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OUR STORIES: My Angela Lansbury Story

By Jill Garland posted 01-04-2019 17:27

  
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It’s June 1975 and I’m a quiet teenager who’s somehow talked her way into Angela Lansbury’s dressing room at the Valley Forge Music Fair in Pennsylvania. There’s a line of people waiting to say hello after a stunning performance of GYPSY. I was agog at the musical miracle I’d just witnessed and terribly intimidated to be meeting the formidable Mama Rose. When it was my turn, she sweetly engaged me in conversation and then said with some authority, “You want to be in the theatre, don’t you?” How did she know? My voice began to break with emotion. I replied breathlessly, “Yes! Yes, I do!” Truth be told, I don’t remember what she said next. But whatever it was, it became the catalyst for four decades of devotion as an artist and arts administrator. Oh, and GYPSY is still my favorite musical.


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This post is a part of the Our Stories salon, curated as part of TCG's 2019 Gala: Our Stories in support of TCG's vision of a better world for and because of theatre. To participate in the salon, email Gus Schulenburg. To attend the TCG 2019 Gala, go here. To support TCG's work, go here.
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