Area native to perform concert at WVU
Carmichaels native Sandy Bainum on the cover of her “This Christmas” album, which was released in 2012.
Sandy Bainum
Carmichaels native Sandy Bainum, a renowned performer and cabaret star, is returning to the region for a Christmas concert in Morgantown, W.Va. that will feature singing and dancing.
Bainum, who graduated from Carmichaels Area High School and later studied performing arts at West Virginia University, will perform “This Christmas” with the college’s music students that will feature many songs from her 2012 Christmas album.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun for me, and I hope the audience has a lot of fun. It’s very festive,” Bainum said of the concert.
She returned to the area this week to choreograph the show that will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Monday at WVU’s Creative Arts Center. Proceeds from the show will benefit the college’s performing arts scholarship fund that assisted Bainum while going to school.
The concert will not only help with the scholarship fund, but also give students a chance to perform with a professional. Nearly 30 students will be participating in the singing and dancing with an orchestra of 22 students and faculty members also performing.
“It gives the kids a real perspective of what it’s like to put on a performance piece and learn a professional show very quickly,” she said.
The genesis of the concert happened in October 2014 when Bainum returned to WVU to help with a master class in the college’s theater program. She and Paul Kreider, the dean of the College of Creative Arts, then began “brainstorming some ideas” and came up with a Christmas show.
“I’ve done a lot of one-woman shows and I could come back and do one as a fundraiser for a scholarship, and told him I’d be happy to do that,” she said.
Kreider said the college is “incredibly excited” to have her return to her alma mater.
“We’re so grateful for her loyalty to WVU and her willingness to do this for our students,” Kreider said.
Bainum grew up in Carmichaels and started dancing when she was 5 years old while taking lessons at Moschetta’s Performing Arts Center in Washington. She later took an interest in music when she was 12, although she wanted to do something more than play in the Carmichaels concert band.
That changed when she left for WVU and quickly immersed herself in the theater and performing arts.
She thought she wanted to be a music teacher, but instead caught the acting bug during her first theater performance of “Oliver” her freshman year. After graduating from WVU, she was hired to work for the Kenley Players acting troupe in Ohio, and learned “every aspect of the theater” by pulling costumes, selling tickets in the box office, working as a stage hand, and, eventually being given a chance to act once again in “Oliver.”
She used that work as a stepping stone to eventually achieve her Actors’ Equity Association union card. Bainum later auditioned for the first national tour of the Broadway musical “42nd Street” and was initially rejected for the role of Annie before getting a phone call days later that the part was hers.
After several years of performing, Bainum said she “took a break” to start a family and now has two adult sons who are 24 and 21. But she returned to the stage 12 years ago and has been performing one-woman cabaret shows on major stages in Washington, D.C. She also appeared last month on the CBS television show Criminal Minds, and now has homes in D.C. and California.
Bainum is now looking forward to returning to where it all began for a performance at the CAC’s Lyell B. Clay Concert Theatre that she hopes will be a memorable one.
“I haven’t been back on that stage since,” Bainum said. “I would love to say hi to old friends and meet some new ones.”
Tickets for the show are $25 or $50, depending on seating, and $10 for college students with valid ID or children 17 and younger. For tickets and more information, call the WVU ticket office at 304-293-SHOW.