Meet Our Villain
My Three Angels Spotlight on Don Gingold
Don's quite excited to be in this production. You see, he's playing his first villain!
Don is President of our theatre company, and admits to a selfish reason for the hours put into running the company: "to be sure there's a stage for me and others to sing and dance!" Don's been a supporting character in many shows over the past 10 years like Fiddler, West Side Story, Barnum, Forum, Anything Goes, Camelot and Secret Garden.
He just finished South Pacific where he played several characters: Lt Buzz Adams, the Shore Patrolman, and a number of SeaBees that were combined into one (he asked for a bit part and got lots of bits!) In October he leads the troop in Ghost Stories in the Park... In the Dark.
But this is his first villain role and he hopes you'll love to hate him!
We asked him a few questions about the show and about his background.
Q. Who or what inspired you to start doing theater?
A. I started in grade school but fell away in HS and college (i’m too old to recall why :-) ). My daughter inspired me to return. We started Summer Place together in Fiddler on the Roof.
Q. What was the musical that had you fall in love with musicals?
A. Cinderella. I still have a crush on Leslie Ann Warren!
Q. What is the favorite role you've ever played?
A. The Ring Master & Bailey in Barnum! Not only was it a great role in that I love narrator roles and - spoiler alert - I transform into Bailey and sing the finale with Barnum, but the production was a lot of fun. Heather Hutchinson directed and Lynn Hodak produced and they made the process fun for all the actors. They even signed us up for circus gymnastics!
Q. What is the dream role you still want to play?
A. I just finished South Pacific and if I could only hit that high note in “Some enchanted evening” I’d want to play Emile. Maybe a little voice training? Lots of other great roles I’ve missed now that i’m older but still a few to do.
Q. Most challenging part of bringing this story to life?
A. Craig our director said I was too easy-going and needed to change drastically to become the vile and creepy villain Henri. I’m loving the work but keep telling my castmates “nothing personal!"
Q. Do you have any performance superstitions?
A. No, not really.
Q. If someone was going to make your life into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A. In reverse aging order: Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Bruhl, Tom Holland, and I don’t know who should play the child me. We’ll have to do a national talent search!
Q. What do you do when you’re not doing theater?
A. Is that even a thing? Actually, I’m doing too much. Besides running a company, I’m trying to remodel a house, so the plate's quite full right now.
Q. Which character from M3A would most like to have dinner with and why?
A. I can’t choose one. Joseph is a very clever guy. Jules is the romantic. I think the 3 of us would have a great conversation.
Q. Why should people come see this production of M3A?
A. First off, you won’t see it anywhere else, likely. It’s not done often. It’s light-hearted comedy with a simple message: don’t judge a book by it’s cover. The well-to-do man is the villain and the convicts are the heroes. It has very good writing and fast-paced delivery reminiscent of “Man who came to dinner.” And it’s got a great ensemble lead by a great director! Craig’s meticulous in his rehearsal scheduling and gives phenomenal notes. While other directors might just tell you “say it this way…”, Craig will give you the perfect real-life analogy so you know the intent and then you can come up with the right way of delivering the line. It’s a great collaboration and it’ll be obvious to the audience.
Come meet us in person at any of our My Three Angel performances!
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