Saturday, May 28, 2011
By SARAH FOOR
For one night, it seemed that the address of New York City’s musical mecca, Broadway, changed to Glenwood Avenue, Boardman, Ohio.
The program “Celebrate the Arts” came to the stage of the BPAC on May 7 to celebrate Boardman High School’s 46-year history of musicals by inviting alumni and current student performers, showing the great legacy of talent in the Boardman schools.
“Celebrate the Arts” was a birthday party for the Performing Arts Center, commemorating 10 years of band, choir, drama, and speech performances within it’s walls. The event also acted as a fundraiser for a sophisticated $50,000 sound board, which will be utilized by the up-and-coming performers in the school district now and in years to come.
“When we began to plan the event, we were going to bring back the last 10 years of performers,” explained BPAC supervisor, Nick Opritza. “That idea was expanded when we thought about the wealth of talented alumni we have here at Boardman.”
Alumni from as far back as 1957 performed the selections that they made famous on the Boardman stage.
Performers Mark Mraz ‘02 and John Scacchetti ‘98 both visited from New York City, where both act and perform on Broadway. Others came from as far away as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
The talent of the performers came through in the barbershop quartet song “Lyda Rose” from “The Music Man,” sung by Tom Hathorn ‘57, Trevor Coleman ‘06, Mraz, and Scacchetti.
Host Mark Huberman ‘69 pointed out, “Our performers, because of their schedules and travels, only rehearsed their pieces this morning. The talent shows when you realize they’ve only had one practice together.”
Opritza hoped that the night of Boardman talent was an inspiration.
“I hope this inspires future generations of performers. We’re investing in our BPAC because we have a legacy of talent in Boardman that we plan to keep going for a long time.”