Artistic Director History: Stephanie Smith, Part 2

Stephanie Lynne Smith, Part 2 - 2006-2010

Hello faithful readers, here is my continuing blog about Ms. Smith as she continued to grow the chorus both in membership as well as our musicianship and our willingness to try new things. We also had new accompanist and assistant artistic director in Michael Anthony Schuler. Another thing that happened in these years was that Stephanie married Dr. Kathleen Maguire, who was the AD of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus so in a sense both choruses were their adult children and we all had to get along. Both choruses had great times at the Pride Concerts in this decade. We also performed in the SFGMC's Home for the Holidays concerts on Christmas Eve at the Castro Theatre and also traveled with SFGMC to Santa Rosa and Modesto as part of their outreach shows in December as well.

Starting with "Group Therapy" in 2005 we began expanding our musical chops as we performed full musicals written for us by June Bonacich and Jack Curtis Dubowsky who gave us "Halloween in the Castro: A Horror Opera." We also staged a one act operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan called "Trial by Jury" and of course we gayed it up to modernize it and make it our own.

The 32nd Annual Pride Concert in 2010 was Stephanie's last concert with us as AD and was titled fittingly enough "The Sound of Fabulous." This was our 30th anniversary season finale and was a fitting tribute to Stephanie as she was on her way to the next part of her life - the stage with her "Fifi and Fanny" shows. Stephanie has since moved to Portland, Oregon, with her wife, Jen Brown. She was artistic director of Confluence, the Willamette Valley LGBT Chorus, and she now has her "Ms. Smith Presents" adult performance classes in which she encourages her students to be the best they can be in their quest to be wonderful and fabulous performers. I guess once a teacher always a teacher and for me that best describes what she brought to LGCSF as she gave us the freedom to be the best we could be in our performances. I love you, Ms. Smith.

Next time I will write about our next Interim Director Cole Thomason-Redus.

In harmony and love, Michael Lucero