'Odyssey' -- a celebration of grandes dames

Both are well-loved teachers and accomplished artists. Both are working on books as their careers wind down. And both will take the stage for the seventh annual “Odyssey of the Stars — A Celebration of Artistic Journeys.”

Grandes dames Esther England and Margaret Johnson will be honored by former students and current UM students who will perform and celebrate their careers on the University Theatre stage Saturday, April 14. “Odyssey” is produced every year by the UM School of Fine Arts.

In 38 years of teaching voice and music at UM England has shaped the talents of more than 1,500 students, including world-class opera singers. A Fulbright Scholar, England also is a former associate dean of the School of Fine Arts and UM professor emerita of music. She studied opera in Germany and was a professional soloist with the Bavarian Radio Choir for three years before joining the music faculty in 1969.

England’s former students shower her with superlatives — calling her “an angel,” “a treasure” and “a major-league horn.”
Johnson directed her first play more than 44 years ago, the same year she began teaching English and drama at Sentinel High School.

Since, she has directed more than 190 productions and has had a lifelong impact on students she sees regularly to this day.
Not a week goes by, Johnson says, that she doesn’t run into a student she taught. That is not surprising, considering that from 1968 to 1978, because of how the curriculum was structured, Johnson taught every student at Sentinel.

She often took her students to New York City to see Broadway productions and in her spare time acted in plays at UM. She also served as the state director of the International Thespian Society from 1970 to 1993.

The theater at Sentinel where she staged many productions was named the Margaret Johnson Theater in 2001.

Johnson is working on a book inspired by her students about directing high school theater on a budget and with little experience. England has two projects in the works — a memoir/how-to manual with the working title “Cheap Tricks for Young Voice Teachers” and a children’s book about a “very fat, very hairy” cat tentatively titled “Greedy Guts and Muff.”