Summary:
Geraldine Snyder Lenzi was born just after WWII in Pennsylvania but moved when eight to her father’s hometown, Louisville, Kentucky, after her mother’s death. After her father died five years later, she was raised by two older sisters and a brother-in-law, mostly attending public school. She was graduated from Durrett High School in 1965 after reluctantly moving from her beloved, racially integrated West End neighborhood. An art major at Murray State University, she became a recognized soft-sculptor doing large-scale fabric-based art pieces. Despite her shyness, Geraldine loved literature, sewing, writing lyrics and tunes—though she didn’t read music, and slowly grew to relish stage performance. Ms. Lenzi recalls, after moving to Miami with her husband Paul where he worked for the Players Repertory Theater before the couple joined The Flee Circus, a troupe that used fable-like stories to entertain and teach school children. (Geraldine warmly recalls spontaneous performances in Biscayne Park before appreciative audiences.) She and Paul returned to Louisville where they worked for Louisville Children’s Theatre (later Stage One), developing performances and a WAVE-TV Saturday show for pre-school children, and then joined Paul in 1976 to form Blue Apple Players. For decades at Blue Apple, Geraldine created both the tune and lyrics for original fast-paced musicals for children and youth on cutting-edge topics such as teen suicide, child sex abuse, anti-violence, and teen pregnancy, while remaining an integral part of the performing company and serving when needed as road manager and costumer.
