Toronto Fringe Announces Next Stage Community Booster Listings
The Next Stage Community Booster replaces the 14th annual Next Stage Theatre Festival, which was cancelled due to COVID-19. This four-day event will be a boost of energy, ideas, creativity, and friendship for those enduring an isolated pandemic winter.
The Merola Opera Launches 60th Season with Benefit Gala Featuring Deborah Voigt, Dolora Zajick and More, 6/11
The Merola Opera Program launches its 60th Anniversary season on Sunday, June 11 with a Benefit Gala at City Hall and a concert immediately following at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, featuring some of the acclaimed Merola program's most illustrious participants. The 60th Anniversary concert will feature performances by Merola alumni from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and current and recent participants, including: soprano Deborah Voigt (1985); mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick (1983); Mark Morash, pianist and Merola Opera Program Music Director (1987); and soprano Tracy Dahl (1985); soprano Kristin Clayton (1993), mezzo-soprano Catherine Cook (1990), Bojan Knezevic, bass-baritone (1992, 1993, 1994), and John Churchwell, pianist (1996); baritone Quinn Kelsey (2002); 2013 Merola graduates mezzo-soprano Zanda Šv?de and tenors Pene Pati and Issachah Savage; soprano Julie Adams, and bass Anthony Reed, all from 2014; Amina Edris and Toni Marie Palmertree, sopranos; and Brad Walker, bass-baritone, both from 2015; and 2016 artists Sarah Cambidge, soprano; Amitai Pati and Kyle van Schoonhoven, tenors; Andrew G. Manea, baritone; John Elam and Jennifer Szeto, pianists; and director Aria Umezawa.