Song, drama and dance filled the evening as students from three different fine arts and performance classes collaborated on their spring semester “final,” a musical theater recital held last Tuesday, May 20 at the Wilshire Auditorium.
Sarah Sandvig, one of the instructors who directed the recital, explained that it is composed of three classes, including the musical theater ensemble class of around 20 students, the applied voice class of students who take individual voice lessons and the dance class, which choreographed the performances on stage.
“This is a combined showcase for all of them, kind of an end of semester culmination of what they’ve been working on,” said Sandvig, who is in her fifth year of teaching applied voice courses at FC.
Giovanna Rodriguez, a second year musical theater major who performed in FC’s production of “Cabaret” earlier this semester, sang Wicked’s “For Good.” An emotional piece originally sung by Glinda and Elphaba, who are known as the main protagonists in the musical. Rodriguez sang alongside her best friend, a fitting duo.
“Our professor asked us which musical numbers we’d like to perform and then formulated it based off of how she knows our voices and what would fit best,” Rodriguez said. “Then we had way more musical numbers we all had to practice and the ones that were in the most solid shape close to the performance got picked because of time.”
Sandvig and vocal instructor Melissa Lyons Caldretti, who both teach private voice lessons at FC, have a long history together, including being roommates at UCLA.
“Melissa and I both went to UCLA and we were voice majors. We were actually roommates and now we’re best friends and we happened to both be teaching at Fullerton together, so it’s kind of a cool full circle moment,” said Sandvig.
According to Caldretti, who has toured with Broadway’s “Les Miserables” and voiced Barbie in the animated films, the musical theater program at Fullerton is unique in that it gives private voice lessons to first-year students, a perk that not even four-year universities offer. This allows students to learn a lot quicker.
Sandvig explained that the musical theater ensemble class has a holistic learning approach, incorporating different aspects of music theory, sight reading and dictation along with the different numbers that the students learn.
Students may also feel a sense of belonging and community in these classes. Many of them received hugs and cheers from their classmates, who sat at the front row of the auditorium.
One of the night’s performers and ensemble student Kelvin Co took the ensemble class three times. After dropping out of pre-med ten years ago, Co started working as a dancer and cast member at Disneyland. It was this experience that opened the door to his realization he wanted to pursue something more in performance.
“I didn’t realize it was something that I wanted to do until I woke up and I was like, maybe this is the route that I want to go. I’ve been at Disney for nine years, so that was a good gateway for getting me into that performer-like career aspect,” Co said. “And learning that I could do this as a career for myself and then just taking the next step and going into musical theater felt like the right doorway for me.”
Co’s experience is a reminder that there’s always time to work for your dreams.
“It’s never too late to try to go out for new things or try your passions if you need to,” Co said.
Seven musical theater majors will be performing individual “cabarets” this Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at the Wilshire Auditorium as part of the culmination of their two-year program.
