Wendla Bergmann presents
a Dark Sea Green production
❝The Producer❞
And the reviews are in!
"opinionated!" • "snappy!" • "intuitive!"
My parents thought it would be a great idea to name me Marjorie Lee Beck.
But that's so formal - just call me Ma'am (only half joking- call me Marjorie).
I was born April seventeenth, 1956, which means I am currently fifty-three years old.
I came all the way from Provincetown, Massachusetts just to be on Broadway.
And though they always say it's tough to catch a break in this town, at least I've got that snarky codger of a theatre vet to catch me when I fall.
If you give me a portrait at Sardi's, independence, or a good show, I'll love you forever.
But you risk getting sued if you try to get me near my old husbands, a chapel, or Sardi's food.
And, of course, my résumé...
You know what they said in The Producers- Keep it gay, keep it gay, keep it gay. And apparently, my father, Sonny Beck, decided to follow this credo (despite The Producers not existing) after my mother, Carleen Benson, gave birth to me. She was so disgusted, she left me with him to marry another man, a military official by the name of Williamson. I last heard she lived with him in a Victorian-style home in Bourne, Massachusetts (where I was born with the help of my aunt, a midwife). I think it helped my father get over the shock of her leaving a bit, knowing that she never left the Land of Bridge and Windmill. So by the mid-1960s, he and I had moved to Provincetown: a centre for artistic and intellectual growth. By then P-town's rural character appealed to the hippies of the era- my young father and I, just ten years old, were welcomed and housed and loved just like in any other community.
I guess living there brought out the performer in me: beatniks and free-love activists and all sorts of singers, dancers, and actors surrounded me. It was impossible to walk down Commercial Street without being handed a slip of paper or a flier for a show or a group. Dad was always sort of supportive without being pushy, so he was able to get a job as one of the bartenders at the Atlantic House bar in town and support me that way. He pulled a few strings as I got older and I was allowed to perform for a few dollars a few nights now and then. It was good practice for when I was older, as well as a good way to earn money, for when I turned seventeen I went away to college, leaving my father with a man he liked very much named Gary Mitchell. I earned a partial scholarship to the University of Rochester- Eastman School of Music in Voice and Opera. Whatever wasn't covered by scholarship I paid for with my earnings as a performer at the A-House.
Once I graduated Eastman, I journeyed from Rochester to Manhattan, where the true talent was. The flashing lights, the billboards- it was all a bit too much. My mind was boggled, and I must admit, I fainted at my first glance. It was so much to take in with just one breath. So I spent the next few years of my life there. I went to a few auditions my agent set up, and I made it as an ensemble member (read: chorus girl) for Shenandoah, until it closed later that year. But by then I knew that I was not as coordinated as I could have been- luckily I'm a soprano and my singing made up for my two left feet. But the run ended and most of us were out of work. After that, I went to auditions, but without luck. I had helped around the Shenandoah sets now and then when someone wanted a break or needed a little fix-up (my father had always enlisted my help around the A-House) and now had plenty of backstage experience.
I fired my agent, stopped going to auditions, and now was solely a set designer/techie kind of gal. When the time came for the younger set to start getting those jobs, I quit the IATSE (I'd withdrawn from the AEA after my performing career didn't work out)