Gale McNeeley and Méami Maszewski are at polar opposite points in their acting careers, but the unlikely duo connect over one thing–the classic songs from the Broadway tradition.
McNeeley’s acting career began more than 50 years ago on Broadway, but he’s lived in Santa Maria since the 1980s when PCPA, the Pacific Conservatory Theatre, brought him to town. PCPA also brought the 22-year-old Maszewski to Santa Maria from her hometown of Stockton in 2015, and she graduated from the conservatory last year and is currently working as an intern on recent and current productions.
The two first met in a class McNeeley teaches at the conservatory, but he didn’t hear Maszewski sing until he judged the acting category for the Santa Maria Arts Council’s annual grants competition in 2017. Maszewski wowed all the judges with her singing and acting that year and took the first place grant. McNeeley said he’s wanted to collaborate with the up-and-coming performer ever since.
“The way I thought it in my mind is, ‘If there’s one singer I’d like to perform with, it would be Méami, but I didn’t know if she’d be available,” McNeeley said. “She was in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and now she’s in Mamma Mia!“
Despite her busy schedule with PCPA, Maszewski made the time for a one-off matinee concert on Aug. 25 at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Maria, where the two will present the show If We Only Have Love: A Love Song Cabaret.
For Maszewski, music was the first artistic love in her life before acting. She was in an R&B vocal group, Beloved Sister, with her three sisters before they all went their separate ways in pursuit of higher education. After beginning at PCPA as a student and learning stagecraft, and then performing in musicals, something clicked, she said.
“It was that link for me where I realized that I had always been an actor, even when [Beloved Sister] performed in public,” she said, “I was always like, way more on intention, and I had so much energy, and the stakes were really high.”
When it came to choosing songs for the concert, McNeeley looked to classics from Broadway and the Great American Songbook. Tunes like “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “Makin’ Whoopee,” and “Stardust” are old standards that McNeeley’s usual audience loves, he said, but Maszewski brings her own interpretation to the table.
“I wondered in a way, we’re so different in age, but I think that’s OK,” McNeeley said. “We’re two individuals who have voices and we have a point of view about the songs we sing, and that’s all you really need.”
But Maszewski has chosen several numbers of her own, including a couple of songs she will sing solo.
“We’re definitely doing music from your contemporary and my contemporary,” Maszewski said to McNeeley.
“But she’s doing more of my era,” McNeeley laughed.
One of the contemporary pieces is from the musical Oliver, she explained, called “As Long as He Needs Me,” which was introduced to her by PCPA instructor Brad Carroll. After seeing a few different interpretations of that song, it “changed my view of doing a solo love song,” Maszewski said.
Another of her solos is a Sam Smith song called “Writing’s on the Wall,” which she described as “very melodic and kind of sad.” But most of the songs on the program are duets.
One song that Maszewski is looking forward to is their interpretation of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which is more of a comedic love song.
“Because it’s in the summer, it’s ironic to me,” she said. “I like irony, and I’ve only ever heard this song during Christmastime.”
Many of the songs are playful and comedic, they explained, like “You’re Just in Love,” which was first performed by Donald O’Connor and Ethel
Merman in the 1953 film Call Me Madam.
McNeeley said that was one of the first songs the two “really clicked on” during rehearsals, where their “voices melded real nice in the harmony.”
“There’s a counterpoint,” McNeeley explained. “I have a melody and I’m done; she has a melody and she’s done; and then the two melodies go against each other for the third part of the song.
“It’s really nice,” he added, “and Méami has a feeling for those things already, she feels the way the music comes together. No one had to tell her.”
Maszewski’s time singing with her sisters definitely informs the way she approaches duets like that, she explained.
“I feel like when you do a duet or four-part harmony or any kind of music where you’re doing more than one person, you have to be a listener,” she said. “You have to be as much listening as you are giving, and so I feel like blending and harmonizing is super important to me, and I just want to make sure that I’m not overpowering anybody.”
Supporting the two singers with piano accompaniment in the show is Lynne Garrett, local piano teacher and Santa Maria Philharmonic Orchestra member. Garrett is classically trained and earned a doctorate in piano performance, so she brings a polished and learned style to the ensemble.
It’s ideal for a soloist or a pair of singers Maszewski said, calling Garrett a “generous” accompanist.
“Working with her is such a gift because she has a classical approach to the music, which really works with a lot of the solos,” Maszewski said. “She takes some artistic liberties as well, which I love.”
For McNeeley, who schedules at least one or two solo concerts each year, working with Maszewski and Garrett has been a refreshing experience.
“The songs I’ve picked, I know already,” he said. “It’s nice to watch the two women work together and feeling the songs through.”
The concert is Maszewski’s first project of that kind, showcasing duets with a Broadway twist, but the young performer is embarking on a lot of firsts. She recently signed on with the Great American Melodrama, she said, and will join the cast there just after PCPA’s production of Mamma Mia! ends.
But the show with McNeeley is a chance to catch Maszewski’s rising star in a smaller, more intimate venue in Santa Maria before the stage takes her elsewhere.
“I’m moving to New York in January,” she said. “New York’s calling.”
Managing Editor Joe Payne loves an old jazz standard. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 16-23, 2018.