Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Margaret Curry. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Margaret, appreciate you joining us today. Have you ever had an amazing boss, mentor or leader leading you? Can you us a story or anecdote that helps illustrate why this person was such a great leader and the impact they had on you or their team?
In my late twenties, after a decade of it being my “side gig,” I left the restaurant industry, a bit wary and bruised. I started temping and was sent to a graphic design company owned and run by two of the most amazing people I’d ever worked with. They truly appreciated their employees and expressed that appreciation often. They also worked very hard themselves and yet had a great attitude and created a positive environment even when under pressure. Their ethic and style made us feel safe, appreciated, and we looked forward to coming to work each day. It made us all want to go beyond our best. It made us a team. It taught me how the people at the top set the tone and that it all trickles down from them. As someone who is now stepping into leadership roles as a producer and director, I carry that with me. Doug and Jan Wright were fantastic models of the kind of leader I want to be and of the kind of environment I want to create on set and in any production: one of mutual respect, expressed appreciation, with creativity, passion and enjoyment in the work itself as our compass.
Margaret, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
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I’m an award-winning actress, singer, director, producer and writer with extensive training and experience on stage and film, including 300 + performances as Titania in the Off-Broadway hit “Fools in Love, The Musical” and two Equity National tours playing Karin in the musical “Church Basement Ladies.” Most recently, I play Susan Baker in the soon-to-be-release holiday feature film “Merry Good Enough,” written and directed by Caroline Keene, directed by Caroline and Dan Kennedy, starring Joel Murray, Raye Levine, Sawyer Spielberg, Comfort Clinton, Neil Casey and Susan Gallagher. “Merry Good Enough” just had its North American premiere at the New Hampshire Film Festival where it won “Best NH Feature Narrative.”I am so proud of the film – it’s poignant and funny, an you just might recognize yourself and your family in it! IMDb page for “Merry Good Enough:” https://www.imdb.com/ Other film roles include the lead role in Shira Levin’s poignant award-winning independent feature film “Starfish” (streaming on Amazon Prime) and playing Attorney Andrews in Young Films’ “Diamond Ruff,” directed by Alec Asten, also on Amazon. I’ve appeared in 13 national and regional commercials, including Carnival Cruises, Spike TV, Jello Mousse and Cuisinart. I’m also a director, specializing in solo performances. Favorite directing credits include directing, co-writing and -producing the one-woman short play “An Evening with Eva: Waiting for Adolf,” as well as directing the US premier of Brian Eley’s “Some Things are Just Too Big for Numbers.” I’m currently producing and starring in a theatre project directed by Mark Cirnigliaro to be performed at The Flea Theatre in NYC in February 2024 with my production company Deep Flight Productions: two short plays by Langford Wilson that explore questions around identity and how we’re shaped by where – and who – we come from. I’m also co-writing-producing- As a singer, I’ve had the honor of sharing the stage with such luminaries as Leslie Uggams, Carol Channing, Billy Stritch, Amanda Green and Ann Hampton Callaway, appearing as a soloist or featured performer at the Kaplan Auditorium at Lincoln Center, the Allen Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Hudson Guild Theatre and many of NYC’s hottest nightclubs and cabaret venues as well as Davenport’s in Chicago ad Nashvilles’ The Jazz Cave. My solo cabaret debut show “in the meanwhile…” played to sold out houses in NYC, garnering critical praise. Theatermania said a “fine cabaret artist and …she is already exceptional.” Newer-than-not to the cabaret stage, I’ll be debuting my current solo cabaret show “The Space In-Between,” in November at The Laurie Beechman Theatre in New York City. I’m thrilled to be creating intimate theatrical experiences through music and text together with amazing collaborators – the musicians, songwriters, director, sound and light technicians and, always, the audiences. In “the Space In-Between, I explore the spaces in-between. The universe between the present and the future, the bad and the good, the hope and what’s-to-come. Through both song and story, I unwrap it all with music, lyrics and distinctive rhythms. From compositions by Johnny Mercer and Yip Harburg all the way to Chaka Khan, Roy Orbison and Jimmy Webb, I tell my story (and some of ours) with the musical aid of Award-winning arranger Gregory Toroian at the piano, Skip Ward on bass and David Silliman on the drums. Direction by cabaret luminary Lina Koutrakos. Tickets are available at: https://bit.ly/lbt- |
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Through much of the early part of my career, I got caught up in trying to “make” myself whatever I thought “they” wanted me to be in order to get work. As an artist, unfortunately, I think it’s a easy trap to begin to perceive of yourself as lacking something important to your moving forward – especially now in the days of such a continual onslaught of information coming through social media: classes and offerings and videos and tips, all designed to sell products and approaches to the industry and acting and performing, marketing, growing your social media presence, etc. Much of those things are wonderful. Many are perhaps needed. Helpful. But it’s so easy to keep feeling like you just don’t have some certain thing in place that is the key to “making it.” That you have to do this or that or else “it” won’t happen for you. To stay in a holding pattern. To believe that you do not have enough or are not enough.
All of the projects that I am most proud of and felt most fulfilled doing came through my moving forward in curiosity, passion and joy from a centered space of allowing myself to show up as authentically as I could. Letting myself be where and what I was at the time. The more I have trusted my own insights and ideas, my own vision – the more I find and use my own unique voice – the more I have found others responding to me in a way that has felt self-empowering and creatively exciting.
I’m all for collaboration with teachers and mentors, learning and expansion. I’m fully committed to lifelong development of my craft and self. But. There’s a world of difference between being open to guidance and new information and turning to “others” for “the answer,” “the way.” I think that new-to-the-industry actors are especially susceptible to feeling that they don’t know enough or have enough, to move forward and put themselves and their work out in “the industry” without this or that product, this or that class, this or that teacher.
I’d tell my younger self: begin with and build around a base of knowing that who you are at your root is more than enough. There are alot of teachers out there – learning is great – but be discerning. Find other actors at levels you want to be at who’ve had very positive experiences with programs or people and then consider those paths, those people. But always, always, know and lovingly protect your own inner-artist, your own self as creator. You are what you’ve got to contribute to whatever projects you join. Honor and treat yourself with care. Trust your own guidance above all.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
As a performer and as a director, producer and writer, I seek to give voice to the people who’ve not been able to tell their story, either because they’ve been oppressed or overlooked, and to shed light on inconvenient but crucial truths. To bring the elephant in the room out of the shadows and into the light so that understanding and potential movement can occur. I have a soft spot for the seemingly ordinary moments and people in life – the underdog, the unsung hero – the quiet, small moments that sometimes hold a lifetime.
It’s my mission through Deep Flight Productions and any role I create to collaborate deeply and bravely to create stories that inspire, entertain, educate, elicit and evoke. To give voice to the voiceless and help the invisible to be seen. To wake people up so that they may embrace the duality of their lives to live life more fully and authentically. Always seeking to dive and dig deep into all things human, ever-curious about why we do what we do, I’m continually striving to remind and cajole myself and my audiences to dig deeper, fly higher.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.margaretcurry.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/margaretacurry
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Image Credits
Caroline White