Welcome to Our Next Showcase!
Learn more about MTAA’s next Showcase, a spirited, orchestra-led presentation of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, performed with minimal staging and maximum heart. This one-night-only performance brings together singers and instrumentalists from across Arizona to reimagine a Golden Age favorite through a contemporary lens.
What Should I Expect?
Showcase offers a unique kind of theatre experience. You’ll see a full musical performed with a live orchestra—but without sets, costumes, or choreography. Instead, the focus is on the music, the characters, and the story.
With just two rehearsals, there’s a fresh energy to every Showcase. Performers carry scripts, scenes are minimally staged, and what unfolds onstage is part concert, part storytelling, and entirely in the moment. It’s a one-night-only glimpse into the heart of a musical, performed by singers and instrumentalists from across the state.
Annie Get Your Gun will be approximately 2.5 hours, including a 15-minute intermission.
The Real-Life Heroes of Annie Get Your Gun
Annie Oakley
Born Phoebe Ann Mosey on August 13, 1860, Annie Oakley rose from a difficult childhood in rural Ohio to become one of the most famous sharpshooters of her time. Gaining international fame through Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, she dazzled audiences with her skill and precision—challenging conventional gender roles in the process. Oakley remains a symbol of resilience, independence, and the mythos of the American frontier.
Frank Butler
Born in Ireland in 1847, Frank Butler was a skilled marksman and vaudeville entertainer who toured the country performing trick shots on the variety circuit. He met Annie Oakley when she unexpectedly outshot him in a shooting match—and soon after became her performing partner and husband. Known for his charm and showmanship, Butler supported Oakley’s rise to fame, often stepping back to let her talent take center stage.
Chief Sitting Bull
A respected Lakota leader and spiritual figure, Sitting Bull (c. 1831–1890) played a pivotal role in resisting U.S. military expansion into Indigenous lands, most notably leading forces to victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. A fierce defender of his people’s sovereignty, he became a symbol of Indigenous resistance and resilience. In his later years, he toured briefly with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show—not as a performer, but as a living emblem of the so-called “vanishing frontier.” His participation was both a powerful assertion of presence and a reflection of the complex, often exploitative ways Native figures were presented in popular entertainment.
Buffalo Bill
Born William F. Cody in 1846, Buffalo Bill was a frontiersman, scout, and showman who became one of the most famous figures of the American West. In 1883, he launched Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a traveling spectacle that blended theatrical flair with reenactments of frontier life, helping to shape popular myths about cowboys, Native Americans, and the expansion of the U.S. frontier. Though wildly popular in its time, the show presented a romanticized—and often distorted—version of history, contributing to the commodification of Indigenous culture and the mythologizing of the American West.
Meet the Artistic Leadership Team
Stephen Schermitzler, Artistic Director
Stephen Schermitzler, Artistic Director
Stephen Schermitzler, Artistic Director
STEPHEN SCHERMITZLER (Artistic Director) is the Founder of the Musical Theatre Alliance of Arizona. After earning a BFA in Music Composition from ASU in 2010, Stephen became the resident music director for Detour Company Theatre and the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre (now Silver Star), along with several independent local community productions.
As a pianist, he has collaborated with artists who have performed Broadway and national touring runs of 1776, Dear Evan Hansen, Waitress, Hamilton, Camelot, New York, New York, and 42nd Street. As a singer, he has been featured with Arizona Musicfest, Phoenix Chorale, Arizona Bach Festival, Symphony of the Southwest, North Valley Chorale, and the West Valley Symphony. He is intensely devoted to the nurture of authentic artistic development of all actors and musicians. Love always to Ray and the Pod.
Dylan Suehiro, Conductor
Stephen Schermitzler, Artistic Director
Stephen Schermitzler, Artistic Director
DYLAN SUEHIRO (Conductor) was born and raised in Hilo, Hawai‘i. He serves as MTAA’s Conductor and Communications Director. As a performer, he is an avid multi-instrumentalist, playing with Tempe Winds and the North Valley Symphony Orchestra, in addition to MTAA. Annie Get Your Gun marks Dylan's eighth Showcase; he previously conducted The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Pajama Game, and The Sound of Music.
Dylan studied trombone and music education at Indiana University, earning a Bachelor of Music Education. In 2021, he graduated with an M.M. in Conducting from ASU. Since moving to Arizona in 2013, he has taught at multiple schools in the Paradise Valley Unified School District, in addition to serving as a clinician and adjudicator for bands and orchestras in the Phoenix area. Some highlights of Dylan's career include conducting the New Symphony Orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria, directing the ASU Gold Band, and leading the AMEA Junior High All-State Orchestra. In 2021, he was invited to Washington, D.C. as a finalist to conduct the “Pershing’s Own” U.S. Army Band.
An avid baker and passionate supporter of the local food community, Dylan is also a member of Emerging Leaders and volunteers at the Desert Botanical Garden. He lives in Phoenix with his husband Kyle.
Patti Graetz, Chorus Director
Kerri Christie, Stage Director
Kerri Christie, Stage Director
PATTI GRAETZ (Chorus Director) has been Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of ProMusica Arizona since 2015. She is an accomplished conductor and award-winning soprano. Her career, spanning over 30 years, includes leading roles with Houston Grand Opera and Arizona Opera. A graduate of Concordia College in Minnesota, Patti was a soloist with the renowned Concordia Choir under Paul J. Christiansen.
Since moving to the Valley in 1989, Patti has served as head of vocal departments at the Arizona School for the Arts and Arizona Conservatory for Arts and Academics and was Director of Music for several churches. She spent eight years in Australia, performing with Australian Music Events, teaching for Opera Scholars Australia, and conducting choirs at the Murray Conservatorium. Patti has also been principal soprano for Opera-tunity and the Royal Renaissance Singers, and she continues to sing with the Royal Renaissance Singers and the Sonoran Desert Chorale.
At home, she teaches private voice and piano and enjoys “wind therapy” on her Can-Am Spyder motorcycle, logging over 11,000 miles in two cross-country trips this summer. Patti is married to Trevor, with three children and five grandchildren.
Kerri Christie, Stage Director
Kerri Christie, Stage Director
Kerri Christie, Stage Director
KERRI CHRISTIE (Stage Director) has been in love with Musical Theatre Alliance of Arizona and its people since its beginning. Annie Get Your Gun marks her 14th Showcase with MTAA, recently appearing as Frau Schmidt in The Sound of Music and stage directing The Pirates of Penzance. She is a member of the Education and Community Engagement Committee, and anyone who has met her has heard all about MTAA!
Kerri studied acting in Seattle at Northwest Actors Studio, Studio East, and with the brilliant Dr. Tawnya Pettiford-Wates, before training at California Institute of the Arts School of Theater. She moved to the Valley in 2011 and is the Artistic Director of Arizona Homeschool Theatre Group (AZHT). She has directed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (’16, ’23), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (’17, ’24), Picture Book Theatre (’17, ’18, ’20, ’22), Charlotte’s Web, Through the Looking Glass, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (’19 and ’24), Shakespeare Zoom!, The Importance of Being Earnest, Annie JR, As You Like It – 80s Teen Edition, The Wizard of Oz, and Seussical JR for AZHT. She also loves supporting her two young actors, and helping families as a board-certified lactation consultant at Arizona Breastfeeding Medicine and Wellness.