Concert of broadway love songs celebrates romance

LIVONIA, Mich. (WXYZ) -  

Nothing says Valentine’s Day like love songs and chocolate, both of which are available at the Paul’s Players production of Love Notes.

This concert of love songs from Broadway, served with desserts and coffee, will be presented on February 11, 2012 at 7:30 p.m., and February 12, 2012, at 3:00 p.m.  Performances are at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, 27475 Five Mile Road, Livonia. Tickets prices are $10.00.  To reserve tickets, call (248) 347-4134, or e-mail  paulsplayers@gmail.com .

Love Notes features singers Allison Soranno Boufford and Jason Wilhoite, along with instrumentalists Sue Nienhaus, Michael Soranno, and Paul Soranno, performing selections from a wide variety of Broadway composers such as Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Weber, and Jason Robert Brown. The performances will be followed by a dessert buffet, coffee bar, and reception with the performers.

Boufford and Wilhoite are active members in the local theater scene, performing regularly in musical and dramatic productions at Farmington Players Barn and Spotlight Players in Canton. The pair are graduates of the Creative and Performing Arts  (CAPA) program at Churchill High School and, according to Wilhoite, have “appeared on stage countless times together.”

They reunite for this production at the request of their high school choral director, Pat Hutchison, who founded the Paul’s Players community theater group in 2011. Boufford says she is “extremely excited” to be collaborating with her friends in support of Paul’s Players premiere season. She describes Hutchison as “tremendously dedicated to education and tireless in her efforts to promote community theater and the performing arts.”

“It’s a thrill for me to have these two on stage together as part of Paul’s Players premier season,” Hutchison says. “I couldn’t be prouder of the fine performers they’ve become, and this concert will be a great way for people to celebrate Valentine’s Day.”

SELECTIONS:

1. An Old Fashioned Wedding
2. Almost Like Being in Love
3. I Chose Right
4. Patterns
5. Stephen Sondheim Medley
6. Somewhere
7. It Takes Two
8. Take Me To The World
9. Not A Day Goes By
10. The Picture Show
11. I’m Glad You Didn’t Know Me
12. Where is Love
13. As Long As He Needs Me
14. The Mason
15. Andrew Lloyd Weber Medley
16. Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again
17. Love Changes Everything
18. What Could Be Better Than
19. That Easy to Love
20. Jason Robert Brown Medley
21. Old Red Hills
22. A New World
23. If I Didn’t Believe in You
24. Stars and the Moon
25. Someone to Fall Back On
26. Rodgers and Hammerstein Medley
27. Getting to Know You
28. I Have Dreamed
29. Wonderful Guy
30. If I Love You
31. People Will Say We’re in Love
32. Easy to Be Hard
33. For Good

Paul’s Players is a community theater group based in Livonia, Michigan, and housed in St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, 27475 Five Mile Road, just west of Inkster Road. The group was founded in 2011 by Patricia Hutchison, a retired Livonia Public School music and drama teacher. Its mission is to provide opportunities for people of all ages to participate in drama and musical theater. The group’s first offering was a middle school music camp in June 2011. Their first theatrical production in November 2011 was Remember When, a salute to veterans of World War II, with a cast of 14 members ranging in age from 22-60. Following the February performances of Love Notes, Paul’s Players season continues with Star Spangled Girl on April 27-29, 2012, the middle school camp on June 18-22, 2012, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (for ages 8-21) on July 26-28, 2012. A fall production is to be announced later this year.

For more information about Paul’s Players, or Love Notes, please contact Patricia Hutchison, 248-347-4134, or email paulsplayers@gmail.com