Peppersauce Players to present Living Windows
CALICO ROCK — Professional opera singer Fredericka Silvey Johns is excited about the second L iv ing Windows performance by her Peppersauce Players.
From 5:30-6:30 p.m. Dec. 13, Calico Rock’s Main Street will feature 25 storefront windows displaying Christmas themes, Johns said.
“Each window features actors moving about among the props and furnishings for ‘A Christmas Carol,’ the Snow Queen, the Little Drummer Boy, an 1800s Christmas and of course, Santa, and several others.”
In March 2012, Fredericka and her husband, Tom Johns, retired to Calico Rock. The couple had spent the previous 35 years singing opera in Germany.
“We kept my parents’ home in Calico Rock because we wanted to retire to the Ozarks,” she said. “We came back because Tom’s health was deteriorating.” He died on Jan. 8, 2014.
Born in 1946, Fredericka Silvey grew up in Bodcaw. Her mother, Bobbie Nell Martin, taught piano and singing. She coaxed her daughter to sing in church.
“I was terribly timid,” Fredericka said. “Mother offered to buy me a Mickey Mouse watch if I would sing. So I did.”
The young singer overcame her shyness to win the 1960 Coca Cola singing competition in Hope. She came in second in the semifinals in Laurel, Mississippi.
In 1964, her father, Thomas J. Silvey, was appointed superintendent of schools in Calico Rock.
“By then, I was studying opera at Southern State College in Magnolia,” Fredericka said, “but I came home often.”
After graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1969, she was accepted at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.
“That’s where I was ‘discovered’ by Maestro Anton Guadagno. He recommended me to the Academy of Vocal Arts, an opera school in Philadelphia. I was accepted there a year later.”
As a lyric soprano, Fredericka said her success is because of her enunciation and emotion.
“My voice has a way of making people understand and feel what I am singing,” she said.
At the academy, she also learned acting, fencing, dance, body movement and a working knowledge of French, Italian and German.
“When you sing opera, you rehearse almost daily, but you also train daily,” she said. “You warm up slowly, hum a little, then open up into louder sounds.”
The Philadelphia school had 25 or 30 students.
“That’s where I met Tom,” she said. “We were singing the leads in La Boheme.”
She and Tom performed at the Philadelphia Opera Co. and did musicals in summer stock.
“In 1976, I finished a road tour of the Broadway musical
1776,” she said. “I joined Tom at the Quisisana Resort in Maine, where we were both singing. On Aug. 10, 1976, we were married on the stage of the theater with our friends and family and guests of the resort in the audience.”
Tom, who sang tenor, wanted to move to Germany.
“In America, we have so many wonderful schools for opera but not many places to get jobs,” she said. “In Germany, the state funds much of the opera. At that time, if you were a good singer and an American, you could count on getting hired.”
Tom had a contract with the opera house in Trier. Fredericka was hired on arrival.
“Summers, we did operas in the ruins of Caesar’s thermal baths there,” Fredericka said. “During our nine years in Trier, we performed in hundreds of operas and operettas.”
In 1986, the couple moved to Munich.
“This was Tom’s big moment,” she said. “The Munich opera was much bigger. They hired singers from all over the world. Tom became the mainstay of the Bavarian Opera Chorus.”
Fredericka didn’t sing with the Munich Opera Co.
“I toured with opera companies throughout Germany, Holland and Belgium. I also started Wonderful Weddings, where I was a wedding singer/ planner. Often Tom and I would find beautiful old castles where I could stage a wedding reception.”
In 1998, Fredericka began teaching at the Abraxas Musical Akademie, a newly opened school in Munich.
“The three directors wanted to teach students how to perform in musicals. I was the only singer there with experience in the American musical. I had given private voice lessons for years, but in a professional setting, I discovered my real love was teaching.”
She directed her students in plays at local theaters and venues.
For 35 years, every August and September during the mandatory six-week German vacation, the Johnses visited Calico Rock.
“In our hearts, we never really left America,” she said. “After we retired here, I thought the last 35 years seem like a dream, and now I’m back to reality.”
Fredericka has clear ideas about what she wants to accomplish now.
“I wanted to get a school drama department going again. Last year, our high school students presented a play for the first time in 10 years.”
In 2012, Fredericka started the Peppersauce Players Theater Group.
“I wanted a theater group that can entertain and educate. We’ve begun by doing stories about local history.”
The Peppersauce Players’ first performance was for the Calico Rock Museum’s Main Street Reunion on May 11, 2013. During a guided tour of historic buildings, actors portrayed people from early businesses. They repeated the performance at the Calico Rock Music Hall and adapted the scripts for a school presentation.
That October, the group led the FAM Tour (Familiarization Tour) of Arkansas Welcome Center representatives on a tour of East Calico. This year began with the Bootlegger Daze festival on March 8. The “sheriff” and “revenuers” chased “moonshiners” down Main Street. On May 10, the players presented
Mystery Night at the Museum. Characters from the Civil War to the 1950s told their stories from the balcony of the museum to guests seated below.
On Dec. 14, 2013, the Peppersauce Players celebrated an old-fashioned Christmas with the Living Windows.
“Last year, we created window scenes on one side of Main Street,” Fredericka said. “In spite of snow and ice, about 400 people walked past the windows. Many people said, ‘You must do both sides of the street next year.’ When I asked for volunteers this year, I was overwhelmed by the response. The Hospital Guild and the Calico Rock Artisans Cooperative, as well as families and individuals, have taken responsibility for one or more windows. The Baptist Youth Group will present a live Nativity scene. Drama students from the high school are participating. The high school band will be playing in the furniture store.”
The Santa Parade will follow Living Windows at 7 p.m.
For information on the Peppersauce Players, call Fredericka Johns at (870) 421-7244 or visit pplayers.weebly.com. For information on Living Windows or the Santa Parade, contact Gloria Gushue at the Calico Rock Visitors Center at (870) 297-6100 or visit www.calicorockmuseum.com/index.html.