Category: Arts & Entertainment

By Abby Ryu ‘26

After a short exciting spirit week, Friday evening marked Wyoming Seminary music department’s annual Arts Showcase in the Kirby Center for Creative Arts (KCCA). The audience experienced a wide variety of performances: from complicated classical pieces to fun dances.

The evening started off with a preview of this year’s fall musical, Guys and Dolls. In the scene presented, Nathan Detroit (Benecio Carpentier ‘24) argues with his long-term fiancée, Adelaide (Lily Roberti ‘24), about her strong desire to get married and his gambling habits, when she finds out about his crap game from her friend Mimi (Molly Kopetchny ‘24). As the argument ends, Adelaide, left to wallow alone about the lack of her wedding, sings popular, and fittingly-titled, showtune “Adelaide’s Lament.” The three senior cast members truly wowed the audience with their performance, leaving them looking forward to the full performance, which will be presented in the KCCA on November 4, 5, and 6. 

Following the musical preview, the string ensemble performed three pieces: modern lyrical piece Autumn Vows, by Susan H. Day, along with well-known classical pieces by Johannes Brahms, Hungarian Dance no 5 and Hungarian Dance no 6. Although they were perhaps more challenging, avid string ensemble member and cello player Hannah Salesky ‘26 enjoyed playing Hungarian Dance no 5 and Hungarian Dance no 6: “I really liked the numerous stops and tempo changes that required players to be playing close attention. It sounded really cool when it worked.”

The SEM dance company performed two selections for the audience to enjoy. First, senior Molly Kopetchny performed the re-structured solo-version of her self-choreographed modern lyrical piece to “Stay Gold.” Senior Lucy Lew, junior Abby Lott, and freshman Grace Rushmer followed with an up-beat tap dance to “Fireball,” choreographed by tap teacher Raphael Cooper. The audience was left thoroughly impressed by both pieces, although in different ways. Kopetchny’s graceful emotion was intensely moving while the sparkling energy of “Fireball” emitted thrills of excitement.

The night was wrapped up with two pieces by the Chorale. The first, titled “Shule Aroon,” is an arrangement of an Irish folk tune, sung from the perspective of a woman lamenting a lover who has gone to war. The second, titled “Hakuna Mungu Kama Wewe” is a celebratory Swahili spiritual about the love of god. New member Chloe Caputo ‘26 specifically noted “Even with newer members like myself and it being early in the school year, we were able to put together two arrangements that ended up going well.”

By Benecio Carpentier ‘24

Theater season is in full swing, so it only makes sense that SEM Drama is on the homestretch for November’s performance of ‘Guys and Dolls.” The iconic Broadway show, based on the short stories of American writer Damon Runyon, has been performed across the world since its 1950 opening run. The classic show about New York gamblers and dancing damsels hasn’t been performed at Wyoming Seminary since 1996. 

“Guys and Dolls” follows Benecio Carpentier ‘24 as gambling ringmaster Nathan Detroit challenging big-time better Sky Masterson, played by David Getz ‘24, to a bet over Sky’s ability to woo conservative mission worker Sarah Brown, portrayed by Rachel Lewis ‘25. As Sky becomes stuck between his betting ways and his love for Sarah, Nathan struggles with his own romance with ditzy dancer Adelaide, performed by Lily Roberti ‘24, and his reluctance to marry her after fourteen years. 

Supporting cast members include Ari Froelich ‘24 as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, Michael Vodzak ‘24 as Benny Southstreet, Kathryn Eidam ‘27 as Big Jule, Abby Whitby ‘24 as Major Abernathy, Chloe Caputo ‘26 as General Cartwright, Harry Xu ‘25 as Rusty Charlie, and Matias Tollinen ‘25 as Harry the Horse. The show’s soundtrack, composed by legend Frank Loesser, includes timeless songs like “Fugue for Tinhorns”, “Adelaide’s Lament”, and “Sit Down, You’re Rockin the Boat.”

Abby Whitby ‘24 gave her thoughts on how different the musical experience for “Guys and Dolls” has been compared to last year’s “Bright Star”; Whitby said, “…going through the big ensemble numbers in the first rehearsals was good, because we could get it down easier, the stuff that was easier to learn.” Technical Director Floyd Bussie, Jr. worked in tandem with Director Jason Sherry ‘91 to design and construct the set pieces for the show’s Broadway setting.  

By Dino Perusko ’24

“You take a couple of geniuses, put them in a room together and… Holy schalmoley”, a line from unintentionally funny and old Gaston, might best describe what has been rehearsing for the past 1 month and a half on the BPAC stage at Wyoming Seminary. Sem’s drama department has been preparing its first spring play after almost a three-year break due to the pandemic, and it is coming back in full swing.

Set in a smoky cabaret in Paris, Picasso at the Lapin Agile presents two geniuses at the start of their career in 1904, just one year before Albert Einstein transformed physics by publishing his Special Theory of Relativity, and three years before the famous painter shook the art world with his cubism in the painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The play also casts time-traveling Elvis Presley and slightly delusional scientist Schmendiman.

Filled with the new ideas that have transformed the 20th century, the play takes its audience from humor-filled scenes to more serious and thought-provoking dialogues set in the dawn of the 20th century. With hilarious one-liners, shaky and unstable relationships, and two geniuses that have marked the 20th century,  the play is secured to keep the audience entertained, shaking from laughter, and engaged since “the lights came up, and the lights went down”.

Directed by Ellen Sherry, featuring Dino Perusko ‘24 as Freddy, Harry Xu ‘25 as Gaston, Peyton Popple ‘23 as Germaine. Benecio Carpentier ‘24 as Einstein, Ari Froehlich ‘24 as Sagot, Ainsley Eidam’23 as Picasso, Kate Soreth ‘26 as Schmendiman, Anna Chong ‘24 as Countess, Holly Egbert ‘23 / Lauren Urosevich ‘23 as admirers and Alex Smulowitz ‘25 as a visitor, this absurdist comedy written by Steve Martin will shine on stage, in the black-box setting of BPAC, on Friday, April 28, as the first spring play at Sem since 2019.