WPAA
The mission of Letters From Home is to honor veterans, celebrate people, and unite the nation through music. Western Plains Arts Association brings this patriotic celebration to the Hoxie High School, Sunday, Nov. 1, at 3 p.m. Central. Admission is by WPAA season ticket or adults $20, students $10. This program is made possible through the generous support of area business and individual sponsors, including a special grant from the Dane G. Hansen Foundation, Logan, Kan.
Letters From Home was started by Erinn Dearth at the suggestion of her late father, Pat Dearth, a veteran of the United States Coast Guard. Since that time, the group has made its mark performing in venues across the United States, touching the hearts and caressing the memories of hundreds of thousands nationwide with their mission to honor our veterans, active military heroes and their families.
The show is now performed in theaters, for air shows, cruise ships, schools, patriotic celebrations, military bases, VA hospitals, VFWs, American Legions and many other venues. A television documentary on Letters From Home by OurState Television won the Emmy for best magazine documentary in 2017. The duo performed in Normandy, France to perform for the 75th Anniversary of D-Day on June 6, 2019.
Erinn Dearth found her love of tap dancing at Franel School of Dance when she was three years old. She won her first national tap competition at five, and has been making noise ever since. For years, Dearth did musical theatre and performed on cruise ships, and when she returned to her home city of Winston-Salem, she founded First in Flight Entertainment which now books entertainers all over the world. Producing Letters From Home was a perfect way of combining her love of production and being onstage, while spreading a message of hope and patriotism.
Meanwhile, proverbial worlds away, New York-based actor Dan Beckmann was photographing penguins in Antarctica when he was approached by Dearth, who had discovered him through a YouTube video. She expressed interest in having him aboard, and before but another word was uttered, Beckmann packed up his lenses and hopped the next jet to Winston-Salem to accept his role within the LFH team.
Together, Dearth and Beckmann take audiences on a trip down memory lane with 1940s-1960s music, singing, tap dancing, comedy, audience interaction and a variety of other surprises along the way.
Dearth is the creator, founder and choreographer of Letters From Home. As an actress and producer, she has worked on over 200 theatrical productions and has toured with Cirque Productions. She is a published author, and founder of First in Flight Entertainment and the NC Triad Theatre League. Dearth is also the founder and Executive Director of the youth-inspired Spring Theatre in Winston-Salem, N.C. which is currently in it's ninth season of producing live theatre, classes and camps. Earlier this year (alongside Beckmann) she produced a socially-distanced film called “Lock-In” with 100 cast members filming all over the world in quarantine.
Dearth is half of "riley," an artistic umbrella of creativity that produces blogs, songs, talk shows and screenplays with the mission of playing with purpose. Each week, you can catch her and Beckmann on their weekly online “riley” talk show, and you can keep up with all of their endeavors big and small on www.ItsRiley.com.
Beckmann is an actor, singer, director and photographer from Minneapolis, Minn. He holds a BFA in acting from the University of Minnesota, Duluth and is a member of Actor’s Equity Association. Beckmann is the Artistic Director of Spring Theatre in Winston-Salem, N.C. Addicted to laughter from an early age, Beckman has been entertaining since he could first make noise. He has collaborated with Tony-nominated directors and Broadway legends on regional and Off-Broadway productions, concerts, national tours, cruise ships and international venues across the globe.
Band Leader John Trotta’s first “gig” was polyphonic organist at St. Gregory’s Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio at age 16. He went on to gradate from Xavier University in Cincinnati with a BS degree in Philosophy. While at Xavier, he participated in ROTC and in September 1969, he became a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army with a six-year commitment. He fulfilled two years of active duty in Germany and Vietnam. He was honorably discharged at a First Lieutenant in 1975. Trotta has been involved in community theater and a number of local bands throughout the years in Ohio and North Carolina, including polka and Dixieland.
Soon after attending a post- 9/11 concert, he joined the “Kings of Swing” as their piano player. He formed “The Likewise Jazz Trio” a year later. Currently, he plays piano with the NC Revelers Big Band and the Holzhackern Tyrolean Band during Oktoberfest season. His other activities include conducting, arranging, vocal coaching and jazz concertizing. Joining “Letters from Home” is John’s way of honoring his fellow veterans. Lynn “Win” Roberts has been performing professionally since the age of 14.
He majored in music at the University of Nebraska and was a featured vocalist and instrumentalist with many swing bands including Guy Lombardo and Jimmy Dorsey. In 1964, Roberts started developing his musical variety act, playing more than a dozen instruments and singing. He began impersonating stars after hearing that he sounded or looked like them. Roberts's favorite impersonations are Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, W.C. Fields and Frank Fontaine. Roberts has won a Cloney Award for his impersonation and tribute to Bob Hope, the Bea Foggleman Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Federation of Musicians. For the past 16 years, Roberts has been touring the U.S. and Canada doing his tributes.
Gerald “Jerry” Bryant, concert producer, completed an accountant degree in 1974. During his college years, he joined the Army Reserves with the intention of getting a job and continuing to go to night school. However, this plan was upended when his Reserve Unit was activated and he found himself in the midst of the Vietnam War. He served out his time as a Medical Lab Tech at Kenner Army Hospital at Fort Lee, Va. After separating from the Army, and returning to the Reserves, he returned to his job at General Electric, finished college, and then completed the Financial Management Program at GE, spending a long career with GE. In 2013 he transitioned from the corporate life to becoming a business manager at his local Catholic church. He met the performers of Letters from Home at a church event, and soon was named concert producer.
See www.lettersfromhomesingers.com for more information, high-resolution pictures and YouTube videos.