Mary Maureen just completed a mini-musical review of “The Taffeta’s” at the Theatre of Western Spring’s (TWS) summer Gala on Saturday, July 19.    Of course she had to include her feature solo of “Where the Boys Are”, among other fun upbeat medley’s. 

Mary Maureen stared in “It’s Never Too Late For Romance” written by local Chicago playright: Jill Elaine Hughes

  June 19 - 22nd   - Mary Maureen completed a theatrical workshop program at The Theatre of Western Springs for their Ninth Annual SHORTS FOR A SUMMER’s EVENING

Our theatre had the pleasure of bringing to live the world premier of “It’s Never Too Late For Romance.”  The cast/crew met the playright on opening night and were delighted to hear her positive review.  This short play has already been approved to be produced next for a production company in New York!  I played Constance and Tammy played Mathilda.  We were two spinster sisters based out of the 1890’s and both had a bit of a crush on the ‘good ole Reverend Rathskeller!”

Cast/Crew photo: top row: director - Judy DiVita; Rob Kramer “Reverend”; and John Mueller as Asst Director & understudy for”Reverend”;  bottom row:  Tammy White with Mary Maureen

Our Asst. Director…John was a such a joy to work with.  He went over and above for us when our main “Reverend” was scheduled to be off on our final dress rehearsal.  So John filled in with absolute class and made it so perfect for me and my stage sister!  Here’s a photo of John with me and Tammy. 

Now I just had to include one of our cast party shots…hosted by the Hilton’s and always treating us with my favorite bubbly…Piper!   (Click on any of the photos for a larger view!)

2008 ROLLING BLOG OF EVENTS…

January 26th, I participated in the first ever “Late Night Cabaret” at the Theatre of Western Springs. Our producer/director Joe Savino was an absolute treat to work with. Other members of my cast were Amanda Ragan, Donna Kanak, Lori D’Asta, MaryEllen Druyan and Jennifer Schmidt. Now most importantly we all had the pleasure of working with Peter Brohmann on piano…he is an up and coming talent…so watch out for him! He’s a high school student, but boy does he have an amazing gift. His collection of sheet music is to die for. We actually made money for our non-for-profit, so the evening was a wonderful success.

End of February I spent time in Scottsdale, Arizona visiting my parents. The experience was incredibly special for me. We really had ‘quality’ time together talking and laughing about old times. Now one story that had me laughing so hard I was actually crying was the time when my dad and his brother were golfing in Hawaii. They just had to get another round in at the end of the day, but they knew they should just pack it up and head back to the pro shop before the sun set. Well, wouldn’t you know that sure enough, the sun set on them and since they were on a golf course, on an island, naturally there wouldn’t be lights…so in the blink of an eye…it went pitch black on them. They started calling out to each other since they couldn’t see one another. It took them a long time to gather their clubs, balls and then eventually find the golfcart. Now the scarest thing was them driving the cart…they didn’t want to literally drive off a cliff! It took them a really long time to get back, safely…but oh man, that story had me laughing so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. We lunched almost every day, usually after my hour and a half walk. I was able to just explore, walking all over the place. When I was tired, I’d just call them and they’d come and pick me up where ever I landed. My dad made the best dinner one night…shrimp dejonge! It’s an old recipie and ohhh man, did we eat like mad. I have never had as good of an order of shrimp dejonge as my dad’s. We also shopped around and spent time at the pool and in the hot tub before dinner. It was so relaxing and enjoyable– you can’t put a price to those special times.

March 9th I shot an industrial video for McDonald’s Corporation. I was the Store Manager and the challenge for me was that there were no lines to memorize, but rather going thru the motions and heavily relying on facial expressions (which I can do really well). It was certainly a different project for me since I’m used to memorizing lines for a song or a script…so not having lines was a challenge in the beginning, but once we got moving, it was so cool. It was an extremely enjoyable process and my producer and videographer made it special for me. It’s going to be played during their worldwide convention when over 15,000 members gather. So I’m a superstar! (in my own mind…)

April 9th I had an opportunity for a cable interview with College of DuPage’s soon to be released “Studio 180″. Click on that link to see all of their shows to date.  I’m under #106.  We did the studio taping for an interview then set up for one song performance. It was a great experience, but boy those studio lights can get soooo hot! Since I needed to use a public domain song, I choose “Rock-a-bye your Baby with a Dixie Melody” that was written in 1918 by Jean Schwartz. While researching the song I learned that Al Jolson made this song famous and that it was a part of the script for the musical “Sinbad.” Now I knew this song from Judy Garland’s best hits cd and after working with my favorite musician/producer/composer in the world…Bobby Schiff I really have taken a liking to it and will now include it in my reporatoire. I only had four days to work this song, so I did the best I could and ended up having a somewhat decent performance. I say that because the studio did not have a floor monitor so me and Bobby were winging it since he couldn’t hear me to follow me, and I couldn’t hear myself, so we both jammed out and did the best we could. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and they were an incredibly warm and talented bunch.

May 16 I attended the Remy Bumppo Theatre’s annual gala as their official photographer for the 4th year in a row!     Visit the link to see my video and featured photos of their event.  Although we had not originally planned to take video, I just offered it up since my fuji camera has both camera and video features.  As it turns out…everyone really liked the option of being recorded for a brief moment to share their expectations for the event and I loved the final clip of the night from James, their artistic director.   The event was quite successful as the theatre raised over $90K!  I enjoy working with my PR and Marketing friend Stephanie Kulke and appreciate how respectful I am treated year after year.  It’s a pleasure donating my services to this group.        

May 31st was my first in-home Cabaret show to an intimate group of 4!  My theatre friend, Jan Quinn, was the recipient of last year’s live auction entertainment package.  The package consisted of a cabaret-sampler show, cocktails/dinner for 4 and theatre tickets for 4.  The lovely Baker’s hosted the coctail hour during our performance and invited me to stay for the delicious dinner. 

June was quite fulfilling…I dedicated about 3 weeks to the rehearsal process to participate in an acting workshop with the Theatre of Western Springs.  It was just as much fun in the rehearsal process as it was during production.  Our short play was a 20 minute piece written by a Chicago playright.  It was exciting to talk with her after the opening show to get her very kind words about how I brought her character “Constance” to life.  This was the world premiere of her short play “It’s Never Too Late For Romance” and we learned that a production company in NY will soon be producing this play too.  A local composer from Naperville (Gerry) spent alot of time with us getting the feel of the show.  He created for us our music for the beginning and end of our play.  It was lovely…so appropriate for us spinster sisters from 1890!

July 3rd I volunteered about 6 hours working at the Taste of Oak Brook.  Since I work for McDonald’s Corporation and we sponsored the first ever “Taste”, I wanted to stop by to take pictures of my fellow friends at corporate who work in the restaurant on campus.  I ended up being the unofficial photographer for the two hours of Ronald McDonald visit with the kids.  That was so special for me to see the excitement on the kids faces and all the parents too…we all grew up with Ronald.  I took over 200 photos that day and will share them with my friends at work…and my new contact at the mayor’s office.  I’m hopeful some of my photos will make their next newsletter!  July 19 I performed with my stage sisters from The Taffeta’s at the Theatre of Western Spring’s summer Gala.  We selected a lovely sampling of slow tunes and swing tunes.