amahl and the Night Visitors” and other successful operas). The folk-song group will conclude with two Irish tunes, “Danny Boy” and “Down by the Salley Gardens,” and the haunting “Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier.”
Sabrina Kumar, flutist, will join the chorus in its performance of “Down by the Salley Gardens” and for several portions of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Kumar, a regular flutist with the Asheville Lyric Opera and the Spartanburg Symphony Orchestra, is a soprano in the community chorus and is active in several early music ensembles.
The chorus, founded in 1970, is supported by the Music Department of Western Carolina University, the Grassroots Program of the N.C. Arts Council, and the Jackson County Arts Council. James and Barbara Dooley of Cullowhee have been director and accompanist since the organization’s inception, and Mike Nichols of Sylva is longtime assistant director of the group.
The concert will be presented in the WCU Music Recital Hall, located in the Coulter Building. Admission is free, but audience members are encouraged to arrive no later than 7:45 p.m. to ensure seating.
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