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CLASS NOTES
Art Careers Start Here The experiences of four former students show that CLC can be a great training ground for careers or further study in the performing arts.
Emilie Lynn portrays Natalie/Ed in All Shook Up with Big Noise Theatre Company. 8 | COLLEGE OF LAKE COUNTY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SEANMICHEAL KVACEK
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hat happens to College of Lake County performing arts students after they leave CLC? The experiences of four former students show that CLC can be a great training ground for careers or further study in the performing arts. Andrzej Stec (’00) is now a lyric tenor singing in opera and at concerts around the world. Emilie Lynn, a student from 2003 to 2005, has acted in Chicago-area community theatre and on television, including a stint as a grieving sister in The Chicago Code, a Fox network police drama. Matt Godlewski, a student from 2003 to 2006, co-owns a company that provides stage lighting and sound systems. And Hanna Supanich-Winter (’10) is majoring in theatre design and production at Illinois State University, where she’s stage managing college productions.
Andrzej Stec (’00) stars as Arturo in Bellini’s “I Puritani (The Puritans)” at the Cleveland Opera Circle. All four say they developed a true passion for the performing arts during their CLC years. Stec and the others fondly recall how attending and participating in college productions expanded on what they learned in class. “When attending plays, I was fascinated by the audience interaction, the importance of serving your audience and knowing to whom you are singing,” said Stec, who later worked as a set builder and continued with acting, voice and dance classes. In CLC productions, he went on to play a friar in Much Ado About Nothing, and held singing and dancing parts in Cabaret. Stec honed his operatic voice under the tutelage and piano accompaniment of instructor Caroline Rynex. He continued his studies in music and dance performance, earning a bachelor’s degree from Northern Illinois University, a master’s degree from Northwestern University and a doctorate from Montreal University. After
several years in theatre and dance, Stec is now devoted to classical singing. Collaborating with such artists as Canadian soprano Rosemary Landry, and French pianist Jean-Eudes Vaillencourt, Stec has performed throughout Asia, Europe and North America. In April, he returned to CLC for a “homecoming” concert in front of a capacity crowd in the D Wing rehearsal room. Accompanied by Vaillencourt, Stec beamed as he sang Après un reve by French composer Gabriel Faure. The song, he told the audience, was the first operatic aria he sang on that stage as a CLC student. Guidance from CLC instructors also inspired Godlewski, a Lindenhurst native who initially planned to be an electrician. But his goals changed while taking theatre classes at CLC. “Tom Mitchell saw something in me that I didn’t see,” recalled Godlewski, who worked behind the scenes as a carpenter, lighting