Sallie and Dr. Frank Pullano are pictured in this file photo courtesy of SUNY Fredonia.

This Saturday, Main Street Studios will be featuring a special performance for SUNY Fredonia’s alumni weekend, as it will be hosting “Stories and Dreams,” a show written by former SUNY Fredonia music professor Dr. Frank Pullano.

Stories and Dreams is a tale of two couples living, loving, and sharing their stories and dreams with the audience and while the outcomes are different for both parties, they view their stories as gifts and their dreams as guides as they take their lives into the mysterious future.

The show is produced by Ted Sharon, the Founder and Artistic Director at Main Street Studios, and is directed by SUNY Fredonia student Joe Newton. Both have pulled out all the stops in order to honor Pullano, who is currently suffering from dementia. His wife, Sallie, has been running the show and originally contacted Sharon in 2022 about doing this show to honor Dr. Pullano’s work.

“Joe has taken Frank’s handwritten music and digitized it and I have worked with Sallie to adjust the script,” said Sharon. “Our cast is very excited about working together and being with the alumni to celebrate this stylistically diverse musical production.”

Sharon offered special praise for Newton, for both his abilities as a musician and his dedication in making this show as close to Dr. Pullano’s vision as possible.

“He (Newton) plays nine instruments and is able to interpret what Frank has put on paper for an audience better than anybody I know,” said Sharon.

Sharon also offered an appreciation for how hard Sallie Pullano has worked to get this show off the ground, as well as the alumni association for tying the show into this weekend’s Alumni Weekend.

“We’ve partnered with Patricia Feraldi and the Alumni Association in order to produce the show and Sallie Pullano has been a champion for her husband’s work,” said Sharon. “She’s executive produced the show and has given us insights into her husband’s work that we would not have otherwise had.”

Stories and Dreams features two vignettes, the first of which showcasing Dr. Pullano’s talent for transforming the same lyrics through three musical genres, including standard commercial, country/western, and waltz. The second vignette is a musical tribute to the Fredonia area, viewed through the lens of Dr. Pullano’s 40 years of teaching, raising a family, and living in Western New York.

Dr. Pullano originally came from Niagara Falls and attended SUNY Fredonia from 1952 to 1956. Sallie is originally from Binghamton and attended the college from 1954 to 1958. The two met on campus during their overlapping years and were married in 1958. Both Sallie and Frank ended up teaching in the Lakeshore Central School System from 1958 to 1960. Dr. Pullano went on to serve as a faculty member in the Music Department at SUNY Fredonia from the fall of 1960 through the spring of 1992.

Dr. Pullano was also a part of a men’s jazz vocal trio called “the Professors,” which was popular at the time and even did some recorded work. These shows delighted audiences from 1959 through the mid 1960s. While Dr. Pullano was singing and teaching, Sallie was raising their family and teaching music classes of her own from 1966 to 1992 in the Fredonia Central School District. The Pullanos now live in South Carolina.

This show is billed as “Lunch Theater,” as One World Catering will be providing the lunch for the performance. Stories and Dreams will be featured at Main Street Studios on Saturday at 1 p.m. and will have an entry fee of $25, which includes both the catered lunch and the show.

For more information and tickets to the show, visit https://events.fredonia.edu/ and go to homecoming weeekend in the listings.