1. CLIENT RECOMMENDATIONS
&
A PEEK AT PORTLAND OPERA’S THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE
CINDY SADLER
You really can't do better than Mary McDonald-Lewis as a dialect coach. Although
she has primarily worked with actors, who are accustomed to dialect work, she
adapted readily to the somewhat different dynamics of working with opera singers,
who rarely have this opportunity and have significantly different language training. It
was a joyful and intriguing process! MaryMac prepared the Portland Opera cast of
Pirates of Penzance with three different accents: RP, Cockney, and Cornish. The work
she did with the cast added to the success of the show immeasurably. I was excited to
be a member of Team Cornwall and adored the work we did together. I feel that not
only did I acquire a convincing Cornish accent, but a new skill set for working with
dialects, and I immediately engaged her to help with my next project, developing a Russian accent for my
appearance with Opera Syracuse as Prince Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus. (http://www.cindysadler.com/)
ROBERT ORTH
Mary McDonald-Lewis is a fantastic dialect coach. She is brilliant, patient,
insistent, and retains a sense of humor. She made our production of The Pirates of
Penzance so much more fun and much more interesting for the cast and the
audience than it would have been without her. (http://www.robertorth.com/)
BILL RAUCH
MaryMac’s passion for research, breadth of knowledge and organizational skills are
matched by her human touch. As a coach, she is positive, gentle, firm, warm and
intuitive. This isn’t “one size fits all” coaching: MaryMac’s pedagogy allows her to
reach actors no matter how they learn, and achieve results. Intelligence, humor and
wit are used in her approach, and the room is a happy place when actors are working
with her there. (Artistic Director, Oregon Shakespeare Festival)
Portland Opera adapts Oregon Shakespeare Festival's hit show, Pirates of Penzance
– excerpted from the Oregonian
Prepare to laugh. Prepare to have fun. Prepare to love Gilbert & Sullivan all
over again. It's the first collaboration between the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival and Portland Opera. But adapting Pirates from the outdoor
Elizabethan theater (1,200 seats) to the enormous Keller (3,000 seats)
required some tweaks. The Keller stage is more than double the size of the
outdoor stage, so director Bill Rauch added 12 people to the all-new cast.
Using the same set pieces, he pulled them forward over the edge of the
orchestra pit. He also inherited the Portland Opera orchestra of 44
musicians, compared to 14 in the Ashland production. Another difference is
using opera singers instead of actors. Rauch, OSF's artistic director, had never worked with opera singers before, and
says he's delighted with their acting skill. “Here, we have extraordinary singers with real acting chops. They are so
playful and open, not only the soloists, but the chorus, too.”