 My name is Ken Burtness and I'm coming to you from Holly Eve out at the North Shore. Our show is called Finding Happiness in Hard Time. And today we have a special program for it called The Joy of Performing. And with me today is my good friend, Mary Gonzalez, from all across the country over in Tampa, Florida. Welcome to the show, Mary. Thank you, Kenneth, and hello to everybody out there. Mary is an actress, she's a singer and she's a dancer. And I've always been in awe of her. She's done incredible number of shows in multiple languages and it's just amazing. Where I'd like to start, Mary, is at the beginning of this very successful career of yours. Your first show and the first actual time that you did a show around those areas because that's the thing that's daunting for most people. I know it was to me and a lot of people I talked to who are interested in joining a theater group or trying out for a production. They say, this is pretty scary. I don't know if I can do this. I get paralyzed, I get frozen. And so it is daunting. So maybe you could start us off and tell us how you made that big leap into trying out for plays and musicals. Well, the first thing that I did was, where you met me at the supper. And they had four singers already and I'm really a singer, I'm not a dancer. However, I had to learn choreography and I had to be a dancer because I was doing backup for the four singers and that's how you met me. But I'm really not a dancer. I'm a singer and an actor. But anyway, whatever, I can learn choreography. So that's where I started and I loved it. So then I went to work in the chorus of what was then known as the Spanish Little Theater. The director and founder of that company was the producer and the director of the shows at the supper club where I work. And so he asked me if I was singing the chorus and I did and I enjoyed it. And I did that for about a year, year and a half or so. And then one day we were doing, we had two weeks left to rehearse though, a saxuela which I'll talk about later what saxuelas are. And the second soprano lead decided that she couldn't do it for one reason or another. And I happened to be standing right there and he said, can you learn it? I said, I can learn it. So that's how, that was my first speaking part. And I did a few little things like that and it wasn't until a couple of years later that I actually got a lead in the show. So that's really how it started. And it was all Spanish language because I'm fluent in Spanish and I was able to perform in Spanish. So I did it first. But let's start with the Spanish theater because you're there. And I know you've done a lot of performances in Spanish as well as English. Tell us a little bit about what's that like to perform in a non-English projection. Well, we had a regular audience that would come to us. They were, some of them had been, were Cubans and had come over during the Castro period. And some were Mexicans and South Americans. And so we had a regular audience that would come to see our productions. And so what we did was I want to say three or four years later after that we started seeing that in South America and they were doing Broadway shows in Spanish. My goodness. So we researched that and I say we and I'll tell you why later on why I say we. The theater researched that and they decided to do a Broadway show in Spanish. So we actually premiered Fiddler on the Roof in Spanish in the United States. It had been done in Mexico and in Spain but never in the United States. So we premiered it. Imagine how long ago it was that I played Hoddle. Okay. So that's how long ago that one. And so we did that, that we would do that like one out of the one of the shows out of the season would be something like that. And then the next one we did like that was Sound of Music. And I did Maria in Spanish and Sound of Music. And then after that we did Man of La Mancha. Oh my God. We'll talk about that later too. But we did Man of La Mancha in Spanish only and we brought this baritone over from Spain to do Quixote. And it was just marvelous. What a wonderful flavor in Spanish. Just wonderful. You can imagine Cervantes in Spanish. It was wonderful. So it was magic. Then we said, well, what about if we do English and Spanish. So we did King, well first we did King and I in Spanish only. But then the next time we did King and I, we did King and I one week in Spanish. And then next week we did it in English with the exact same cast. Imagine a two and a half hour show one week later in another language. And we did it. So then we decided we're going to transition. And we did kind of sort of, now we'll go that afterwards. That's terrific. You know, I think one of the things that's really impressed me in the last number of years is our increasing interest in this country in culture. And so we're getting a lot of multi-lingual productions going on, which you were way ahead of the mainstream with that. And it's just turning people on to the joy of, you know, being in other cultures and understanding other cultures and seeing performances. Last, our last show, I had on Elima Stern who did some Hawaiian chanting to it. And she chanted in Hawaiian. And we've been doing a number of things on Island of Hawaiian and in Pigeons. So, you know, and we're not the only ones. Like I said, I think there's a cultural renaissance. And I just think it was marvelous that you were able to do this to audiences. You know, starting, you know, quite a bit ago and continuing on to today. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about Cuba because you also did some, you know, you geared up some shows toward Cuba. And I thought that was really interesting. Well, somewhere along the line, I have some pictures here about that. We had a series that we called A Sikantaba Cuba. That's the way Cuba sang. That was before Castro. Now, I remember Cuba was the pearl of the Caribbean. And everything that came from Spain or South America or Mexico or Puerto Rico or Dominican Republic all went through Cuba first. So anything that they sang in those countries was again recorded and sung in Cuba. So we did a series that we did it every single August for about 20 years. We would change, of course, it'd be 30, 35 numbers. And we would change the numbers every year, of course. But it would only be music that was sung in Cuba before Castro, before 1960. So it was a wealth of music. And we were able to use a lot of the different like Spain and we were able to use Mexican things and Puerto Rican music and Dominican music and just beautiful stuff. So there was a wealth. And we were able to use a lot of the different things that we could do for that. We did that for about 20 years. There were three main singers. But every year we would either get one or two more sopranos to come in and do a couple of numbers or a tenor and a baritone or whatever. One of the pictures has me with four men. That was a fun year. So, I mean, that was fun. Anyway, there were just different. There were three main people all the time. One of them. But there were always different people that would come in and they would add to the show different segments and different facets and so forth. Because there were legit voices and there were voices like my voice, which is just songstress type voice. And so it was a beautiful thing. Then we did that for like about 20 years. The other long thing that you did was at the Florida State Fair, which I was certainly... Yeah, that was... 27 years ago. 27 years. That was my favorite gig of all times. Because I got to wear things I would normally wear on stage, showgirl outfits and things like that that I would normally wear on stage. I could have been a carny. I could have been a carny. I loved it. I would get out there every night and have the time of my life. Because when you're doing a show like I do on main stage, you might do it like this. I suppose we did one time, one night. So you either did it right or it didn't happen. It was always very stressful. It was never like really fun. It had to be done so well. But the fair was 12 to 17 days, depending on how long they were going to have it. And we had three 45-minute shows a night and we were like, you know, we were the it. And so it was fun. It was a lot of fun. I loved it. And there's a picture of that too. I have the showgirl thing going on. And that, again, we had normally three singers, maybe four. And there was always four dancers. The dancers would come and go, but there would be four dancers every time. And musicians, of course, because I always played with live musicians. I don't know how to sing with playback. I'm sorry. I don't. But anyway, that was a tremendous amount of fun. Tremendous amount of fun. It sounds like a lot of spontaneity that you could do. You could change things up. A lot of regular production stuff. A lot. I would sometimes, one time I, my sound man didn't turn my microphone off. And I said something I shouldn't have said backstage in my trailer, no less. And the sound man jumped across the place and burned my microphone off. And then one of the singers was coming on to sing a love song after that. And he sang it to my husband. It's something like, you know, you better watch out. You know, that kind of thing. He said, you better watch out. Because I had already taken off on a tangent somewhere. But anyway, that was, those are fun things that would happen all the time. Really, really. That's great. And this was all in the midst of the state fair. Absolutely. So they had all the things going. Yeah, you could smell the corn dogs. You could, the people would come by with their beers and their this and their that. And it was great fun. It was great fun. I loved it. Maybe we could go back to the Broadway shows again, because you've mentioned a number of shows that people are familiar with and love, like the King and I and all that. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about those individual productions and how you saw them as doing, you know, sound of music as compared to the King and I and things like that. Were you enjoyed yourself? Well, I have a, pardon me, all of a sudden I have something in my throat. I think I have a picture of Camelot, which was great fun. Great fun. I had a wonderful baritone. May he rest in peace. He died last year of complications from COVID. But he was a wonderful baritone. And we did several shows together. We did Camelot. We did... We did quite a few things together. So anyway, Camelot. I loved Camelot. Music is beautiful. The costumes are to die for. I loved wearing the crown. I loved being the queen. And it's a great story. It's a love story. But it's also a story about duty and love. And in the end, you see where duty overcomes the love, the love story that develops in Camelot at the end. So that's a lovely story. And there's a picture of that there. And I have, and King and I, King and I is a beautiful story as well. And of course it's so much fun working with the children. And because I am a teacher by profession, I was really the one that was, you know, getting the kids to stay with it, so to speak. And to be able to relate to me and whatever. Which is something else I want to touch on. I love being a performer. And it's a wonderful part of my life and everything. But everybody doesn't make it big. Like I never made it big. I made enough money to have a good time to go to Europe every other year, every year, whatever. But I always tell young people today, even if you are fabulously wonderful, best in one tenth of 1% make it big. And it doesn't have anything to do with your talent. It has to do with being at the right place at the right time and being just lucky enough to be that person. So I always tell young people when you're going to get your degree, get your degree in something you can use in the future. Something that you can always go back to, like I have a master's in education and I retired from the school system as a resource teacher. My husband was an administrator with the school system. He retired as an administrator. But we still enjoy the arts. And I like to impress upon young people that you can't, or I don't think, that it's wise just to forego an education to be in the arts. I think you have to do both. Just my personal opinion. I'm sorry if I got off topic, but it's just an opinion I have. A lot of young people are out there looking at it. And I think that's really an important thing to stress, the fact that so few people can make it big or even comfortable. Right. My friends drove cab for many years. Never quite made it over in Broadway. They've waited on table. They were setting up behind the bar. And somehow it just never happened, which was unfortunate because there were very talented people. But like you say, talent doesn't get you, doesn't guarantee that you're going to be able to make a living or even do something like that. But it's joyous when you can do it and not have to worry about that. So I was just going to say, why don't we go to Aveda? It's a very special show for you to mention that. It's a wonderful show for me. I loved it because she's a powerful woman. The night that it came out on the Tonys and they did the bedroom scene at the end of Act 1, the New Argentina, that one, I turned to the director of the Spanish Lyric Theater and I said, Tim, I have to do that show. And then that year it came to Lakeland Civic Center. And I went to see it and I said, I have to do that show. And the next year I did that show and I did it that year and I did it again 10 years later and I loved it. Any particular song in Aveda that you really enjoyed singing during the production? Of course, Don't Cry for Me Argentina is like the it song. I mean, you're up on the balcony and you're doing your thing and your arms are out and you're talking to the people and it's wonderful. It's really a fabulous song. But Aveda is an opera. I think there's like two spoken words in Aveda. It's an opera. It's not El Canto, but it's an opera and it's a fabulous show. It really is. Well, what you were saying is that emotional moving show that the audience must have given you great response to that. Tell us a little bit about how you felt when the audience just came to you and was with you during that song. Let me tell you, it wasn't necessarily that song but in my death scene at the end of the show there's a death scene where she dies and she's in the wheelchair and she's, you know, I had to let it happen, that kind of thing. And there was this woman in the third row and she starts to wail. I mean, cry. And her husband had her. Whoever she was with took her out because she was wailing because of my death scene. I thought, oh my goodness, I must have done this right because she, you know, and of course I didn't really, I couldn't react to anything like that. But I thought, wow. But it's a very powerful show. I love it. I love the show. Let's talk a bit about audience. Audience is really feed off of, you know, when I'm on stage and the audience is with you, it just is such a high. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about the shows that you really connected with the audience, you know, and how they made you feel. Because it certainly was a big thing for me with the few times I was on stage. Well, there was one funny situation. The theater had had auditions for a chorus line. And they produced a chorus line before and it was magnificent. The cast was magnificent. And they had held auditions for a chorus line. And of course the cast just wasn't going to make it. It just, it didn't happen. We couldn't find the people to do a chorus line. So the director said, let's just do, here, let's do Gigi. I said, okay, let's do Gigi. We thought it was going to be a filler show. Let's do Gigi. Okay, it was beautifully done. I played the grandmother and we said, okay, Kurt shows over, Kurt's updated it. We go out for our curtain call thinking it's just going to be a curtain call. We're going to say, hey, people were standing up and we thought, oh my God, we couldn't believe it because it wasn't, we thought it was a filler show and it turned out to be a great show as far as the audience was concerned. And we never really could figure out why except that they just liked it, I guess, I don't know. It was a real big surprise for us to do that. It was a surprise, a really surprise. So when you played the multiple performances and you sort of got used to the audience really being with you, did that energize you? Did that make you feel, you know, really great about going out and stage that night to do the show? Well, there were some shows that we could only do one night. Gigi was one of them. I guess that was a filler show. We didn't travel with that one. The ones that we traveled with, we were able to really enjoy. And every audience was completely different. Different people would react to different parts of the show differently. So you never really knew how they were going to react. So it was always a surprise. But yeah, that particular one, there were some shows we only did once. Other shows we would travel with, but that one was just once. We had some really interesting ones for the ones that we would say, let's see what happens tonight. What they're going to think about it, that kind of thing. And it would always be different. So it was interesting. I have a couple of funny stories, if you don't mind. I had one. I was doing the Mary widow. And we were getting ready to do Velia. And there's a short, like an interlude of music and a blackout and the curtain comes down. And the chorus members all sit around because we're going to do Velia. And the choreographer was supposed to twirl me around and whatever. And my dresser was pulling the zipper up on my dress and the zipper broke. And she says, I don't have time to even pin you into this because the curtain was going to go up and the music was starting and I had no way to get out of it. So I put my arms around my body like this and I could only just stick it with my hands going up this way and that way. And I said, thank God, I was not body mic in those days. And I said to the choreographer, don't twirl me around. And he said, okay. And I walked out and the chorus was like mortified because they could see that my dress was completely open in the back and they were saying, oh my God. So anyway, I did that number. It was hysterically funny. And in the end we laughed about that because it was funny. And it just happens and you've got to be able to go to the flow. You just have to go. You can't stop the show and say, wait a minute, my zipper is broken. You have to go on and do it regardless. You have to go out there without your clothes on. You go out without your clothes on. But you have to go out. So that was funny. That was funny. And interesting. You know, we may be running out of, you know, toward the end of the show. It's such a terrific show and I know it was one of your favorites. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And then I was hoping that we could sort of finish with you reading the the lyrics for the impossible because like I said. Absolutely. There is a picture of that as well, by the way. But anyway, La Mancha is a wonderfully inspirational show because it starts out. I understand that it's Cervantes and he's in the jail and he's acting out his book and so forth and so on and Aldonza, who is the scullery maid, if you will, in the in the story, he tries to make her into a lady and she walks at him the whole time and then when he's dying, she's finally believing her that she can be better than what she is. And so in the end, of course, she believes it and he dies and that's when she comes back at the end of the story and she sings that beautiful number and it's gorgeous and I'm only sorry that I couldn't get the clip for you because that's a pretty clip. You would have enjoyed the clip. So anyway, yeah. It's a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful show. I love it. Very inspirational, especially when you're down and you need that extra push to get you up. Wonderful, wonderful show. Very inspirational. Let me tell the audience before you read the lyric. Mary and I talked about this because both our cities have gone through both our areas have gone through really difficult time. The wildfires out in wildfires out in Maui and the hurricane, Adelia coming through and attacking at Tampa right where Mary lives at that eastern seaboard city. It's been very difficult for all of us and so many people are feeling down like Mary says, are feeling that life is so heavy and this song, especially of all the songs that Mary and I talked about was the one that is a song of hope and Mary and I wanted to dedicate this, you know, the reciting of the lyrics to all the people in Maui and Tampa and all the places that have affected by some of the disastrous climate change. So with that, for all you people, let me turn it back to Mary to take us through the impossible dream. This is for you, I know that you are not forgotten and we are thinking of you. To dream the impossible dream. To fight the unbearable foe. To bear with unbearable sorrow and run to where the brave dare not go. To write the unrightable wrong and to love pure and chased from afar. To try when your arms are too weary. To reach the unreachable star. This is my quest to follow that star no matter how hopeless no matter how far to fight for the right without question or pause to be willing to march into hell for that heavenly cause. And I know if I'll only be true to this glorious quest that my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I'm laid to my rest and the world will be better for this that one man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable star. Really appreciate you being on the show and sharing with us. Thank you. It was my pleasure. And thanks to all of you who tuned in. And thanks to the staff at Think Tech Hawaii, to Jay and Kaylee and Michael and Carol. And we hope you join us in two weeks because we're going to continue to look at some of the some of the subjects that may be helpful and it's crying at hard times. And in two weeks we'll be talking about loss and grieving and how to deal with that and find happiness to fight for. Thank you all for being with us. Aloha.