It’s true. Lee Mikeska Gardner, area arts administrator, director and actor – you may remember that Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal compared her memorable performance as “Crazy Terry”, alcoholic wife of jazz musician Gene in Side Man at 1st Stage to Edie Falco’s on Broadway – will become the artistic head of the Cambridge, Massachusetts Nora Theatre Company which has an operating budget of $1.9 million and 11 staff members.
Explaining what attracted her to this position, she told The Boston Globe “I was immediately grabbed by the part of the mission that says, we do theater with a feminine voice that jostles minds and hearts. It sort of spoke to me,” Gardner says. “I think I have the skills to take not just the Nora but the Central Square Theater in [the direction] they want to grow.”
For a while, she will be traveling between Cambridge and Washington DC.
We’ll have one more chance to see her perform, when she returns to 1st Stage for surely one of the most enjoyable roles every written for an actress.
She will play the eccentric, wealthy, tone deaf socialite who imagines herself to be a superb concert soprano in Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins. The play runs at the Tysons Corner theatre from February 7 to March 2. Details and tickets are here.
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