EMU’s music department will host The Profession, Inc. (TPI) theater company’s song-filled, multi-media, celebration of life, "Go-DIVA! – of song, silence, & the abuse of chocolate," starring Jennifer Anne Cooper.
The show will be presented 7 p.m. Friday, Mar. 16, in Lehman Auditorium at EMU.
In this play, Cooper, currently a Harrisonburg resident and voice instructor at EMU, once lived a far more glamorous life.
Blessed at birth with an amazing vocal instrument, a strong work ethic, and a Type A personality, she spent her youth as a rising star, pleasing audiences and impressing critics, and was shamelessly thrilled to do so.
By age 28, Cooper was poised on the threshold of international Diva-dom, celebrating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of contracts and preparing to sing 12 lead roles with top opera companies in Europe and North America.
Then – in a wink of fate’s eye – the gift that seemed divinely given was gone, and the proverbial party was over.
Pianist Michael Santana, director of the Chesapeake (MD) Choral Arts Society, is Cooper