After months of planning, the day finally arrived! April 17th, NextStage celebrated its tenth anniversary with a Gala, held at the Seascape Golf Club. This was an opportunity to not only celebrate our past achievements, but to recognize and honor those who worked so hard to found NextStage.
Nancy Maley, Jeremy Griffey, Carole English
Lynn Knudsen, a dynamo of a woman, and her friends Mary Roitz, Kathryn Adkins and Carole English, took ideas gleaned from an Oakland based group called Stagebridge, and together, created NextStage. They wanted to create a place where those over the age of fifty-five, could learn, practice performance skills and take musical revues out to those living in retirement
communities.
Terence Courreault, Catt Porter, Ron Locey “Three of a Kind”
Valerie Arno, Maggie Pierce, Stan Grindstaff, Ellen Mazaika, Patrick True
Perform from a previous show, “Razzle Dazzle”
Taking shows “on the road” has always set NextStage apart from other senior performing groups and it continues to be committed to that program.
Looking back over the years, NextStage can be proud of what it has accomplished. It has been able to provide musical entertainment throughout the year, with solo or duet singers, a large cast musical revues, a July4th Patriotic show, a children’s show performed in the schools, and a special holiday show at the end of every year. During Covid, Readers Theater was created, allowing over fifty performers acted out twenty seven plays on Zoom complete with costumes and props! Post-Covid, those plays have now gone live with ten performances each year for the past three years.
Maureen Barber, one of the original players
Ellen Mazaika, Maggie Piece, Brian Heath (now 93), Catt Porter, Terence Coureault
– some of the original Beatles Cast.
NextStage’s Taiko Drumming Program for those with Parkinson’s disease, continues to be very successful and much enjoyed by many weekly participants. NextStage has even taken a favorite children’s’ play, Piggie Pie, and performed in fantastic, wonderful costumes, at various schools in the area.
Parkinson participants with leader Ellen Mazaika
Around one hundred and ten guests made the effort to attend the Gala. It was simply wonderful to reconnect with some players who had not been seen since before Covid.
Everyone was delighted that Lynn, our visionary and founder, was able to drive up from southern California, to celebrate with everyone. Lynn spent fourteen years on Broadway, dancing and tapping her way to Fosse music and that spirit continues to live in her even at 83 years of age!
Lynn Kundsen (original founder age 83 ) and Mary Roitz (a co-founder age 91)
NextStage is continuing Lynn’s vision and wish she could be with us for our next projects. We have a class coming up “Voice for any Age,” an Open Mic to support Veterans and starring many of our NSP players (May 11) and an acting class later in the spring. In the Fall, NextStage will have a second annual Storytelling class and performance and then it will be time to rehearse for the annual holiday show.
Terence Coureault and Janet Mastropietro. Terence has been with NSP since the beginning and is our musical maestro for most of our traveling shows.
Faith Zack (our social media wizard), Kathryn Adkins, (President) Colleen Stobbe (secretary extraordinaire) Risa Lower, co leader of Parkinson’s Program, grant writer and official photographer.
We have so much to be grateful for and so much to anticipate going forward. Please join us for one or all of the forthcoming activities.