By Myra Chanin . . .
Zap! Pow! Wowie! I don’t believe I have ever watched a more fulsome, luxuriant, talent-flooded extravaganza than Lynn University’s 2023 Celebration of the Arts. The Artistic Director, Carrie Simpson, plus all who enlisted or were drafted to join her production crews, deserved the multiple standing ovations they received. The quality, elegance and excitement that grew out of the impressive blend of Ms. Simpson’s academic, performing, producing, and directing dexterity and her wise decision to blend decades distant, but artistically concurrent, faculty and student choreographers, costumers and musicians created a melodic and dance-packed presentation with plenty of appeal to all. The costumes were as dazzling as those seen in prize-winning Broadway musicals. Special credit is reserved for set designer Adam Simpson, who chairs Lynn University’s Drama Department, and his cohort Jacob Andreas, Lynn’s digital technology specialist, and their ambitious construction crew, who worked wonders turning a smattering of 2x4s, some glitzy paints and neon tubing into facile and movable backgrounds.
Tickets were hard to come by—there were none to be had, not even for ready money. I persisted and eventually managed to score two near the aisle! Okay, okay. They were in Row Y, one stair beneath seventh heaven. I hadn’t watched a performance from such a distance since I was an overweight 14-year-old who’d huffed and puffed to her bargain basement aerie in the top balcony of Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, where Eugene Ormandy’s Philadelphia Orchestra’s renowned string section’s verve always gave me goosebumps. Lynn’s orchestra, conducted by Caryl Fantel, elevated me to an equally inspired emotional state.
From the heights, the stage of the Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center looked gigantic. Huge grand pianos wheeled in, out and around it as freely as the dancers somersaulted and pranced. Its audio technology was so state-of-the-art that the beat of the timpani arrived at the tympani of anyone hearing impaired; even those who’d left their ear trumpets zu haus still didn’t miss a note. And then an additional treat approached. Up the stairs in a circus headmaster’s outfit loped one of my favorite glorious graduating Lynn musical theater students: Jean Hedwyn Lamy, who will be seeking his fortune in the Theater World this summer.
Like Lamy, Shannon Tsunoda is unbelievably versatile. Her righteous, low-class cockney accent, as Mrs. Lovett, was very impressive; but she was equally noteworthy playing an administrative assistant carrying a clipboard in Lynn’s 42nd Street or a militant mom in Black Comedy. Her terpsichorean skills are outstanding. She taps, twirls, and turns with the style and grace of a sylph, jiggles her joints like a Cotton Club chorine, flutters her arms like Margot Fonteyn and is unbelievably light on her feet. As for Lamy, he’s like a young Ben Vereen. He sings. He dances. He emotes. When I first saw him he was a boy, but now his body’s filled out, his voice is deeper, and he looks very manly.
Ms. Simpson has co-opted faculty members, as well as musical theater students, into another annual truly exceptional production. The orchestra displayed the talents of Lynn Conservatory of Music students during 19 musical episodes that demonstrated the gifts of Broadway/Hollywood composers/lyricists from those recognized by one name: Sondheim, Dylan, Bareilles, Yeston, Tessori, Bernstein, plus Marc Shaiman/Scott Wittman, Jim Steinman to Allen Merrill, as well as the next generation’s tunesmiths, Billy Joel and Bruno Mars. There was an additional charmer. A very sexy version of Rubber Ducky, sung by graduating senior Raisa Asim who dropped her ducky amid the bubbles in her bathtub. I was reluctant to imagine where it might end up.
When a production is just too fabulous, even I admit to a loss for words. So instead of reading my blathering, and being aware that a picture is worth 1000 words, check the posted photos to see what you missed.
Keep an eye out next April for 2024’s Celebration of the Arts. This year’s event was presented in Lynn University’s Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold’s Performing Arts Center as next year’s will also be near the end of April of 2024.
Photos: Lynn University
