January 21, 2025
Sarah O'Keefe--Kayla Friend. Julie Ann Thomazin, Chelsea Rodgers and Sarah Sebaskey make up the The Taffetas which opens this weekend at California Baptist University’s Wallace Theater.

Excitement and adrenaline run through their veins. The stage is set and the microphones are waiting. The host comes out and it is time.

The Taffeta girls are here, wearing colorful taffeta dresses, ready to sing their hearts out with songs of love, laughter and fun.

This is California Baptist University’s first Spring 2011 production by the theatre arts’ program in the Wallace theater; allowing audiences to take a trip back to the 1950s with “The Taffetas.”

Written by Rick Lewis, the story is about four sisters from Muncie, Indiana during the 1950s. In the play, the girls have their television debut in “Spotlight on Music,” a fictitious music show on the Dumont Television Network.

The cast includes Kayla Friend playing Kaye, Julie Ann Thomazin playing Cheryl, Chelsea Rodgers playing Donna and Sarah Sebaskey playing Peggy. The show features 36 songs from popular 1950s female groups such as The Fontane Sisters and The Chordettes, including songs such as “Mr. Sandman” and “The Three Bells.”

“I hope there will be an older audience there who will appreciate the music and I hope that we will do it justice because it is what they grew up with and they have so many memories attached to it,” Chelsea Rodgers said. “I really hope that we will be able to give it our all.”

But the production can also offer a new experience for current CBU students. They will be exposed to music of the 1950s. Some might be able to remember songs their parents or grandparents enjoyed.

The play premieres Feb. 25. There will be seven showings in all, two on Feb. 26, one on March 4 and two on March 5 plus two more matinees during school for local elementary students. The runtime of the show itself will be just under two hours.

In the past, the tickets for school theater productions were sold through the Campus Activities Board. However, this semester is different.

The tickets will be sold at the ticket window in front of the Wallace Theatre. The Theatre did a special sale this semester, selling the tickets for only seven dollars for the first 200 students then $12 for regular CBU students, faculty, seniors and matinee showings and $15 for general admission.

“It is going to be really great. I am excited,” Rodgers said.

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