Cimarron Opera 50th Anniversary Memory Book
2025 will mark 50 years of Cimarron Opera! As a part of the 50th celebration, we want to hear your memories or general experience with Cimarron Opera and the Careys legacy. Do you have a favorite performance you saw at Cimarron Opera? Did you perform with Cimarron? Did you study/work with Thomas Carey or Carol Brice Carey at OU or somewhere else? We would love to hear about it! These memories will be collected in a digital memory book to honor Cimarron's 50th anniversary. Memories will be shared on Cimarron's website and at 50th anniversary events.
The Memory Book
Thomas Carey and Carol Brice were my mentors. They trained me up, kicked me out - like any good mentor should do - and told me it was time to swim in a bigger pond. I'm so grateful for their guidance, and many opera singers I know today are in awe that I knew them both. I wish they had both been around when I started working the Metropolitan Opera - they could have seen the fruits of their support.
As CCOC's first music director, I went to almost every performance in those early days. One performance took us all the way to the panhandle (I think we did Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi). It all went well, and we stopped to grab a bite before we headed home. On the long drive back in the famous CCOC van, we were all really sleepy, so somebody started singing show tunes. Once that ice was broken, we all plunged in...imagine those voices filling that van! I think we made it through every song of every classic musical ever - it was such fun. We were all buddies already, but the experience bonded us together even more.
Congratulations on this terrific milestone and have a great celebration!!
Here's a photo from those early days with all of us "usual suspects" of the time.
-Mary Jo Heath
The whole production of The Gondoliers in 2024 was magical. Every single person in the cast and crew was such a genuinely kind and loving person. Spirits were high at every rehearsal, and we often laughed so hard we cried. We had so much room to play, that the characters got bigger and sillier each rehearsal and each show. It was just one of my favorite shows I’ve ever done.
I cherish my time as a camp counselor in 2024. Camp was small, but mighty. And the price the counselors felt watching our 7 kids perform was unreal. It felt like we were watching a sporting event, and seeing the kids throw themselves into the performance was amazing.
-Sarah Spurlin
(pictured are most of the current OU students and OU alumni in the 2024 production of Gondoliers)
I remember when I was in the kids production of iolanthe. I played the chancellor and it was the most fun I've ever had playing a role or being onstage. The directors faith in me to play the parts I was suited to helped me figure out some things about myself I don't know I would have ever figured out without them and their support. And that same year I was asked to help fill in the chancellor's role in the adult show for the big song, I felt so honored and I still tell stories, and remember lessons from opera camp to this very day. What you all did and are doing is amazing and I'll never forget it!
Also, if it weren't for the generosity of the directors and the Ellis/Rogers family, I would have never found this amazing community, or been able to foster my love for theatre. Thank you all for that.
-Parker Rainbow
I met Kevin Smith while in rehearsals for a musical with a different theatre. We had an immediate, easy connection that I am forever grateful for. I count my friendship with Kevin as one of the best gifts the performing world has given me. While in those rehearsals, the soprano for that year's children's scholastic opera tour had to back out and he asked if I was interested in stepping into the role. I had no idea that agreeing to that project would end up being a years-long relationship with the children's tour as well as studio performances, summer library tours, and Christmas ensemble performances. I have countless fun memories of the children's tour years and the people I got to work with along the way; amazing humans on & off the stage. My very favorite experience, though, would have to be the absolute riot of getting to play Voluptua (twice) in La Pizza con Funghi. I am so proud to have gotten to be a small part in Cimarron Opera's impressive history.
-Kristin Fitzgerald
Here are a few memories I have of Tom.
I gave my senior recital at Meacham Auditorium in April of '72. After vocalizing at his studio in Old Science Hall, we walked over to the Union. I had studied with Tom for three years and that night I felt I could have sung forever. His technique helped me to sing effortlessly and I could see him smiling in the audience. He and I had come a long way together on my way to becoming the singer I'd always wanted to be.
Tom could be temperamental. I arrived at my lesson one day, upset over a boyfriend. He stood up from the piano, looked at me sternly and said that I was to leave my problems outside the studio door! I left in tears, slamming the door behind me. Later I found out, that he had people looking all over campus for me because he was so worried about me. He could be a hard taskmaster but he also had a kind, tender heart.
Tom sang at my wedding. As the wedding party was lining up to process down the aisle I saw him heading out the door of the church! I called to him and asked where he was going. He said he had to go and get Carol (Brice). I informed him that the ceremony was about to begin and that he should be up front at that moment singing his first song. He shook his head, hurriedly took his place at the front of the sanctuary and started the wedding on a beautiful note. He was a magnificent performer but could be a bit forgetful at times.
-Linda Boatright
I first stumbled across Cimarron Opera when I auditioned for their Children’s Summer Camp in 2001. Though I wasn’t accepted that year, that experience started my path into performing onstage, which I’ve now turned into my career. A few years later, I was lucky enough to be involved as an “adult” (at the fresh age of 18) in the 2005 production of The Merry Widow. Then, almost 20 years later, I was invited back to play the role of Despard in the 2023 production of Ruddigore. Cimarron Opera has been a wonderful artistic home for over 20 years for me, and I’m so grateful for the memories I’ve made with the incredible artists and musicians over the years, particularly Kevin Smith!
-Ronn Burton
In the Magazine Princess how Natasha (Props Designer) couldn’t find any corn in 3 different cities during June!
-Kayla Marshall (2019 Camp Counselor)
I started as a Cimarron Opera Camper when I was 15 playing Dame Hannah in Ruddigore. Before coming to Cimarron Opera Camp I enjoyed performing, but did not see a career path for myself in the arts (I was planning on being a zookeeper). Cimarron Opera was the first company that saw my potential as a professional performer and an opera singer. The first year I found a connection to my voice I had not found before during a coaching with Kevin Smith. My third year I decided I wanted a career in opera while playing the Pirate King in the Pirates of Penzance (pictured above). I went on to pursue and Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Voice. Because of Cimarron I have a career in opera/classical music not only as a performer, but as an administrator. It has been a joy to explore every part of opera from props to stage management to admin to singing at Cimarron Opera.
-Natasha Naik
I have such a fond memory of opera camp when we would all come together for "Mervin Dances".
-Grace Filer