Happy New Year! Message from the Board President

Happy New Year! We are so excited to share with you the creative energy that has been brewing. As of this letter, NSP has set in motion our next Players show, “Something’s Comin…Wake Up… Look Ahead”  as well as an Open Mic and more to come.  Now is the time to get your calendars out and SAVE THE NEW DATES. Don’t forget to go to the website and register for Pat Timberg’s workshop.

Big thanks to all of you who support our work and donated in the end-of-year campaign. Your support allows us to bring joy and healthy living experiences to so many seniors and community members. If you forgot, no problem. We always have the donate button on the website, www.nextstagesantacruz.org.

Let 2022 be our year to “Wake Up… Look Ahead” because “Something’s Comin”.

- Kathryn Adkins, Board President, NextStage Productions

NextStage Presidents Message

NextStage Presidents Message 10/2021
By Kathryn Adkins
The Autumnal equinox has come and gone. Night grows longer than day. We want to begin our winter hibernation. But NO! NextStage participants resist the pull inward and now prepare to step out into the “new normal”. If you are vaccinated and wear a mask, you are ready to take that step forward into rehearsals and performances or working with People Living with Parkinson’s.
At the May “Party in the Parking Lot” and the July Fundraiser for the Parkinson’s program at El Vaquero, we felt the energy, we felt the joy, and we are ready to move forward!
New classes are meeting in the Parkinson’s Program on Monday mornings. NSP Players are rehearsing small cast November shows for senior residences. Mark your calendar for the outdoor full-cast performance, “Singing for the NextStage” November 20 or 21 (details to come).
The new Media Team will keep you informed through: newsletter, community paper, radio announcements and social media.
The new and energetic NextStage board is working to help all of you find your next stage. WE NEED YOU!!! Check out the calendar and join the fun.

New Leader Biographies

CAROL HALES Training as apprentice sound technician. I’ve been in Next Stage a while, love it. Also am in the Choraliers and the Follies. Have always sung. Studied Anthropology and watched monkeys in the Caribbean before I became a nurse. Worked labor and delivery for 28 years. Enjoy time with my 3 grandkids and 4 dogs and 2 cats. Love to go places and nowadays I’m going around town delivering food for grub hub.

LINDA JOHNSON We now have a NextStage Marketing Director who will coordinate our profile and information that goes out to the public. Linda Johnson brings vast experience in marketing for various tech companies as well as small businesses. She has worked as a marketing coordinator and will bring these talents to NSP.

CLAIRE PAUL brings her experience as an event planner and a Threshold Choir singer in many of our venues to her new role as booking agent for Next Stage. She also has produced many musical concerts for her band, the Healer Trio, and her duo with husband Jerry, the Bear Hugs. Her musical bio includes a cappella groups, jazz singers, an Andrews Sisters style trio, Mount Madonna Choir, Full Spectrum Chorus, Pacific Voices, and Amica women’s choral collective. She is also a management consultant and trainer, and former speech teacher at Cabrillo.

PHYLLIS PETROCELLI I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, and in a wonderful relationship for the last 12 years I am a proud mother of two wonderful daughters and have two beautiful granddaughters. Have been doing bookkeeping for 50 years and very happy to be a part of Next Stage Productions.

SUZANNE SKERNESS is a RN who recently retired after 41 years of experience in healthcare. The last 30 years were spent in management at health plans, cancer care, palliative care, hospital utilization management and home health. I have lived in Aptos since 2011 and enjoy traveling, gardening, hiking, entertaining and cooking for friends and family. Now that I am retired, I am looking forward to using the right side of her brain.

CHRISTA TAYLOR Music and travel have sculpted my life. Born into a military family, one day I got curious and counted the number of schools I could remember attending..28!..finally completing my education at San Jose State University in the early ‘70’s. I ran a music store there, and fell into becoming a DJ at KLRB in Carmel in 1974, one of the first FM free form radio stations in the country. My radio career continued with KFAT, KPIG and many more including Hawaii and Nevada until 2005, as well as the Strawberry Music Festival which I continue to enjoy. Introduced to Next Stage Productions in 2014, I have enjoyed singing, acting and working with others to create works of joy and laughter, the things that keep us young!

Little Bits for Lotsa Laughs

NextStage Readers Theater is proud to announce an upcoming short play festival “Little Bits for Lotsa Laughs. We hope to have these eight plays available to you on YouTube in May.

“Chocolate” - Mrs Colby’s husband has gone missing. But what has this to do with chocolate?

• Mrs. Colby : Sue Ann Guildermann

• Detective : Stephen Phillips

“Gin and Tonic” - Stan inadvertently mistakes the office of a research writer for a senior dating service…

• Olive: Maureen Barber

• Stan: Stephen Phillips

"Hi Tech” - When the TV remote won’t work, a man is shuttled from one person to another trying to solve his problem.

• Wife: Carol Hales

• Man: Terence Courreault

• Recorded voice (s) : Ellen Mazaika

“An Honest Mistake” - Unless you label your mason jars with what’s in them, it is very easy to make a mistake….

• Stan: Scott Kravits

• Madge: Sandi Lewandowski

“Poof” - Be careful or your husband might disappear!

• Loureen: Mary Ann LoBalbo

• Florence: Carol Hales

• Stan: Scott Kravitz

  “Speeding Ticket” - Was she really speeding?

• Starlight : Peggy Courreault

• Officer Brody: Terence Courreault

• Officer Ellen: Christa Taylor

“Rosa’s Eulogy” - A case of mistaken identity

• Rita Wadsworth
  

“Appraisal” - A spoof on Antiques Roadshow.

• Appraisal Expert: Christa Taylor

• Hilda Skook : Shari Gallegos

• Patty Planko : Marigold Fine

• Colleen Kwink : Carole English

NextStage Productions, a Santa Cruz non-profit arts organization specializing in “artful aging" for active adults, presents the production of Bullets on Broadway, a virtual live performance where viewers try to solve the mystery that plays out (via Zoom) at the Opening Night of the musical “Murder in the First.”
 
NextStage presents a killer performance, where you are invited to witness and solve a FUN virtual murder mystery. Attendees of this unique event will watch 20 characters give a reading perform via Zoom on Friday, Sept 26 at 7pm.  A limited number of tickets for this performance are available for $10.
 
Grab a glass of wine and a front row seat at home and explore the clues as they unfold. All will be revealed before the end of the mystery game show presentation.
 
Get your viewing ticket at Brown Paper Tickets and support art-filled aging programs at nextstagegameshow.brownpapertickets.com or NextStageSantaCruz.org.

Storyline: It’s the opening night of the musical Murder in the First on Broadway, and nerves are high. The cast and crew are all a buzz backstage with the excitement of the lights, the sounds - and the dead body of big-shot Broadway Producer. There lies Jack Bialystock, shot in the back on center stage before the curtain could rise.  What will happen? How does this end?

Rescheduled date: Sept 26 at 7pm

Thinking of You - Cards for Isolated Seniors

Dear Friends of NextStage:
 
During these trying times, so many of us can still get out, can still feel the sand under and toes and watch the waves, work in gardens, and general, while it may be limited in our freedom, still experience freedom.
 
But lest we forget, there are many of our fellow seniors who are sitting in one room, or the confines of a facility, who do not have the freedoms we have, and may be suffering from loneliness, isolation and depression with the same walls and the same daily activity (or lack thereof) and the very real fear of this cruel virus.
 
We can do something to bring a smile to the faces of our seniors who are in hospitals, senior homes, and health care facilities, by sending them cards and letters of encouragement, friendship and hope.
 
Join me in reaching out; join me in bringing a smile to someone’s face, let them know they are not forgotten and are held in our hearts – join NextStage’s campaign of sending letters, cards and notes to those who are facility-bound.  Working with FSA Family Service Agency, Next Stage will gather all the cards/notes and send or provide these to facilities where they will make such a difference
Spread cheer, make a difference.
 
We’re all in this together.
Hugs,
Risa Lower, Board President