I will have another great opportunity to perform as John Adams in A Distant Love. Chelsea Opera, a company with which I have performed in the past, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to perform A Distant Love at the Adams National Historical Park, John Adams’ home in Quincy, Massachusetts. I recently auditioned for the production, and I got the part! This is VERY exciting news!!! I’ll be proudly portraying the patriot for a second time on June 21st of next year.

Those of you with an interest in American history, particularly the anecdotes about our Founding Fathers, will understand that my title for this post is an allusion to a story about John Adams on his deathbed. The story goes something like this…

On July 4th, 1826, as John Adams breathed his last in his home in Quincy, Massachusetts, his final comforting thought was, apparently, that his good friend and part-time political rival would go on living without him. His final words were, “Jefferson survives!” The irony was that, on that very same day, hundreds of miles away in Virginia at Monticello, Jefferson had already taken his final breath, as well. They both died on the 50th birthday of the country to which they had devoted their lives.