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Life Upon the Wicked
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Life Upon the Wicked Stage
I stay busy with area theatre productions,
as you can see below. And I've even won awards for acting, directing, choreography and sound design, and
received some nice reviews over the years, so check out my Reviews
Index.
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One of my proudest theatrical
achievements has been the success of my original scripts, such as High
School Hellcats in Heels. A critical and audience
hit spoofing those bad "Juvie movies" from the 1950s, it was called the "funniest show of the year" in the
Dallas Observer's 2003 Theater Winners wrap-up.
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I followed up my Hellcats success with another original script that became a hit comedy. A Bollywood Lysistrata was my homage to Bollywood movies, and judging from the audience and critic response, I achieved my goal of creating a Bollywood movie live onstage and it made several critics' 2010 theater wrap-up lists.
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On the heels of A Bollywood Lysistrata, I adapted the bad cult movie Santa Claus Conquers the Martians for Level Ground Arts and turned it into the critically acclaimed stage comedy Santa Claus vs. the Martians.
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Ever since I directed an award-winning production of the campy musical Ruthless!, I had always wanted to be in it. Some years after that production, I finally had the chance to perform it when Flower Mound Performing Arts Theater mounted a new production of it. Ironically, I played theater critic Lita Encore, who hates musicals. Fortunately, the critics who saw this production were not like my onstage alter ego and gave us great reviews.
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One of my dream roles has been to play Gooch in Mame and I finally got the chance at Garland Summer Musicals. It proved to be everything I always dreamed it would be and I loved the reaction I got at the end of Gooch's song when I hit the high note in full operatic voice - something they didn't expect, since I used a nasally character voice for Gooch for the whole show - gasps, cheers and even some audible Oh-my-Gods from the audience. I love comedy!
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I had a fabulous experience performing in the musical NINE with my friend Michael Serrecchia directing. The show was a huge hit and I was surprised by the tremendous response I got from audiences and critics as Liliane La Fleur.
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I had the chance to fulfill a lifelong dream, playing Glinda the Good Witch, when I directed Uptown Players' annual fundraiser Broadway Our Way: Valley of the Divas. I camped it up doing one of my operatic song parodies complete with wand and crown.
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I have had the chance to do the comedy musical revue Six Women with Brain Death twice. I appeared in the Fort Worth premiere
in the 90s and when the opportunity was offered to do the show again in the new century, I jumped at the chance. The entire cast of 6 women play multiple roles and when I did the show the first time, I played Rambi and the Severed Head, but secretly desired to play the lead Diva in the Divas of Motown and Nashville songs. At Richardson Theatre Centre, I got the chance to be the opera Diva!
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I finally had the chance to play one of my dream roles, Sister Mary Amnesia in ICT's Nunsense and garnered a great review. In a sad twist of fate, an accident during our tech week resulted in the death of a theater friend. We postponed the opening to mourn him and decide if we could even continue after the tragedy. After emotional soul-searching, all of us agreed Rudy would want the show to go on, so we opened belatedly in tribute to him. It was tough, but we received tremendous support from Rudy's family and the whole theater community in carrying on the tradition of the show must go on.
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Photo by Mark Oristano
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Ruthless!
set the opening weekend record for a musical at Uptown Players. This wicked musical
parody was a great show with a great cast, great reviews and played to sold out houses. Ruthless earned DFW
Critics Forum Awards for Coy as Best Actor and me for directing, and also received Rabin nominations for Best Musical,
Best Director of a Musical (moi!), and Best Actress in a Musical for Stacia. It also made No. 5 on The Dallas Voice Top Ten Shows of
2003. Ruthless, indeed! |
| Sordid
Lives had a great cast, a special
guest at our preview, and another impromptu performance by yours
truly the director when I had a hospitalized actress on opening night.
Here the cast and I celebrate surviving opening night. Later in the
year, we had much to celebrate when Ted won a Critic's Forum Award
for Best Actor, Lisa won the Leon Rabin Award for Best Actress, Angela
received a Rabin nomination, and the cast, show, and crew received
numerous Column Awards. |
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The
Lady in Question offered me the unique opportunity to channel
Katherine Hepburn and a little Lucille Ball as the leading "Lady"
in this 1940's movie spoof written by Charles Busch. We were a very 'close-knit'
company as you can tell from the photo.
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Here I am with Robert
Banks in Bikini Beach Bloodsuckers. I played Countess Elizabeth Bathory,
a three hundred year-old vampiress whom I based on Hungary's real Blood
Countess, purportedly the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. The plot
combined elements of Frankie and Annette beach party movies with Sunset
Boulevard. This was the first full-length play that I wrote, and it
was nominated for a Leon Rabin award for Outstanding New Play of 1996. I
have since written a sequel entitled Zombie A-Go-Go!, as well as
several other plays. All my scripts are available for performance. Check
here or e-mail
me for details—I'll be glad to help get my shows on stages everywhere! |
| Me (in the
cheesy blonde wig), Stacia Goad, and Pam Peadon performing "There's
Gotta Be Something Better Than This" in Lyric Stage's Leon Rabin Award-winning
production of Sweet Charity. During rehearsals for this show-stopping
song-and-dance number, I frequently muttered "I'm too old for this..."
between gasps for oxygen. Still, I was thrilled to be dancing actual Fosse
choreography for the first time, as he has been a major influence on my
own style as a choreographer. |
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