Northshore Magazine

May/June 2012

Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.

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Center Stage continued from page 153 Jocelyn, the same architectural firm that designed the Shalin Liu Music Center at Rockport Music, has already been busy drawing up plans for the next flurry of renovations to the theater. "We'll go public with the campaign in September 2012," says Burgreen, who is only willing to say at this point that the intimacy that is Gloucester Stage will not be lost. "We're not looking to go bigger—just better." Burgreen himself has an impressive background on both the administrative and the performance side of the stage lights. With Broadway credits for shows like You Can't Take it With You, Oh, Coward!, and A Few Good Men, plus Off-Broadway credits for A Mom's Life, Forever Plaid, and Queens Boulevard, among others, his acting career constitutes star billing. His administrative work includes time spent at Lincoln Center in New York and the Orpheum Theater in Hannibal, Missouri, as well as having established The 5th Street Acting Studio & Arts Space in Han- nibal. This sort of professional versatility seems to be typical of the Gloucester Stage folk—without exception, everyone there has just a little bit of pixie dust settled about them that manifests itself in an uncanny ability to create something from nothing and make it look effortless. As for Burgreen, "what Special Thanks to our riders, volunteers and sponsors for helping the 2012 North ShoreTourdeCure reach our goal of $400,000! www.diabetes.org/northshoretour THANK YOU! 164 nshoremag.com a /June 2012 nshoremag.com M Myay/June 2012 he knows is amazing," says Chairman of the Board Bea Waring, who not surpris- ingly can stake her own claim to either side of the lights. Like Lee Meriwether, another regular at Gloucester Stage, Waring is herself a former Miss America, and is married to Bayard Waring of the North Shore's own Waring School, a private school known for its excellence in the arts. "My responsibility is to keep everyone engaged and to get our neighbors on Cape Ann to realize what we have here." To that end, Waring, using her showbiz name, Bebe Shopp, will be performing a song called Miss America Sisters with both Meriweather and Susan Powell (Miss America '81) at the 2012 annual Spring Gloucester Stage fundraiser at Bass Rocks Golf Club in Gloucester on June 1. The song, composed by Bernie Wayne, who also composed Here She Comes, Miss America, was shared for purposes of fundraising with special permission from Wayne's widow. How is it that an artistic director can draw such talent to his organization on such a myriad of levels? "What catches my eye in an actor—or anyone—is [his or her] innate ability to connect," says Engle. "Their honesty. That, and whether they are energy givers or energy takers. [Whether they are] Bette Midlers or Barbra Streisands." From the outside looking in, it appears Engle is up to his middle in Midlers—a fact that just might help Gloucester Stage blow the roof off that old building on East Main in the next season or two. The exterior of the Gorton Theatre, "Home of the Gloucester Stage Company."

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