10-1-13 – Audio Interview

June Garber always knew that she was born to be performer. She had a natural voice (wait till you hear it!) and at four years old would pack her little suitcase with everything she needed to be a star (again wait till you hear what she packed) and go two streets down to “Hollywood.” June knew what she needed to be and do from the very beginning of her life but the circumstances of her life made it very difficult. A step father and later a husband forbid her to sing or perform and as a girl raised in her generation she obeyed. But June never forgot who she was and finally found a way to pursue what she was meant to do. Listen to this inspiring story and to a couple of cuts from her CD and you too will be glad she persevered.

7-17-12 Interview

Joanna McClelland Glass is a writer. Her play “Play Memory” directed by the legendary Hal Prince was nominated for a Tony Award. Both of her novels were published and optioned for film and she adapted both of the screenplays. Woman Wanted was directed by and starred Kiefer Sutherland, Holly Hunter and Michael Moriarty. But Joanna’s heart is in the theatre and her playwriting credits are much too extensive to include here. With all this talent and skill one might assume that Joanna had a privileged childhood and lots of training. No! Joanna’s childhood included an illiterate mother and an alcoholic father, who sold everything not nailed down to pay for his liquor. True to the culture of her time Joanna married young, worked to send her husband to graduate school, had three children very close in age and settled into the role of traditional wife and mother. It was not until, approaching 40; as the divorced mother of 3 young children, that she seriously turned her attention to her writing. Having announced that she was going to “try to support this whole thing with her writing,” Joanna says she simply had to “get kids on the bus and sit at the desk and do something.” And without any training – she had to learn the rules of her trade on the job – that is exactly what she did. And the quantity and quality of what her work is quite extraordinary. Listen to this woman’s inspiring story.