In his student apartment at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), senior Brandon Bomer from Atlanta has a framed photograph of himself on stage with Broadway actor Michael James Scott, who played the Genie in productions of “Aladdin” in New York City, London’s West End and Sydney, Australia. In the photo, Bomer and Scott are singing together in last year’s “Holiday Spectacular,” an annual December performance for SCAD’s Bee Sharps.
Bee Sharps is the school’s elite student performance ensemble. Bomer is one of 16 students who auditioned against stiff competition to earn a coveted spot. Backstage during the same show, Bomer got another opportunity to be oncamera with a star, Caissie Levy, who was the original Elsa in Disney’s Broadway production of “Frozen” and played Elphaba in the Los Angeles production of “Wicked.” When Bomer’s friends, huge Levy fans, heard he was going to be taking the stage with her, they begged him to see her. She graciously agreed to hop on FaceTime with his friends, who were tickled by the call.
Moments like these were the manifestation of a vision set forth by Mike Evariste, SCAD’s artistic director of executive ensembles. When Evariste took the helm of the school’s ensembles in 2022, he started shaping the Bee Sharps program. He wanted to give current students the opportunity to perform at a professional level, make connections in the industry and be mentored by icons. The program was partly inspired by its counterpart, the HoneyBees, an elite performance ensemble of SCAD alumni. Candice Glover, a SCAD alumna who won the 12th season of “American Idol” and now works for the school as a music coordinator, was famously a HoneyBee. Evariste wanted to build a similar program, but for current students.
Credit: Colin Douglas Gray
Credit: Colin Douglas Gray
The Bee Sharps perform throughout the year, booking roughly 100 shows or more, ranging from corporate events, to black-tie fundraisers, SCAD’s Film Festival and concerts at resorts. They’ve performed at notable venues including Atlanta Botanical Garden, Georgia World Congress Center and the Fox Theatre.
Finding stars to join the Bee Sharps for select performances such as the “Holiday Spectacular” was an appropriate task for Evariste, who is well-connected from his storied entertainment career, including time on Broadway in “The Book of Mormon,” “South Pacific,” “Les Misérables,” “Rent” and “Hair.” He has produced concerts for W Hotels and was a co-producer on the Tony-nominated and 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play “Disgraced.” His wife, Tiffany Evariste, who is the lead choreographer for the “Holiday Spectacular,” likewise has an impressive Broadway performance history.
Last year, Mike Evariste tapped his professional network to bring Scott, Levy and Adrienne Warren (who won the Tony Award for best actress in a musical for her role as Tina Turner in “Tina: A Tina Turner Musical”) to perform in SCAD’s “Holiday Spectacular.”
“What an amazing treat it is for the students, and for the community, and SCAD, to be able to align with these Broadway stars and have our students work alongside them,” Evariste said.
It is an accomplishment that Bomer said he once never could have imagined.
“Getting these types of opportunities have led me to have interactions with stars that I’ve been watching in movies since I was a kid,” he said. “I never thought that I’d even be in the same room.”
Credit: Colin Douglas Gray
Credit: Colin Douglas Gray
Bomer, who grew up performing with church choirs in Atlanta and Chicago, where his grandmother lives, has now shared the screen with Elle Fanning in an episode of the Hulu series “The Girl from Plainville” and been called in to audition for national touring roles in “MJ” and “Hamilton.” Bee Sharps has given him professional chops and courage.
“Seeing people of high caliber interact and kind of perform in the same ways that I do is very inspiring ... it instills confidence,” he said.
This year will be Bomer’s third appearance in SCAD’s “Holiday Spectacular.” The event has grown since its beginning in 2022. The first year, Evariste crafted the show as an intimate, cabaret-style performance. Members of Bee Sharps sang tableside for audience members around cocktail tables on the stage of Lucas Theatre for the Arts in Savannah.
After the success of the first one, SCAD president Paula Wallace pushed Evariste to think bigger. He invited Levy, Warren and Scott the second year, transformed the entire theater into a winter wonderland with trees and artificial snow and put the performers on stage. The show sold out the 1,200-seat Lucas Theatre as well as nearly all 700 seats in Atlanta’s SCADshow theater.
This year’s “Holiday Spectacular” will have three performances: two in Savannah on Dec. 13 and 14, and one in Atlanta on Dec. 19. SCAD will again welcome Levy and Scott to the stage, as well as Glover and recording artist George Lovett, a winner of the TV variety show “Showtime at the Apollo.” The showcase will consist of 20 songs, some Christmas classics, some pop renditions and some tunes from Broadway musicals. Levy will perform the iconic “Let It Go” from her original role as Elsa in “Frozen.”
“I’ll be singing that till the day I die happily,” Levy said. “I think there’s a reason Elsa resonates so much with people all over the world. … Every time I sing that song and every night I stepped out to play it on Broadway, I felt a connection with that moment because I knew that it hits everybody right in the center of their heart.”
Levy, who in recent years has developed a passion for mentorship, said she is thrilled to be returning to SCAD this year.
“I find that as much as I can offer (the students), they offer me back,” she said. “I take their enthusiasm and freshness and new ideas, and I put that to work in my own work as well. And it’s just this amazing exchange. … I get a high from it in the same way I do when I’m performing onstage.”
If you go
SCAD Bee Sharps: “Holiday Spectacular”
7 p.m. Thursday at SCADshow theater. General admission: $35. 1470 Spring St. NW, Atlanta. scadshow.com.
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