If you have lived in the Rivermoore Park community for a while, you likely know about the long-time friend of Stroll Rivermoore Park, Suwanee Academy of the Arts (SAA).  SAA has welcomed scores of Rivermoore students into its creative family, helping them flourish in and through the performing arts.  Led by its founders, Patty Etherton and Bernie Davis, Suwanee Academy of the Arts has become a treasure to our community, making better artists, better leaders, and better people of each student who has walked through its doors since opening in 2003. 

 

But did you know that SAA also manages a nonprofit company called Suwanee Performing Arts (SPA)?  Patty and Bernie founded Suwanee Performing Arts with the goal of creating high-quality performance opportunities for youth who may not otherwise have the opportunity to express themselves through performing arts. Donors and business sponsors support actors, dancers, and theatre artists through its companies, The Actor’s Company, the Suwanee Ballet, and Community Art Players of Suwanee. 

 

The worthy work of Suwanee Performing Arts reaches a crescendo every summer with its signature musicals known as Broadway in the Park. 

 

Broadway in the Park is the centerpiece of Suwanee Performing Arts’ service to our community, an artistic gift that allows young performers to shine in front of masses of adoring fans. Attendees to this ambitious production are treated to musicals featuring professional quality lighting, sound, costumes, and sets and performed by artists who are predominately high school and middle school students from our community.  

 

Every year in July (since 2006), Broadway in the Park draws about 4,000 attendees per performance to the Suwanee Amphitheater in Suwanee Town Park.  Attending Broadway in the Park is free to the public, but priority seating is given to donors and sponsors of Suwanee Performing Arts.  This year, Broadway in the Park will present performances of Sister Act Jr. and The Sound of Music: Youth Edition and will be held on Friday, July 29th, and Saturday, July 30th, beginning each evening at 7:00 p.m.  

 

When you attend Broadway in the Park 2022, Rivermoore Park will be well represented. On stage, you will see Rivermoore residents Adam and Lucy Stafford performing their hearts out. Behind the scenes, Rivermoore’s own SPA Board of Directors member Monique Gilomen and her son, Nick, led the creation of the show’s sets and costumes, without which the show could not go on! 

 

If you would like to support Suwanee Performing Arts and its mission, first things first.  Go see Broadway in the Park on July 29th and July 30th!  Please visit SuwaneePerforms.org to learn more about how to support this great organization. 

 

Here are Rivermoore residents who will be on the Broadway in the Park stage or behind the scenes!