Musical Theater

Off the Clock: Amanda Snellings is the artistic director of City of Fairfax Theatre Company, a community theatre group

Shayla Brown — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 20:55:53 +0000

Off the Clock: Amanda Snellings is the artistic director of City of Fairfax Theatre Company, a community theatre group Shayla Brown Wed, 01/11/2023 - 15:55

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Life is much more than time spent on the clock. In this series, we highlight the unique hobbies and volunteer activities of Mason's talented faculty and staff.

Amanda Snellings, assistant director of development at the College of Visual and Performing Arts, has been at ��AV for just over a year.

Outside of work, Snellings volunteers with the City of Fairfax Theatre Company (CFTC) as the artistic director. Many of her Mason peers have also participated in productions by CFTC. “We had a professor direct our show a couple of years ago, and it was really great. Students and alumni have performed, and we’ve even had some Mason theater students teach at our camp,” Snellings said.

Amanda Snellings performing on stage. Photo provided.

How did you first get involved with local theater?

I’ve been doing community theatre since I was 11. My first show was Oliver, playing one of the orphans. I’ve had the theater bug ever since. I studied theatre in college and pursued freelance directing while working in arts management at professional theatre companies to stay connected to my passion, most recently at Shakespeare Theatre Company in D.C.

I returned to community theatre to get involved in productions creatively while advancing my development career. My passion and experience in performing arts made my role at Mason working with donors to the Schools of Theater, Music, and Dance a perfect fit.

What is the time commitment?

By far the busiest time of year is the summer. I direct the big summer musical with 50 people of all ages in the cast and another 50 involved between all the technical elements and live orchestra. It’s our biggest as far as set design, costumes, and lighting. We plan the production elements in January, hold auditions in May, and perform in July. The rehearsals span 10 weeks for about 12 hours per week. During the two weeks leading up to the show, I am at the theater every evening right after work until 10 p.m. and all day/evening on the weekends. It’s a lot of work but everyone is excited to be there together.

A performance of Beauty and the Beast by the City of Fairfax Theatre Company. Photo provided.

What has been the most meaningful or memorable experience you’ve had in this volunteer work?

The first musical I directed with CFTC was Beauty and the Beast. It was a huge technical challenge to figure out special effects like the enchanted rose petals falling at specific moments and the Beast’s magical transformation within 30 seconds without the audience seeing it. We also built a rotating cube set with four different scenes painted on the outside walls that then opened up into a huge castle interior. We were nominated for nine awards and won Outstanding Cast and Outstanding Set Design from the Washington Area Theatre Community Honors (WATCH) organization.

How has COVID impacted CFTC?

We were in the middle of rehearsals for a production of True West meant to open in April 2020 with the Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts Festival when COVID hit. We were finally able to do the show in April 2022. In late March 2020, we started using Zoom and Facebook to keep our volunteers and audience engaged, doing online play readings and classes. We started an outdoor Shakespeare program to replace our summer musical when we couldn’t be indoors. The first was A Midsummer Night’s Dream staged with the actors always staying six feet apart as part of the storytelling. We spray-painted the lawn, creating household seating boxes 10 feet apart.

A performance of Shrek the Musical by the City of Fairfax Theatre Company. Photo provided

What has been one of your favorite productions from your time with CFTC?

This summer we put on Shrek the Musical. I always say the songs from that show are so much better than you’d think they would be for a musical based on Shrek! There were a lot of challenging technical demands that the script set out for that show, but all the technical elements like costumes, hair, makeup, sets and lights really brought the story to life. It was such a beautiful final product and we were really proud of it.

What do you tend to enjoy most of the production process?

I love directing because I am deeply involved in all aspects of the entire production; I get to be the guardian of the vision for the show everyone is working hard to achieve. I really enjoy working with the multigenerational casts and seeing everyone learning from one another, especially the younger kids. We always have a few families that participate together, sometimes even three generations in one show. My role doesn’t usually involve performing, but each fall we do a cabaret of musical theater songs, and that's the one night a year that I always get to perform—which I love, too.

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College of Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA)

Faculty and Staff News

Off the Clock

Three Mason students are semifinalists in ‘NextGen’ vocal competition

Colleen Rich — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 09:00:14 +0000

Three Mason students are semifinalists in ‘NextGen’ vocal competition Colleen Rich Tue, 04/21/2020 - 05:00

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College of Visual and Performing Arts School of Theater

Graduation profile: Dylan Toms found himself in the lead at Mason

Damian Cristodero — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 18:09:44 +0000

Graduation profile: Dylan Toms found himself in the lead at Mason Damian Cristodero Tue, 12/18/2018 - 13:09

In four and a half years at Mason, Dylan Toms has played the lead in three musicals and five operas.

Music major Dylan Toms said his most memorable performance at ��AV was when, as a freshman, he played the leading role in the musical “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” Little did he know that it would be the first of many leading roles during his time at the university.

Photo by Lathan Goumas.

Over the past four and a half years, Toms, an Honors College student who is graduating on Dec. 20, has played the lead in three musicals and five operas. Besides “Drood,” he appeared in the musicals “Threepenny Opera” and “The Gondoliers” and in the operas “La Vie de Bohéme,” “Albert Herring” and, most recently, “Dido and Aeneas.”

“Mason has pushed me to become a performer I had no idea I could be,” Toms said.

When Toms was a junior starring in “Threepenny Opera,” in which he played Macheath, London’s most notorious criminal, local theater critic David Siegel wrote of him in DC Metro Theater Arts: “From the moment he steps into view with white gloves, white spats, and an altogether dapper mien, [Toms] gives off shivers with his smooth, slick, sneering performance. His solos and duets are spot-on.”

Toms, from the small town of Bedford, Virginia, got his first taste of performance in his elementary school’s production of “The Polar Express.” Though his middle and high schools did not have theater programs, he participated in community theater with the Little Town Players in Bedford.

Dylan Toms as the wicked John Jasper in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood." Promotional photo.

Toms visited Mason during his sophomore year of high school and was able to catch a dress rehearsal of Mason’s mainstage show “The Merchant.” From then on, he said, he couldn’t imagine going to any other university.

“This program has kept me on my toes for four and a half years,” Toms said of his time at Mason. “I am so grateful for that because I truly believe I can go into the real world with so much more experience than I had before.”

Toms started in Mason’s theater program but found his place in musical theater. He attributes his success and progress to his voice teacher John Aler, associate professor in the School of Music.

“[Toms is] very eager to learn and experience new avenues of ways to be expressive,” Aler said. “He works extremely hard and is always prepared, and he never misses a chance to perform. He is a teacher's dream student.”

Toms said he was inspired by his fellow classmates and Mason’s proximity to Washington, D.C.’s booming music and theater scene. He frequently visited Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, with Mason Cabaret, which is run by Erin Gardiner, an adjunct faculty member in Mason’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, and James Gardiner, deputy director of creative content and publicity at Signature Theatre, respectively.

After graduation Toms plans to move to New York City and pursue a career in musical theater.