IN O UR COM M U N I T Y: ALU MNI
Hitting a High Note
Class of 1993 alumna
talks about her life
onstage, from voice
lessons with Bonnie
Anderson all the way
to professional opera.
PHOTO CREDIT:
DAN BUSLER PHOTOGRAPHY
24
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The Colonnade
Before professional soprano singer/
performer Stephanie Mann ’93
played the lead in many of Steward’s
plays and musicals as an Upper School
student, there was a time when she
thought she might not act or sing
again.
Ms. Mann performed in children’s
theatre programs as a young girl, but
when she started at the middle school
she attended before Steward, she
opted out of auditioning for theatre or
vocal groups. “I was overwhelmed by
the idea of doing theatre there,” she
said. “So I wasn’t even really singing at
the time.”
It was attending a Steward production
of Once Upon a Mattress with her
mother, Lynne Mann (who taught
computer classes at Steward at the
time) that sparked the fire in Ms.
Mann to start performing again. “I
remember standing up when the show
was over,” Ms. Mann said. “I turned
to my mother and said, ‘I want to do
theatre again.’”
Ms. Mann started at Steward the
next year, and she began taking piano
lessons with music teacher Bonnie
Anderson. “[Mrs. Anderson] got me
singing,” Ms. Mann said. “She coached
me for a while [vocally] and then
my junior year, she suggested I find
another teacher because she didn’t
have the background to coach me on
classical voice.”
The first Steward musical Ms. Mann
performed in was Where’s Charley?
and she played the female lead, Amy
Spettigue. “It was a blast,” she said.
She went on to perform in several
more plays and musicals at Steward,
winning the Fine Arts award three
years in a row. After graduating from
Steward, she continued to pursue her
theatrical dreams, majoring in theatre
at Brandeis University and receiving
her master’s degree in Music in Voice
and Opera Performance from The
Boston Conservatory.
These days, Ms. Mann splits her time
between her day job at a law firm in
Boston, Massachusetts and her career
as a performer in operas, musicals,
and plays. “The biggest challenge is
finding time to practice, memorize,
and review outside of rehearsal.
When you’re cast in an opera, you’re
expected to come to the first rehearsal
with your role nearly memorized.
That also requires translation if it’s in
another language.”
As a classically trained soprano,
Ms. Mann sings in Italian, French,
German, Spanish, and English, and just
recently performed in a production
of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in which
she played Donna Anna, one of the
female leads. “I had played that role
before, but in Italian,” she said. “This
time, it was an English translation, so
I had to approach the role almost as
if I were learning it for the first time.
Oftentimes during performances, I
had to remind myself not to sing it in
Italian.”
Despite the challenges that come
with acting professionally while
simultaneously holding a full-time
job, Ms. Mann loves performing. “It’s
addictive,” she said. “I love working
on music and meeting new people
or working with old friends. It’s a
wonderful experience.”