The Breakthrough Season
1970–1971
Some seasons announce themselves loudly. Others reveal their importance only later, once there is enough distance to understand what was truly taking shape.
The 1970–1971 season at Canton Civic Ballet was one of those quietly consequential years. At the time, it simply felt like a whirlwind — the studios were humming, rehearsal days were long, and there was an energy in the air that never quite let up.
Looking back, it’s clear this was the season when the Ballet’s growth shifted from a goal into a breakthrough. We didn’t just expand; we surged past our old boundaries. By the year’s end, the Ballet had outgrown its space, its systems, and its own expectations of what was possible.
By 1970, the Fulton Road location was bursting with life. Classes ran back-to-back and rehearsals overlapped, with dancers finding floor space wherever they could. Teachers adjusted on the fly while parents perfected the choreography of quick drop-offs and pick-ups. There was a sense of shared purpose in the squeeze; no one complained because the momentum felt so vital.
It wasn’t that the space was failing — it was that the Ballet’s success was simply too big to be contained.
As enrollment surged, the Ballet began to take its place as a cornerstone of the community. In 1971, the organization established its first formal offices in the newly built Cultural Center for the Arts. It was a significant milestone. Until then, the administrative heart of the Ballet lived in the corners of the studios, tucked away among dance bags and barres. Moving into the Cultural Center didn’t just provide more room. It formally wove the Ballet into the very fabric of Canton.
While the Ballet’s permanent home in the building — the space it occupies today — was still more than a decade away, simply having an office in 1971 was a revelation. It was a physical stake in the ground. For the first time, the Ballet had a front door that matched the scale of its ambition.
Audiences were growing, too. The 1970 subscription drive asked patrons to commit to an entire season, and they did. By 1971, the Ballet had built a base of 300 members — a feat accomplished entirely through phone calls, letters, and personal outreach. This wasn’t passive support. It was a community taking pride in its own.
That momentum didn’t happen by accident.
From 1969 to 1971, under Board Chair Robert Henke, the Board was deeply hands-on, providing the steady leadership needed to manage such rapid growth.
The 1971 membership drive, chaired by Anita Furness, succeeded because it felt personal. People weren’t just being asked for a donation — they were being asked to believe in the Ballet. And they did.
That same year, the Board launched a fundraising campaign with a name that perfectly captured the moment: Keep Us on Our Toes, co-captained by Roxanne Aarsbergen and Mary Jane Durishin. Its purpose was clear and concrete: fund a full-length production of Hansel and Gretel. No abstractions. No grand speeches. Just sleeves rolled up and real work getting done.
Artistically, the Ballet was stepping onto a broader stage as well. In 1971, Canton Civic Ballet became a member of the Mid-states Regional Ballet Association of , joining a national network of professional and pre-professional ballet organizations. That association would later reorganize and re-emerge as what we now know as Regional Dance America.
The fuller story of that reorganization — and Canton Ballet’s role in it — will be told in a future volume by Cassandra Crowley, who would later serve as a founding board member of the re-established organization. But in 1971, membership in Midstates signaled something important: Canton Ballet was no longer regional only in geography. It was regional in stature.
Artistic leadership sharpened during this period as well. In February 1971, John Begg was appointed Artistic Director. One month later, he introduced the young apprentice company, creating a formal pathway between training and performance. Ten dancers auditioned; six were selected, including Lisa Fawcett. The intent was serious and clear — to feed dancers into the senior company and prepare them for the demands of professional life.
Since our last Alumni Spotlight Series, we have found a clearer photo of the very first apprentices. Here they are:
– Anita Caitlin
– Susan Durishin
– Cynthia Ferguson
– Julie Mizer Grasse
– Tiona Gundy
– Karen Kitzmiller
– Kim Minko (deceased)
– Jean Morehart
– Cindy Phillips
– Tammie Reel
– Debbie Reeves
– Lynn Rininger
– Cathy Nesbitt Stein
– Sherry Serotek
– Colleen Zimmerman
And so, as the Ballet’s ambitions expanded, so did its visual language…
The Designer Who Brought Big-City Vision to a Growing Ballet
Alumni Spotlight: Reed Thomason (1938–2009)
That transformation arrived vividly through the work of Reed Thomason, whose designs for Hansel and Gretel (1971) and later Cinderella introduced Canton audiences to a level of visual sophistication and theatrical cohesion they had not seen before.
A scholarship student at Syracuse University, Thomason earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1961 and received the prestigious Hiram Gee Fellowship in Painting during his senior year. He later studied portraiture at the Cleveland Institute of Art and taught at both the Cooper School of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Art, while also working professionally at American Greetings.
His career bridged fine art, commercial illustration, education, and theatrical design. In Northeast Ohio, he exhibited widely, completed commissions for institutions such as the Rowfant Club, illustrated cookbooks for civic organizations, and designed scenery and costumes for Canton Civic Ballet during its most formative years.
Hansel and Gretel, performed December 28–30, 1971, at the Players Guild Theatre, marked Canton Ballet’s first fully realized, opulent production — an immersive visual world that elevated the storytelling itself. Cinderella followed, cementing a new standard for production quality.
Cleveland artist Marvin Smith once said Thomason “drew like a Renaissance giant.” Onstage, that talent translated into scale, elegance, and confidence. Canton Ballet did not just dance seriously anymore. It looked like a company that belonged on a national stage.
From an Angel in Canton to the World’s Greatest Stages
Alumni Spotlight: Francia “Francie” Kulchar
By the early 1970s, dancers were traveling to Canton because the work mattered.
For Francia “Francie” Kulchar, Canton Civic Ballet was not originally meant to be a permanent stop. She first joined the Ballet at the invitation of John Begg to appear in its full-length production of Hansel and Gretel, dancing as Lead Angel. But once she arrived, something clicked.
In an interview written by fellow Canton Ballet alumnus Bill Anthony while Francie was dancing with American Ballet Theatre, she reflected simply on her decision to stay:
“I liked the company, the training, and the people — so I decided to stay.”
Francie’s early training traced a distinctly Midwestern path. She began studying dance with Lynn Campbell, trained in the basement studio of Nan Klinger, and later studied with Ruth Pryor in Cleveland — at times working simultaneously with Pryor, Heinz Poll, and Klinger. She became an apprentice with Chamber Ballet, dancing as a corps member until an injury temporarily sidelined her.
L to R: Don Miller-Stefy, Franci Kulchar, Suanne Ferguson
As a Ford Foundation Scholarship recipient, Francie was part of a national evaluation system in which representatives traveled directly to studios to observe dancers in class. It was during one such visit in Akron that she was discovered by American Ballet Theatre.
She left Akron with two goals: to dance with ABT and to perform on the stage of the New York State Theatre at Lincoln Center. Within a year of arriving in New York, both were realized. Francie signed her contract with ABT on her birthday, May 21.
She went on to dance nine seasons with American Ballet Theatre, touring internationally, performing in Paris, and dancing alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov and Natalia Makarova. Later, she danced two seasons with Cleveland–San Jose Ballet under Dennis Nahat, founded the School of Ballet Met in Columbus, and eventually served as Head of School for Miami City Ballet’s Delray Beach satellite.
At the heart of Canton Ballet’s 60th Anniversary Season rests a deeply sentimental image from this formative era: a 1971 hand-drawn sketch of Francie by Reed Thomason, created as Canton Ballet was defining itself. Now reimagined alongside a contemporary portrait of Maria Carosello, it serves as a visual handoff across generations — linking form, line, and belief.
1971 hand-drawn sketch of Francie by Reed Thomason
Reimagined image of Maria Carosello alongside Francie Kulchar in Canton Ballet’s 2025-26 60th Anniversary Season Brochure
Sometimes, legacy begins with a dancer who arrives for one production — and decides to stay.
Proof that Dance Doesn’t End — It Evolves
Alumni Spotlight: Lisa Fawcett
Lisa Fawcett’s relationship with dance has never followed a straight line — and that, perhaps, is exactly the point.
As a ballet major at the University of Utah, Lisa entered the program with immense promise. When her trajectory shifted, she chose to pivot rather than walk away. During her freshman year, she began integrating modern dance into her training while maintaining her ballet studies — a move that ultimately didn’t narrow her path, but widened it.
After college, Lisa moved to New York City, immersing herself in both ballet and modern dance communities. She danced with contemporary companies connected to choreographers such as Lar Lubovitch and Zvi Gotheiner.
She did not fall out of love with dance when she stepped away from performance. Instead, another calling emerged alongside it.
Lisa entered the field of therapy and social work, earning a master’s degree from Columbia University, and went on to build a career as a psychotherapist spanning more than 35 years. Even then, dance remained constant. She continued taking ballet classes until the age of 31.
Her relationship with movement evolved rather than disappeared. Lisa studied ballroom and international Latin dance, practiced yoga consistently, and eventually found her way to competitive recurve archery.
“I love the challenge,” she says simply.
She trains with a younger team, works closely with a coach she deeply respects, and has competed for more than two and a half years, including a recent competition in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she placed squarely in the middle of the field — exactly where growth lives.
L to R: Susie Bley, Rhonda Steffens, Marylou Hume, Donnie Miller, Carol Hageman, Lisa Fawcett, Tracy Furness
Lisa attended Lehman High School and grew up surrounded by civic involvement and service. Her mother, Jane Fawcett, co-founded Canton Ballet and carried her own remarkable life story.
During Lisa’s years in New York, she always hoped she might run into Francie Kulchar while taking ballet class from the late Maggie Black. It never happened then. Nearly fifty years later, they will reunite at Canton Ballet’s 60th Anniversary Gala.
Some connections simply wait.
The Loyalty That Helped Growth Take Root
Alumni Spotlight: Rhonda Steffens-Seaman
If Francie’s story speaks to artistic ascent, and Lisa’s to expansion of identity, Rhonda Steffens-Seaman’s reflects loyalty — the kind that shows up year after year.
Born in Cleveland, Rhonda began dancing at eight for a very practical reason: she could not stop moving. “I was always dancing in front of the television,” she laughs. “The television wasn’t even on. I just used it as a mirror.” Her mother wisely decided that formal training might be safer for the furniture.
After studying with Alex Martin and John Begg, Rhonda auditioned for the University of Akron in 1971, where Heinz Poll had just launched a new dance program after arriving from Eastern Germany. She was accepted — and around the same time received an invitation from Suanne Ferguson that would shape the next fifty years of her life.
“I started with Canton Ballet as a University of Akron dance major in 1971 with an invite from Suanne Ferguson,” she says. “That started a long and varied relationship with the organization which I have always treasured.”
“Long and varied” may be the understatement of the series.
Rhonda Steffens-Seaman
As a college student, she took class with the company and appeared in character roles in Canton Ballet productions. She was never trying to be the swan queen. She was perfectly content being the one who made the audience laugh — or lean in.
When Canton Ballet moved to Kent State University at Stark in 1972 and formally established the School of Canton Ballet, Rhonda joined the faculty that same year as co-lead teacher alongside Sharon Chounard.
“There were already several hundred students once we got to Kent State,” she remembers. “And suddenly I found myself — as a college student — teaching eighteen classes a week.”
Eighteen.
In today’s terms, that would require color-coded spreadsheets, caffeine strategy, and at least three backup playlists. In 1972, it required stamina and a belief that the growth meant something.
She taught until 1977, returned in 1986, and worked under John Begg, John Wilkins, and later Cassandra Crowley, teaching children’s classes, pointe, lower school, and adults — whatever was needed. If the Ballet was growing, Rhonda was there.
Her stage memories carry the same spark. In John Begg’s 1976 production of Cinderella, she shared a bench with Madeleine Lear Sampedro as one of the ugly stepsisters — Madeleine the sweet one, Rhonda the sour.
“We were sitting there sewing, legs stretched wide, being completely ridiculous,” she recalls. “The curtain opened and the audience just cracked up.”
Timing, as they say, is everything.
Mood Change by Two. Choreography by Rhonda Steffens-Seaman. Performed by John Begg and Jeanne Morehart.
In spring 1975, Begg invited her to choreograph Mood Change by Two. The music was composed by her husband and recorded specifically for the performance — a shared artistic moment she still treasures. Not every dancer gets to collaborate with a spouse and have it preserved on tape.
Over the years, her relationship with Canton Ballet expanded: company dancer, choreographer, teacher, ballet mistress, occasional costume helper (“whew… I was not very good at that”), parent of three children who performed, and eventually Board President from 2004–2007.
“My journey from company dancer, choreographer, teacher, ballet mistress, helping with costumes, watching my three children perform, to finally being elected board president, has brought me full circle in this relationship,” she reflects.
“I have watched and hopefully helped some, as Suanne Ferguson and Jane Fawcett’s dream of a pre-professional school and company has been accomplished and — with great support — will continue.”
Rhonda Steffens-Seaman and Lisa Fawcett
That is Rhonda in a sentence: steady, self-aware, a little self-deprecating, and deeply committed.
Some people pass through an organization.
Others become part of its architecture.
Rhonda showed up.
And kept showing up.
Looking back now, it is clear that 1970–1971 was not just another season. It was the year Canton Ballet outgrew its home, strengthened its roots, and learned how to carry momentum forward — through people, through belief, and through work done with care.
For alumni, this story is not just history.
It is part of who we are.
