Storytellers

Font Size

Dr. Howard Kaplan and Romana Laks Kaplan, Storytellers

Photo by Mike Ciesielski

DR. HOWARD KAPLAN AND ROMANA LAKS KAPLAN, Donors

The Center’s presentation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this season brings back memories of my first date with Romana. We go back to 1954 for that one. I was a young man in the army, stationed at Walter Reed, and I read whereby the Old Vic Company and the Saddlers Wells Ballet had put together a joint performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Being in the military, I ran right down to the USO and got a pair of tickets, which I found out later were scarcer than hen’s teeth.

I called a friend of mine up in New York (where I'm from) and said, “Look I’ve got two tickets to this performance, do me a favor — get me a special date.”

Related Events: 
2012-09-30-a-midsummer-nights-dream
Tags: 
Storytellers
Howard Kaplan
Romana Laks Kaplan

Anne-Marie Lemaire, Storyteller

Anne-Marie Lemaire

Photo by Mike Ciesielski

ANNE-MARIE LEMAIRE, Patron

When I was a young girl growing up in Vienna my family used to go to the Salzburg Festival and I remember the first time I ever saw their presentation of Jedermann (this means Everyman in English). It’s a medieval morality play about a rich man and what he has to do to save his soul on judgment day, a classic play. The festival displayed it outdoors in the plaza in front of the Cathedral. It was so impressive; I think it was one of the greatest things I ever saw.

I have adapted to this country, I’m happy here, I like it. But there’s always a certain nostalgia for this kind of a life.

Tags: 
Storytellers
Anne-Marie Lemaire

Scott AuCoin, Storyteller

Photo by Alison Harbaugh

SCOTT AUCOIN, BM Candidate in Composition and BME in Music Education, UMD School of Music

One of the most moving experiences I’ve ever had was hearing a recording of the Britten War Requiem. It was my sophomore or junior year, an informal assignment from my composition teacher. I don’t think he knew it would turn into this profound thing for me.

That experience changed my ideas about music and the way music can affect you.

Tags: 
Storytellers
Scott AuCoin

John Layman, Storyteller

Photo by Alison Harbaugh

JOHN LAYMAN, UMD Professor Emeritus, Physics and Science Education & Donor

Theater has the luxury of generating re-creations and interpretations of events and ideas plucked from all of history and from the imaginations of men and women. Fortunately, on extraordinary occasions, theater will create new history to be savored by history’s creators and those of us privileged to be present.

The history generated that evening may have begun within our group in the Clarice Smith Center, but one cannot tell where it has gone from there.

Tags: 
Storytellers
John Layman

Victor and Debby Vargas, Storytellers

Photo by Alison Harbaugh

VICTOR AND DEBBY VARGAS
Victor, Network Architect
Debby, Assistant Director of Institutional Giving, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

We went to a benefit concert in Baltimore at The Peabody for the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter. Leon Fleisher and his wife were playing; they are animal lovers so they did the concert for free. Leon Fleisher played just a few songs, and his wife played several really fast pieces – amazingly difficult and wonderfully performed.

He played with such emotion that I just lost it.

Tags: 
Storytellers
Victor Vargas
Debby Vargas

Gerchel E. Holbert, Storyteller

Photo by Alison Harbaugh

GERCHEL E. HOLBERT, Market Auditor

I remember going to my first performance by the Oklahoma City Symphony Orchestra, followed by the opening night party. My godfather, Kenneth Ervin Kilgore, made this moment possible. It was one of the many ways he encouraged me to wonder and to be consciously apart of the larger creation.

We were all one that night, artists and spectators alike.

Tags: 
Storytellers
Gerchel E. Holbert

Robert Garner, Storyteller

Photo by Alison Harbaugh

ROBERT GARNER, Donor

I first arrived at College Park August, 2002 to rehearse with the marching band. There’s no real way to describe the joy and sense of belonging you get immediately upon finding a group of 250 people who all feel the same passion that you do. It essentially is a very large family, and at an institution like Maryland it’s really important to find a family to be a part of. And I found one.

The reaction the community had to all of us being down there is something I’m going to take with me the rest of my life.

Tags: 
Storytellers
Robert Garner

Angel Gil-Ordóñez, Storyteller

Photo by Tom Wolff

ANGEL GIL-ORDÓÑEZ, Music Director, PostClassical Ensemble

I was studying in Madrid at the university and at the same time at the conservatory in April 1978. A conductor I knew only by name — but knew by reputation as a very strange person, difficult to deal with — arrived in Madrid as a guest conductor with the London Symphony. I went to that performance, and that’s the reason I’m a conductor right now, because that experience was a lifetime experience.

I never in my life heard an orchestra sound like this. I thought, “What is going on here?” It was a total discovery.

Tags: 
Storytellers
Angel Gil-Ordonez

Heidi Onkst, Storyteller

Photo by Alison Harbaugh

HEIDI ONKST, UMD Senior Director, Individual Philanthropy and Regional Programs

A few years ago I had the opportunity to see Dan Hurlin’s Disfarmer at the Center. I had read about it beforehand, so I knew the story: the hermit photographer who managed to capture incredible images of the people he lived among, even though he was an outsider. I had gone to one of Dan Hurlin’s discussions before the performance so I understood about Mike Disfarmer’s background and what they were about to bring to me onstage.

…To actually see the story unfold through puppetry was amazing. I’ll never forget seeing the Disfarmer puppet get smaller as the production went on, shrinking down until he was nobody.

Tags: 
Storytellers
Heidi Onkst

Gabriella Meiterman-Rodriguez, Storyteller

Photo by Alison Harbaugh

GABRIELLA MEITERMAN-RODRIGUEZ, Dance Student, UMD School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

When I was younger, I had to perform an improvised dance solo and I was really nervous because at that time my confidence level in my own dancing was not where it is now. But my professor believed in me so much that he decided to make a fool of himself with me and improvise with me. My solo turned into a duet and it just became really fun, really free, and that’s how I feel with dance now. He basically pushed me light years ahead of myself at a young age.

It’s one of the best things ever, knowing your teachers believe in you and are willing to put themselves out there with you.

Tags: 
Storytellers
Gabriella Meiterman-Rodriguez

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - Storytellers