Cinnabar hits the road

Nonprofit theater brings ‘Broadway Bash' to SRJC|

“Cinnabar can seem like it’s up there in its own little bubble,” admits Nathan Cummings, Cinnabar’s Education Director, describing the acclaimed theater space perched on a hill overlooking Petaluma Boulevard and Skillman Lane. “Well,” he says with a laugh, “with our first-ever Broadway Bash, we’re coming off the hill and moving out into the community. We’re planning to have a lot of fun.”

Designed as a high-spirited fundraiser for Cinnabar’s Young Repertory Theater Company, the Broadway Bash - taking place Saturday, Feb. 25 at the Petaluma branch of the Santa Rosa Junior College - will feature several of Sonoma County’s best-known singers and actors, many of them instructors at Cinnabar, performing Broadway tunes alongside 20 students from the Young Rep program.

For Cinnabar, which usually stages shows for audiences of around 100 people, the stage of the Carole L. Ellis Auditorium, on the east side SRJC campus, provides a rare opportunity to spread out and do a really big show.

“This really is pretty big,” Cummings says. “But the idea is pretty simple. We thought it would be fun to take a lot of the instructors who teach classes, along with some of our students, and have them all join forces to perform a bunch of songs on stage together. That idea gradually became a fundraiser for the youth theater program.”

In addition to the show, the evening will also include Broadway-themed auction items, and appropriately festive foods and beverages.

“It’s something that’s been on our radar for a while - but it was always a matter of timing,” he said. “We could never quite figure out how to make all the pieces work. But everything is coming together beautifully, we have some incredible performances planned.”

The event will be hosted by Stephan Walsh, last seen in Cinnabar’s “The Most Happy Fella,” a multiple nominee in next month’s San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics’ Awards event.

“Yes, Stephan will be singing,” says Cummings, “though he’s keeping the song he’ll be doing a secret.”

Also in the show are Mary Gannon Graham, Richard and Sandy Riccardi, Michele Pagano, and several others, including Cummings himself.

“I will be up on stage, yes,” he says, “singing a song with my wife Daphne.” The song is “What Could Be Better,” from the 1983 musical “Baby.” In the tune by David Shire and Richard Maltby, Jr., two young people sing of their excitement at the impending birth of their first child. “We’re new parents ourselves,” says Cummings, “so it’ll be extra sweet.”

According to Cummings, some of the other shows being highlighted are the hit musical “Mathilda,” based on the beloved Roald Dahl novel, “Waitress,” adapted from the 2007 film, and classics such as “West Side Story,” “Les Miserables,” and “A Chorus Line.”

“There will be duets and solos, and big group numbers,” he says, “mixing it all together. The kids will get a lot of opportunities to showcase their talents, too, performing alongside their instructors.”

One of the numbers he’s most looking forward to, Cummings says, is when the entire cast comes together to sing the charming tune, “When I Grow Up,” from “Mathilda.”

“It a whirlwind of a song,” he says. “And the lyrics are so beautiful and sad and hopeful and funny. In the musical, it’s all kids singing it, but in our show, it’ll be fun having kids and adults singing it together.”

Cinnabar’s Young Rep was founded in 1983, in part as a response to the sudden slashing of funding for arts programs in public schools. In the 34 years since, Cinnabar has trained more than a thousand children in various theatrical styles, from Shakespeare and musical theater to dance, puppetry, mime and improvisation.

The training program, mostly after school and some weekends, is open to children from 4 to 18 years old. Though only some students go on to pursue a life in the arts, Cummings says most of them benefit from the skills of collaboration, invention, confidence and preparation that they learn at Cinnabar.

“The Broadway Bash,” he says, “is not just a showcase of these kids’ incredible talents, and those of our amazing instructors, who really are some of the most accomplished performers in the North Bay. This show is really a celebration of the community that has made a program like Cinnabar’s Young Rep possible.”

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