In an action-packed, globe-trotting career, Shelley Cooper’s latest project brings her full circle.
An off-Broadway, two-time award-winning solo actor, director, playwright and composer, the 40-year-old Kentucky native will star in “Master Class” at Moline’s Black Box Theatre, May 15-24.
Dramatizing the legendary opera diva Maria Callas’s master classes at Juilliard in the ‘70s is a full-circle moment for Cooper, since she was first in the show at 22, her senior year at Hanover College in Indiana, when she played Sharon Graham, the second soprano.
“And it's the real poignant moment of the show because this is the singer that's the closest voice-wise to Maria Callas. So she's definitely the hardest on her,” she said recently. “When I was at Hanover learning that Lady Macbeth aria, it was so challenging and so rewarding at the same time,” Cooper recalled.
“And I've idolized Maria Callas since I was 17 years old. So when my directing and theater mentor at Hanover brought me the idea, he's a huge opera fan, so encouraging. I said, ‘let's please do the show.’ And I didn't know it at the time. After further reading it, I went, this is phenomenal.”
Black Box Theatre and Opera Quad Cities are presenting the area premiere of “Master Class” by Terrence McNally.
The two-act play (from 1995) was inspired by the real-life master classes conducted by Callas, and has been celebrated for its insightful portrayal of the Greek opera singer, who is depicted as both a brilliant artist and a deeply flawed person.
Callas conducted 23 two-hour opera master classes at the Juilliard School of Music in New York from October 1971 to March 1972.
She had not sung in public for six years, and her voice was not the great instrument it once had been, according to a BBT release. Doing the master classes was a way of overcoming her terror of performing by incorporating singing as part of her teaching.
There were 25 students in the master class and a paying audience. Callas did not allow applause from the audience, saying on one occasion (captured in the play), “None of that. We are here to work.”
Shelley Cooper is very familiar with the character of Callas, about whom she wrote her master’s thesis at University of Central Florida, noting the soprano “stressed the importance of understanding and interpreting text and music with precision, detail, specifics and artistry.”
Cooper’s first one-woman play centered on the opera diva, called “La Divina: The Last Interview of Maria Callas.”
In “La Divina” (meaning “the divine one,” the regal nickname given to Callas), Cooper became the star, including stories and ‘70s-era interviews from her life and famous iconic arias that she was best known for singing – such as from “Carmen,” “Tosca” and “Gianni Schicchi.”
She premiered this one-woman show at the Orlando Repertory Theatre Black Box in October 2010, and Cooper has done it on three continents.
That includes in 2011 at the International Performing Arts Institute in Bavaria, Germany; in 2014, she performed it at Bangkok Theatre Festival, and spring 2015 in Chiangmai, Thailand. Cooper taught at a university in Thailand from 2013 to 2015.
Her first year at Augustana, she did it in the Brunner Black Box Theatre in December 2017, and the same month at the Retzhof Castle near Graz, Austria as a part of the International Global Theatre Experience. She performed “La Divina” at Moline’s Black Box in spring 2021.
With a master’s in musical theater from University of Central Florida, Cooper has performed all over the world for many companies, such as the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, Monroe Symphony, Chicago Summer Opera, Opera Quad Cities, Orlando Repertory Theatre, Shawnee Summer Theatre, Redhouse Arts Center, Varna Opera Theatre, Bangkok Theatre Festival, and the Simbiose Produções (MOVE Studio) in São Paulo, Brazil and the Venetian Macao in Macau, China.
She said “Master Class” is a great way to make the often-intimidating world of opera accessible to anyone.
“This is truly a play with music. And so it's going to appeal to theater artists as well,” she said recently. “And a lot of the stuff that Maria Callas says, it really appeals to anyone in the arts.”
In “Master Class,” Callas had stopped singing at that point (she died in 1977 at 53 from a heart attack), and Cooper said it would be hard as a teacher not to demonstrate singing to students.
“As I've been teaching, I've honestly tried to do a little less and less and less demonstrating because, she even says this in the play. She goes, ‘I don't want you to imitate me,’” she said. “A lot of what she talks about in the play isn't necessarily vocal technique, but understanding how to have this connection to the acting, to all the little details a composer writes in the score, understanding the relationship between the orchestrations, what the language is saying. That's mostly what she is talking about.”
“Singing is serious business”
“One of the opening lines that she says is, ‘singing is serious business.’ I love that line,” Cooper said. “Music is a discipline. And I feel like that’s really what she was able to capture. Because in my opinion, in a master class, teaching technique is almost -- it's not a waste of time. But a lot of those technique concepts aren't going to come through anyway. What has happened to me when I give master classes, is that I almost lean more into the drama of it all, because those are concepts that you can grasp a lot quicker.”
This “Master Class” cast features the QC singers Sarah Lounsberry, Brent Behrens, and Maddie Baez (who played Mimi in Opera QC’s “La Boheme” in 2024).
Cooper appreciates having Opera QC co-founder Ron May (a veteran music director at Circa ’21) as stage director here, with Michelle Crouch of Augustana as accompanist.
“He always has really excellent taste and feedback and specifics because he will come to our Opera Quad Cities productions, and I almost call him a show doctor,” Cooper said of May. “He has all this experience at Circa music directing and seeing the variety of directors, and he knows what works and doesn't work. I mean, that alone is a directing MFA and then some. So for sure he's the perfect person to direct a show like this.”
In addition to May as co-producer, BBT artistic director Lora Adams is co-producer, plus costume and set designer, Alexander Richardson is light and sound design and Erin Elizabeth Ann Gehn as stage manager.
May cast Cooper as an ideal Callas, since “La Divina” was truly impressive, he said Sunday, May 3rd by email. “Her research, her detail, her physicality all combined into a magical representation of the legendary Maria Callas.
“She has the talent and the gift to become Callas instead of someone ‘acting’ as Callas,” May wrote. “Shelley can present the determination of Maria Callas alongside her wit and pathos with ease and genuineness.”
He wanted to direct this one after being involved many years in educational musical theater and at Circa working beside who he called several “amazing directors.”
“I have absorbed countless insights over the years and I wanted to stretch a little myself too,” May said. While this Tony-winning play “showcases the brilliance of Callas, it also contains a musical theatre rhythm in the pacing of the dialogue,” he noted. “That pacing allows me to borrow my experience from both worlds -- music and theater.”
“Master Class” fits the mission of Opera Quad Cities (a 25-year-old nonprofit) by not only bringing classical music to a broad audience, “but it also allows us to provide a venue for local accomplished singers to showcase their artistry,” May said.
“OQC is always searching for ways to demystify opera and classical singing. This play triumphs that goal. This play is inviting, humorous, intense, and full of dynamic performances.
“The title role of Maria Callas in her post-singing years is a powerhouse opportunity for any actor,” he said. “Audiences will be duly impressed by the variety of talents required to bring this production to the stage.”
Opera QC also is excited to partner with Lora Adams and the BBT for the show, May added. “It is an opportunity to be up close and personal in a 60-seat space. Exciting is an understatement.”
This is the second time that The Black Box and OQC have partnered presenting smaller productions that highlight opera in an intimate setting, after Cooper co-starred in the Pergolesi chamber opera “La Serva Padrona” in November 2024.
Opera QC also has presented at BBT and May as music director, with “All Is Calm” in 2024, an a cappella all-male production (then its second time at BBT) that reflects the true story of the Christmas Eve 1914 truce during World War I.
Specializing in one-woman shows
Since “La Divina,” Cooper has specialized in creating illuminating musical portraits of fascinating women from history – including Swedish soprano Jenny Lind in “Jenny Lind Presents P.T. Barnum,” Austrian singer and Kurt Weill muse Lotte Lenya in “Rag Doll in a Bomb Site,” and most recently, American poet Emily Dickinson in “Emily F***ing Dickinson: America’s Favorite Recluse.”
That last one (a half-hour original musical) premiered this past January at the 30 Minutes or Less Festival in Los Angeles. The show is summarized as “a feral, funny, and fiercely musical dive into the mind of a woman who refused to play by anyone’s rules. Featuring a score of original songs inspired by her poetry and spirit. The show is intimate, manic, a little unhinged, and unexpectedly hilarious. Part concert, part confession, part rebellion—it’s one wild night you definitely didn’t read about in class.”
A Stage Takes review said of Cooper as Emily:
“She gives us a stunning portrait of two extremes, moving seamlessly between ecstatic mania and rock-bottom depression. In this show, Shelley becomes the character, speaking to the audience from her reclusive state while remaining fully present. The performer’s range is astonishing, particularly being able to blend comedy into her darkest moments.”
A critic for Noho Arts District in March wrote that she’s seen Cooper’s other solo shows (“all unique and beautifully cerebral studies”), but the Dickinson one is probably the funniest so far.
“Laugh out loud funny, actually, which is not exactly what I expected from a play about one of the most worshiped women in the world of poetry and literature!” the review said.
“Shelley is always hauntingly studied in the interpretation of her subjects and ‘Emily F-cking Dickinson’ is no exception. She seems to embody the celebrated poet, as she has with all the previous characters of hers I have seen,” the review said.
“Shelley stands alone in an ocean of often brilliant solo work here in L.A., not only in her choice of subject, but also in the use of her fantastic and enchanting voice. She sings their lives, and given that Emily Dickinson was not understandably well known for her vocal talents, Shelley has brought her own unique style of song to her vivid and riveting story.”
Cooper was thrilled to see it sell out the intimate theater.
“Selling out a show in L.A. in and of itself is huge. It's really hard because there's so much competition,” she said. “I mean, it is so saturated with entertainment.”
She did just one performance, and will bring it to Giving Tree Theater in Marion, Iowa (outside Cedar Rapids) this July 30-Aug. 2.
Writing “Rag Doll on a Bomb Site” (premiered in 2025 at Hollywood Fringe Festival) gave her confidence to write another new musical.
“I felt so overwhelmed and imposter syndrome. I was like, ‘I don't do this. I can't do this’,” Cooper recalled. “But I was encouraged by my writing class to write music. I was very obstinate about it and stubborn.”
The Dickinson half-hour show has eight songs, and she plans to expand it to an hour with more music.
“And I also just took my own inventory and took some big swings and risks. But the festival, I love that festival because it celebrates the process, celebrates that this is an unfinished work and it's still evolving,” Cooper said. “That felt really great to be in that space because I felt like I could have a bit more fun. And so I learned a lot.”
She took a deep psychological view of Dickinson, and emphasized her quirky sense of humor, fitting snugly into her now quartet of one-woman shows about strong-willed women who’ve overcome struggles with persistence and resilience.
“My goal is to uplift women's stories and histories and show them as three-dimensional people,” Cooper said, who was inspired by Dickinson’s isolation from her personal experience dealing with isolation from bouts of COVID.
“I was noting so many similarities to how I was feeling, to how she potentially could have felt,” she said, noting she also wrote about Emily’s heartbreaks from past relationships. “At the end of the day, at the heart of it, it's a true story. But every writer takes not necessarily dramatic liberties, but sees a story, sees research and goes, ‘Well, it could have gone like this. This could have been the situation.’”
“I'm an extrovert now. She wasn't. But I'm an extrovert. And so it's so depressing to the point where the mental health component can arguably become worse than the physical element,” she said. “This is the most personal show for me by a long shot.”
Cooper feels Dickinson may have been manic depressive.
“If you look at her poetry, she had a sense of humor. You can see it in her, in her writing. But it also is such an indicative part of manic depression because there's no putting a label or a diagnosis on it,” she said of her time. “I feel like so many people, especially now, feel these extremes. It's so part of human nature. And so I wanted it to appeal to a vast kind of majority of people. I feel like it's a collective at this point.”
“I've been in the depths of my despair and in depression or I’ve had that bolt of energy or the self-deprecating humor. And so I didn't want it to be this dark, poignant piece,” Cooper said.
“With this one, because at first it was coming off this very poetic, poignant piece (“Rag Doll”) and I looked at my writing teacher and I said, I've gotta add some levity.”
Also as a performer, Cooper has been often cast as a big, comic-centric character, like Dolly in “Hello, Dolly!,” Musetta in “La Boheme” (with Opera QC) and Blanche in “Jane Eyre.”
“I've been a comedian my whole life, and so I started writing musical comedy songs,” she said of the Dickinson show. “And the feedback I was getting was really, really strong.”
Similarities in her subjects
There are many commonalities among her one-woman show subjects (the three previous ones all have been done at Moline’s BBT).
“I really see the connection with Callas because just of the isolation piece; and with Callas and with Jenny Lind, a level of resiliency and with Callas, she dealt with a heartbreak, and Jenny dealt with a different type of heartbreak with coming to America and then realizing this isn't what I signed up for,” Cooper said. “And there was a crisis of conscience. And Emily deals with that same when she is abandoned by two lovers, that heartbreak.
"But the positive outlook that she's able to see. And I feel like Jenny was really able to see that, own it. But then this is what I'm going to do instead," she said.
“And Emily did that with her writing because she ended up writing 1,789 poems in her life, which was very prolific,” Cooper added. “And Jenny ended up going and being her own manager on a U.S. tour, which is quite a trailblazer. All four of them have this level of resiliency.”
All four women did not let their trauma and losses define them, but turned them into transformative, triumphant art.
“All four of them have the goal of resiliency and in the face of just life circumstances being thrown at them, which I find so admirable,” Cooper said, noting she’s applied those principles to her own life.
“You write what you know. And I often relate, yes I can 100%,” she said. “But it's also just a good lesson for anyone. If people that are a bit younger and maybe not have had as much trauma in their life or these circumstances, they learn that skill of what it takes to be a true artist is a level of resiliency.”
Cooper sees the good and bad having all the weight of a show on her shoulders.
“The positive is, I never get sick of going on that stage and when those stage lights hit, it's euphoric,” she said. “And then being on stage and it's a double-edged sword because being on stage and sharing your own words, that is a level of really excitement like oh my gosh, I am sharing this thing I wrote."
"And then the double-edged sword is, if they hate the writing -- I can't hide behind bad writing like other shows.”
“And so that's quite exposing. But I also attribute it to, I feel I now have such deep empathy for stand-up comedians because I feel like it's one of the most vulnerable art forms,” she said.
“It's really refreshing and exciting and liberating to share that level of vulnerability. And then it's freaking scary as well.”
Cooper loves connecting with audiences, who often identify with her characters.
With Dickinson, “it was having conversations around mental health and normalizing it and making people feel seen,” she said. “And at the end of Emily Dickinson, it felt like we were all one community instead of it just being me on stage. And that's a real thrill to me.”
“I'm honoring their experiences, or having mental health professionals come up to me and saying, you nailed it, you nailed what it was like,” Cooper said. “So either getting that level of validation is exciting, but also, I think it's an important topic to talk about and normalize. And I feel like it's starting, we're starting in that direction and I find that very exciting.”
Saying goodbye to Augustana
This month will close out her last semester at Augustana, the Rock Island private liberal-arts school. She’s preparing to leave Augie after nine years, and this fall, will be an associate professor of musical theater at Drake University, Des Moines, in their BFA program.
“I will miss, of course, the Augustana community as a whole, the vibrant faculty that are there, the staff that I've been able to interact with from across the board have just been wonderful. But most importantly, the students, I will miss them,” Cooper said. “But I told everyone I'm really hard to get rid of. And so if you want me in your life, or maybe if you don't, it's hard to get rid of me. And so I won't be far. Because of Augustana, I was dedicated to the Midwest. So when I was looking for positions, it was going to be the Midwest.”
After moving to Des Moines, Cooper hopes to stay involved with Opera QC and Black Box Theatre.
“With all of the connections I've made in the Quad City arts community, I still very much want to be involved,” she said. “And honestly, that was something I brought up in my interview about wanting to keep these connections. And they said, well, of course. So that also was really helpful to hear with Circa ’21 and all of these. I still want to patronize and go to them, but also still be a part in any way I can.”
The last musical she directed at the college’s Brunner Theatre, Stephen Sondheim’s landmark “Company” (1970) this past March, was extra special and emotional.
“Maybe there was a sign from the universe that was saying, Shelley, take inventory of this one. And I always do with every production, of course, but I felt like there was a bigger emphasis, and again, I had no clue,” she said of getting a new job. “Right now, the job market is so competitive. You just have to go in and do your best.
“I had extra emphasis on savoring the moment, savoring the process. And a lot of that, honestly, went to those seniors who really hold a special place in my heart,” Cooper said. “They were in ‘Cabaret’ (2022), many of them. And they were so professional and wonderful in that process that I knew I wanted to take care of them for the rest of the four years. And I felt like I was able to do that, especially with ‘Company.’
"nd so there was a part of me that was hoping that they would honor that experience in that way, because I remember when I was in college, junior and senior, when I look back, I wish I would have taken better inventory and really honored those experiences a bit better," she said. "But I did more of that in ‘Company’ than I did with any production. But that show is easily one of my favorites.”
She will direct and choreograph again this July, a bucket-list show, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!,” at Shawnee Theatre in southern Indiana, where she spent two summers during college.
Cooper is bringing her Augie connections there, as alum Noah Hill will play Jud, Kaden Micklos (her Bobby in “Company”) will be Will Parker, and Jensen Stoneking (Amy in “Company”) will be Ado Annie.
“I have just a really stellar cast and team on it,” she said. “It makes a world of difference. But I have been studying the history of that show for so many years. And in musical theater history, that is 1943. It's the turning point.”
“Master Class” will run at Black Box (1623 5th Ave., Moline) on May 15, 16, 21, 22 and 23 at 7:30 p.m. and May 17 and 24 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $25 and are available at theblackboxtheatre.com.
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