Piccolo Spoleto 10
A unique look at Piccolo Spoleto events before, during, and after they happen.
Expression Sung and Danced
I HAVE ALWAYS meant to attend the Westminster Choir’s annual Spoleto performance, but have not gotten to it until this year. In the beautiful and acoustically brilliant setting of the Cathedral Church of St. Luke & St. Paul, this group of young singers from Rider University in Princeton New Jersey delivered beyond my expectations.... Read »
Lone Star Shining
PICCOLO’S Stelle di Domani series is part of the College of Charleston Theater Department and produces several student acted plays during the theater-saturated Piccolo Spoleto. Set in Texas in the 1970s, James McLure’s Lone Star is a one-act tragicomic glimpse into a mucked up life that runs further amuck one Friday night behind Angel’s Bar... Read »
Collegiate Opera at Spoleto
UNDER THE SUPERVISION of faculty members David Templeton (director and producer), Deanna McBroom (musical director), and Irina Pevzner (pianist), Gianni Schicchi comes alive through an accomplished cast of College of Charleston students. Tenor Jonathan White, singing the role of Rinuccio, has a warm, full-bodied, and smooth voice that excels in a technically demanding role.... Read »
A Marriage of Poetry and Song
IF YOU ATTEND a performance of the Westminster Choir (a Spoleto tradition), you will hear a song inspired by South Carolina poet laureate, Marjory Wentworth. Nathan Jones composed the piece based on Marjory’s “Newlyweds,” a poem written in an obscure Welsh form called the cynhunned which requires a seven syllable line. Marjory describes the... Read »
Beethoven Alive
THEY SAY THE BEST acting—like the best music, best dancing, and best art—is done from the inside. You can learn technique—the outside part—but it doesn’t become ‘art’ until you tap an inner source from whence flows an indescribable something that renders technique secondary: as a tool to be employed. That’s what Clarence Felder did... Read »
On Stage with George Gershwin
ROBERT IVEY first came to Charleston in 1976 when Gian Carlo Menotti asked him to choreograph an opera for the first Spoleto Festival in 1976. “I was in Italy performing with the Ballet of Sweden and was one of the only Americans at the Festival,” says Ivey, who today is the charismatic director of... Read »
A Moment with Joy
FINDING OUR WAY through the storm of life is not always funny, but humor sure beats the alternative. When College of Charleston Theatre Professor, Joy Vandervort-Cobb, was urged to write and perform a one-woman show, she resisted. “I was terrified!” says the effervescent diva (she would agree with the title). “I knew that the... Read »
The Inner Fabric of Beethoven
IT IS ONE THING to hear his music. It is another to see Beethoven himself on stage with the musicians as he divulges his inner struggles—in particular, his plight with women. In a unique musical-theatre presentation, this is exactly what Clarence Felder does to perfection in the Piccolo Spoleto production of Beethoven, His Women,... Read »
The churches of Charleston
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