This Monday night Magnormos continues the celebration of JERRY HERMAN with the Tony Award winning DEAR WORLD.  In the days leading up we will meet some of the principal performers who will bring this landmark musical to life…

MAUREEN ANDREW (who plays Mme Gabrielle)

Magnormos: Tell us about your character:
Maureen: Gabrielle is deliciously private, cultured, classy, well mannered, adorable, kind to dumb animals, intolerant of invisible people, especially when no one facilitates an introduction, oh, and apparently… sssssshhh!! she’s a maiden, in the biblical sense of the word.

Magnormos: What drew you to DEAR WORLD?
Maureen: Dahlink!   I have had the CD for years…  Always wondered what it was about, but have loved so many of the songs.   It is one show I always wanted to see and now I get to see it from the best possible point of view.

Magnormos: Why do you think Jerry Herman is so successful?
Maureen: Wit!  Observation of the world at large!  An ability to take on urban legends and turn them into something magical such as the inimitable Dolly Levi as matchmaker, teacher of dance, and magician, and all the wonderfully crafted characters in HELLO, DOLLY! who are so diverse and beautifully painted.  DEAR WORLD is as opposite in it’s diversity of characters and musical style as it could possibly be as are all his musicals.  There is a genius in creating such diversity and such a joy in interpreting the delicious creatures that live in his musicals.  What a pleasure to play Gabrielle

Magnormos: Tell us a little about you - what’s a career highlight so far?

Maureen: Over 40 years performing makes me feel like I have lived more than one lifetime, from the original cast of Hair in 1971 with a 40th anniversary reunion at the Clovelly Bowling Club in Sydney in 2010 and the whole cast trying to fit on stage to sing the entire show, to the beautifully realised Billy Elliot which after over 600 performances still moved me.  The hysterical madness of the ladies of Calendar Girls.  A wonderful Australasian tour with Saturday Night Fever to Singapore, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur, Australia wide tours of Cabaret, Grease the Mega Musical, Hugh Jackman’s Boy From Oz. How lucky was I to work on all those brilliant shows with so many divine people. Several roles in Neighbours, State Coroner, My Brother Jack, and all those fabulous bands I have had the pleasure to sing with over the years.  What next!!!

See Maureen and her dog Dickie in DEAR WORLD, this Monday Night 11 July 8pm at Melbourne Recital Centre.

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