Augustana Musical Theater Prof Wins Big Award at Orlando Fringe Festival
Shelley Cooper came full circle last week at the prestigious Orlando Fringe Festival in Florida, and came home Tuesday with an unexpected award.
Shelley Cooper celebrating her award with Bonnie Sprung, a 30-year Orlando Fringe volunteer and her host for the week.
The multi-talented, 35-year-old Augustana assistant professor of theatre arts earned the Fringe Critic’s Choice for Best Individual Performance, Drama, for her one-woman show, “La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas.”
“I was completely shocked that I won,” Cooper said Wednesday. “I mean like to the point that I was waiting, maybe I would be nominated for solo show or this or that, and then when those got announced, I started walking out to my car because I had to be at the airport at 4 a.m. the next day.
“I thought that they were pretty much over and then my friend texted me and she goes, ‘Get back here, you just won.’ So I just ran across the parking lot,” she recalled of the Monday night awards. “I sprinted, and voila. It was something else.”
Of her performance, the Orlando Sentinel wrote that “La Divina” “entertainingly gives a flavor of the famed operatic soprano, who died in 1977, with an appropriately steely portrayal and stirring singing.”
Orlando Fringe Theatre Festival celebrated its 30th year this year.
Orlando Fringe is the oldest Fringe festival (out of many) in the U.S., celebrating its 30th year in 2021.
“It was very, very special,” Cooper said of the wide-ranging event, with performers from around the world. “I mean, it’s like I can’t stress enough that this is The Fringe Festival in the United States, in my opinion.”
She performed “La Divina” three times, on May 23, 26 and 29, and watched about 17 other
Cooper as Maria Callas in “La Divina.”
shows. Cooper most recently did “La Divina” – where she embodies the legendary opera star Maria Callas (1923-1977) — at Moline’s Black Box Theatre in late March.
In “La Divina” (meaning “the divine one,” the regal nickname given to Callas), Cooper includes stories and ‘70s-era interviews from her life and performs several famous iconic arias that she was best known for singing – including from “Carmen,” “Tosca” and “Gianni Schicchi.”
At University of Central Florida (where she got her master’s in musical theater), Cooper wrote her 2010 master’s thesis on Callas, whom she said “stressed the importance of understanding and interpreting text and music with precision, detail, specifics and artistry. Her techniques set the standard for future aspiring singer/actors.”
By the 1970s, Callas lost her ability to sing, so she led master classes at the Juilliard School of Music, which inspired Tony-winning playwright Terrence McNally’s biographical play, “Master Class.”
In 2010, Cooper was performing at Disney World, Universal Studios, Orlando Rep and University of Central Florida.
“What’s so interesting, ‘La Divina’ came out of a rejection,” she recalled. At first, she was to write a thesis on the evolution of the ingenue in operetta and musical theater, hoping to play Mabel in “Pirates of Penzance,” but didn’t get the part.
Cooper, center, in thrilled disbelief while clutching her Critic’s Choice award May 31.
“I ended up coming up with this instead,” Cooper said about Callas, giving herself the challenge of writing her own show and performing it. She had been in the play “Master Class” her senior year of college (at Hanover in southern Indiana) and always loved Callas.
“I brought this idea to my chair and he enthusiastically thought it was just a great idea,” Cooper said. “I really pushed myself and that’s what your master’s thesis should be and that’s what art should be doing. At the of the day, I’m really glad I didn’t get cast in ‘Pirates of Penzance,’ so that I could write this show.
“It’s one of my greatest accomplishments and it’s something I’m really proud of,” she said. “Master Class” — the 1995 play — took more liberties with the opera singer’s life, painting her as less sympathetic, Cooper said.
“She really wasn’t as mean as she came off in the play ‘Master Class,’ so I was trying to I guess be her defense attorney in a sense, as I was writing ‘La Divina’,” she said. “I’m very much a champion of Maria Callas, not to say she didn’t have diva tendencies, but to know the other side of the story – why she was the way that she was.”
Cooper first did “La Divina” for Orlando Fringe at Orlando Repertory Theatre in 2010, when she was 25, and has since performed it on three continents – including in Thailand, Germany and Austria.
Comparing then and now
Compared to 2010, “what made it so special the first time it was a premiere,” Cooper said of the first Orlando performance. “I had no idea if it
Cooper on stage for “La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas” with pianist John R. Mason III.
was going to work or not. So there was all of those nerves. And my parents got to see the show that time, and that was doubly special.
“This time, they did not, but I was a lot more confident going into this performance than — there’s always still like doubts and you know, nervousness,” she said of the three times she recently performed (May 23, 26 and 29). “Is this going to work? I had that, but there was a lot more of that 10 years ago, for sure.”
“A lot of it is just because I’ve been performing it now for about 10 or 11 years. So, just life experience with the show, just becoming a much more mature person and performer,” Cooper said of the last version, accompanied by pianist John R. Mason III.
You can watch “La Divina” online for $10, from Friday, June 4 through June 18.
“I think it was a huge change because I think it’s a completely different show now than it was in 2010,” she said. “I think the spirit of the show is still there, but I think that it has a lot more depth and maturity, ‘cause I’ve had 10 years to grow into this character.
“It’s been a real labor of love and it’s just been really, really exciting to every time I do the show — every individual performance,” Cooper said. “There’s something I discover new each time.”
“I think God has given me the discipline to really hone in on my craft and understand the character to like an extreme degree,” she said. “There’s often times you’ll play a character, you’ll work on a role and do it for a two-week, maybe one-month run. And then you’re done — versus this, has been something that, to be able to be in that development as an actor, what a gift is all I can really say.”
Soaring from Circa to Orlando
May was a very busy month for Cooper, as she had choreographed the Circa ’21 musical “Church Basement Ladies in You Smell Barn,” and then directed and choreographed “Beehive,” which opened Friday, May 21. She got on a plane the next morning at 7 a.m., after an amazing
Shelley Cooper celebrating the opening of “Beehive” at Circa ’21 on May 21.
show opening.
“That was so inspiring and exactly what I needed honestly to like kick-start me on this trip to Orlando Fringe,” Cooper said of her Circa directing debut. “That opening night, my face hurt from smiling. I was just so happy with the people in the theater and the cast and production team did such a great job with the show. So I was just beaming with pride that evening.”
This was her first flight since returning from Austria in February 2020.
“There was parts of it that were exciting, but it was also just kind of nerve-racking being in an enclosed space with people again,” Cooper said, noting passengers on her flights to Atlanta, then to Orlando were good about wearing masks. “Yeah, I was much more anxious than I thought, but it went fine.”
Cooper is an assistant professor of theatre arts at Augustana College.
In Orlando, she stayed with Bonnie Sprung, a Fringe volunteer for 30 years. All the out-of-town performers are put up for free by festival hosts.
“It was such a great privilege ‘cause she knows the festival and everyone knows her,” Cooper said. “It was amazing, yeah, so that was a huge cost taken away.”
She also received an Augustana College faculty research fund grant to travel for the festival as well.
“Some shows are sponsored, so in a sense I had a sponsor,” she said. “It was quite amazing.” “Every time I get to do the show, it’s a gift,” she added. “It’s my favorite thing I get to do is specifically this show, and this performance at Orlando Fringe just really confirms that.”
On top of everything, Fringe filmed all performances, and you can see “La Divina” online from June 4 to 18.
Tickets are $10 each, available HERE. You can scan the QR code on the site for the show program.
