P.O. Box 691 Sebring Florida USA 33871 Tel: 863-382-2525
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P.O. Box 691 Sebring Florida USA 33871 Tel: 863-382-2525 |
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Marian Dunham - Teacher, Actress, Director By: Roy Riedy |
Marian Dunham was first seen in a Highlands Little Theatre production as an Austrian nun, Sister Margaretta, in the 1981 production of The Sound of Music. It became something of a habit for her to portray mystical women of all stripes, for in later HLT productions she played the part of the Mother Superior in Nunsense I and II, with authority, and at the other end of the spiritual spectrum, Morgan Le Fey, with appropriate malevolence, in the 1993 edition of Camelot. She avoided type casting by showing audiences she could also play less supernatural parts when she played the adventurous Mame Dennis in the musical Mame, and the world weary Vera Charles in the 1983 HLT hit, Auntie Mame, not to mention the horrific Miss Hannigan in the 1985 Annie. In all, her career at the Little Theatre included twenty different acting roles.
Nor did Ms. Dunham limit her theatrical contributions to acting. She directed 11 plays for the Lakeside Playhouse and co-directed two others, claiming a Best Play Zenon for two of them. In August of 1982 Marian made her directorial debut when she presented John Patrick's The Teahouse of the August Moon, the last play of the Eighth Season for HLT and the first to be presented in the organization's new home, The Lakeside Playhouse. Ten years later, at the end of the Eighteenth Season, in August of 1992, the play was presented again by the same director and with several of the original cast reappearing in their original roles. This time it won Best Play for Ms. Dunham plus the additional satisfactions of Best Set Design and the much prized Best Director Zenon, in all, the revival won a total of six awards. This Best Play Zenon was her second award in that category for Marian, she won her first for Kander and Ebb's Cabaret, in 1988, another play multiple winning show that won a total of five Zenons.
Marian has also excelled in other areas of stagecraft, namely costume design. She won her first Zenon at the first Zenon Awards Ceremonies in 1986 for her work on the costume designs for the award winning musical Annie. Program Covers and Poster Design have been another area of interest and she has contributed designs for four different productions. On several occasions, when she was not actually contributing to a production on the stage, Marian could have been found working in the Gourmet Department at the salad bar or in Anthony's Lounge.
In conjunction with her theater work at Highlands Little Theatre, Ms. Dunham maintained a theatrical program at the Sebring Middle School where she was employed as a teacher for the gifted. Many of the young actors that eventually became familiar faces on the HLT stage had their first taste of show business in Dunham productions like Peter Pan, and You're a Good Man Charlie Brown.
Thank you Marian Dunham for the multiple contributions you have made to the growth of Highlands Little Theatre. Your participation in over half of all the productions that have been put on by the organization that you helped to shape is a impressive legacy. Your selfless gifts of time, energy, and talent have made our association the outstanding cultural force that it finds itself today. Everyone that claims an affiliation with HLT's Lakeside Playhouse owes a debt to the generous trail blazing that you epitomize. Your five Zenons are a small reward for your very big contribution.
