On Saturday, May 20th, Amber Coast Theatrical presents a unique concert event at Showplace’s Nexicom Studio. The Kawartha’s Rising Stars Mentorship Concert features some of Peterborough’s beloved musical theatre performers paired up with talented local high school students for a full day of mentorship, culminating in an all-star concert to be performed that night.
It will prove to be a memorable night of music featuring the talents of performers we already love, but spotlighting new voices who will form the future of Peterborough theatre.
“The event is very much like The Voice, minus the auditions,” explains Amber Coast’s founder Lucas DeLuca, the organizer behind the event.
“Each pairing of mentor and student will do a duet, and then the mentor will coach the student throughout the day on a solo number as well. After an intensive day of shaping the two numbers, all the pairings will come together for a concert in the evening. So you’ll get two numbers from the student, and one number from the mentor as part of the duet.”
A familiar face in the Peterborough theatre community, Lucas came to Peterborough from his home in Torrance, California to attend Trent University but quickly found himself wrapped up in the theatre community.
The Kawartha’s Rising Stars Mentorship Concert came out of inspiration from Lucas’ experiences as part of the local theatre scene.
“When I got to Trent, the community was bursting at the seams with talent,” Lucas recalls. “Talk about being at the right place at the right time. It was a total fluke. I got real lucky, and I was so blown away.”
I first noticed Lucas in 2014 with his show-stopping solo in The Anne Shirley Theatre Company’s presentation of Spring Awakening. Since then, he has become a highly regarded performer on many stages via a number of different companies.
“I started with the Anne Shirley Theater Company,” Lucas says. “There I was working with Brian McDonald who pulled me into Next to Normal, Art for Awareness’s’ inaugural show. Then I met Geoff and Rachel Bemrose, which led to me working with Justin Hiscox at St. James Players, and I was at 4th Line Theatre with Rob Winslow.
“It’s been a series of really lucky breaks in which I’ve met the most incredible people, and those people have been the most warm and loving and kind. In Peterborough I meet someone spectacular every day, and it’s such a blessing.”
The Rising Star Mentorship Concert is Lucas’ way to try to give local students the same sort of opportunity he has.
“I was coming into this community as a university student and never had this sort of experience before,” Lucas explains. “Some students are luckier than others; they get to experience one community connection and then are catapulted into another. But there are students who may not have those opportunities yet.
“The idea behind this mentorship concert was to extend invitations to all of the drama departments in as many schools as possible across the Kawarthas, including Port Hope, Lindsay and Peterborough, and see what we heard back. Because we are a fairly new drama company, the responses were a bit slow but we managed to get six students.”
Taking the spotlight at the concert include high school students Rene Frank, Keely Wilson, Jayde Taylor, Kate Bemrose, Meagan Vaughan, and Sydney Harwood Jones. They will be paired with local theatre favorites Kate Suhr, Hannah Bailey, Caitlin Currie, Erik Feldcamp, Brian McDonald, and Lucas himself, with musical accompaniment by Justin Hiscox.
“What we’ve done is pair up the students with individual mentors,” Lucas says. “We’ve been able to find people who have learned in multiple different ways. For example, Erik Feldcamp, who some would say is a fairly new talent, is entirely self taught but has an immense ability with performance and entertainment.
“Then we have Kate Suhr who is a homegrown talent who has made herself a name in Toronto. We’ve also pulled in Hannah Bailey and Brian McDonald, who have become Peterborough staples in their own way.”
Although the mentors and students will spend the day developing their performances for that evening, the matches have already been made and correspondence has already been happening between the pairs.
But, as Lucas reveals, this is only the first concert that Amber Coast Productions will be presenting this year. In September they will be doing a spotlight on Justin Hiscox’s nearly two decades of contribution to musical theatre in a show they are calling ‘Justin’s Jukebox’.
“We are going to try to get as many performers we can who have performed in shows where Justin has been the musical director,” Lucas says. “We hope that each can do at least one song from different shows Justin has done. Justin has been doing music for as close to twenty years. That will be another really exciting show for us.”
Amber Coast Theatrical has another production planned for the end of 2017, and then Lucas will be teaming up with Elizabeth Moody to direct the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s 2018 musical. However, for the time being the details of those shows are held tightly in the vault. For the moment, Lucas’ focus is on enriching the next wave of local talent and introducing them to Peterborough’s rich theatrical community.
“With all the community connections I had, it was like I’d meet one person and that would lead to another person,” Lucas says. “I want to find a way to gift the professional development and community connections that I had to young students.”
The Kawartha’s Rising Stars Mentorship Concert is going to be a fantastic night of music featuring many of my favourite local performers and a way to be introduced to the future of Peterborough theatre. It is a night that I’m highly anticipating, and a great way to welcome the newest batch of players into our community. Furthermore, at $5 admission, the show is an affordable night of performance.
The Kawartha’s Rising Stars Mentorship Concert happens at 8 p.m. on Saturday, May 20th in the Nexicom Studio downstairs at Showplace Performance Centre (290 George St. N., Peterborough). Admission is $5 at the door, or pay what you can.
