WaterTower Theatre to Host 2nd Annual Women in Theatre Series

WaterTower Theatre Producing Artistic Director Terry Martin today announced details for the second annual WOMEN IN THEATRE series. The event is presented under the auspices of Women of WaterTower Theatre (WOW!) and it is co-chaired by Karol Omlor and Andrea Redmon. This is the second lecture in the series (the first was held last year and featured female directors), and it will be held on Tuesday, March 22, 2016 from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm (with a post-lecture reception in the lobby with the artists). The event will be held in the Main Space at WaterTower Theatre. The lecture will be moderated by the Dallas Observer's Arts and Culture Editor Lauren Smart, and features Pam Dougherty, Jenny Ledel, Denise Lee, Sarah Elizabeth Smith and Wendy Welch.

Tickets to the lecture are $10 per person and are on sale now at 972-450-6232 or online at www.watertowertheatre.org. All ticket proceeds go to support WaterTower Theatre's artistic and education programs. The ticket includes the lecture and a reception with the artists afterwards.

The objective of the event is to explore challenges, issues and opportunities women working in the theatre face. Each of the actresses will bring personal insights, from a uniquely female perspective, about their experiences navigating the often challenging world of theatre.

The Women in Theatre committee includes Co-Chairs Karol Omlor, Andrea Redmon and members Rose Colarossi, Kelsey Leigh Ervi, Terry Martin and Greg Patterson.

In almost 40 years as a professional actress, Pam Dougherty has performed on WaterTower stages (14 shows!) more than any other theater in the area. She has been acclaimed for her work here as pill-ridden Violet Weston in the Pulitzer Prize winner August: Osage County, as the bawdy Jeannette in The Full Monty and as Big Edie in Grey Gardens. Other favorite WTT shows include Cabaret, The Laramie Project, Good People, Hank Williams: Lost Highway and The Spitfire Grill. She played Mrs. Dubose in the Casa Manana/Dallas Theater Center co-production of To Kill A Mockingbird, and in Good Ol' Girls at the historical Barter Theatre in Virginia. Work at other North Texas theaters include Casa Manana, Theatre Three, Echo, Second Thought, Uptown, and multiple roles at Stage West. She is currently performing as Mama in Night, 'Mother at another theater she calls "home" - Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre. Performances at OKCRep include The Grapes of Wrath, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Hay Fever, Our Town, and August: Osage County.

Pam also works frequently in film, television and radio. Recent movie roles include a crazy evangelist in the remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown (with Ed Hermann and Veronica Cartwright) and Finding Normal, with Candace Cameron Bure. Recent TV appearances include roles in The Lying Game, Dallas, In Plain Sight, Chase, and The Deep End. She has voiced numerous political radio spots for gubernatorial, senate and congressional races across the U.S., and frequently voices characters in the anime, animation and video game industry. Most recently she's taken up recording audio books, and is having a blast! You can find her titles on Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Jenny Ledel is an actor living in Dallas, TX where she is a company member at Kitchen Dog Theatre. Her theatrical credits include Trinity Shakespeare Festival, WaterTower Theatre, Theatre Three, Second Thought Theatre, Texas Shakespeare Festival, The Dallas Museum of Art, Undermain Theatre and Shakespeare Dallas. Jenny is a multiple recipient of the DFW Critics Forum Award for Best Actress as well as a playwright. Jenny was chosen to be a part of the first Playwriting Workshop at the Dallas Theater Center with Will Power. Her film and television credits include Karma Police, Spider Veins, and One Tree Hill.

Denise Lee is an award-winning actress, singer and down-to-earth diva! Her powerful voice, warm and friendly demeanor, and her sassy and sensual performance style has charmed theater, nightclub and television audiences for more than two decades. Lee is based in Dallas but the world is her home. She has an impressively diverse local following at R&B and jazz venues like 2Kats Live and at area theaters, such as the Dallas Theater Center, AT&T Performing Arts Center, Bass Hall, WaterTower Theatre, Casa Manana and the Sammons Center for the Arts. Her musical magic has delighted international crowds at clubs in Shanghai, Beijing, Switzerland and France. When left to her own devices, Lee performs cabaret style, combining all of her favorite things-singing, acting and bantering with her fans and smitten devotees. Her talents are on full display in her one-woman show, "Denise Lee Sings the Divas of American Music," which she performed in January to a packed house at the Dallas Winspear Theater. In the show, Lee celebrates the music of Lena Horne, Billy Holliday, Bonnie Rait, Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Carole King, Whitney Houston and other legends who inspired her, but delivers it with her own unique voice and singing style. Lee's other musical and theater performances include The Sunshine Boys - with Dick & Jerry Van Dyke; Crowns - Directed by playwright Regina Taylor, The Wiz, A Christmas Carol, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, Doubt, Avenue Q and Intimate Apparel.

Her television and film acting credits include roles in 'Mad Money', with Diane Keaton, 'Cowgirls & Angels', with James Cromwell, 'Dallas', 'Memphis Beat' , 'Good Guys' and 'The Lying Game' as well as numerous commercials and corporate industrials.

Sarah Elizabeth Smith holds a B.F.A. in Theatre Performance from Baylor University. She received a 2013-2014 DFW Theater Critics Forum Award for Best Actress. Select regional theatre credits include Creep, Bonnie & Clyde, Putting It Together at WaterTower Theatre, The Boy from Oz and Kiss of the Spider Women at UpTown Players, The Mystery of Edwin Drood at PFamily Arts and City of Angels at Theatre Three.

Wendy Welch appeared in WaterTower Theatre/Stage West co-production of Sexy Laundry this season, and in the Studio last season at WaterTower Theatre. Other WTT shows include Violet and Enter the Guardsman. She has played Sonia in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike at Uptown Players, CityRep in OKC and Stage West in Forth Worth. A sampling of her favorite roles include Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman, Dolly Levi in The Matchmaker, Margaret Johnson in The Light in the Piazzo, The Storyteller in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Rose Stopnik in Caroline, or Change, Sally Durant Plummer in Follies, Emily Cory in Richard Cory. She is the recipient of a Leon Rabin Award, 3 Critics Choice Awards, and she and Bob Hess shared the honor of Best Actor in 2014 by the Dallas Voice. Wendy has a B.F.A. in Acting from SMU. She has a private voice studio, and has taught various classes in voice, diction, acting and musical theatre at SMU, USI, OCU, Dallas Theater Center, Lyric Stage, Dallas Ballet Center, Northlake College and Richland College. Wendy is active in the commercial/broadcast industry and a sampling of credits include two national JC Penny television spots, a spot for Baylor Hospital, and Blackmon Mooring. Her film credits include Shane Carruth's Upstream Color and the soon to be released Occupy, Dallas.

Lauren Smart is an arts writer and educator based in Dallas. Her work as a writer and critic has appeared in Dallas Morning News, Arts + Culture Texas, CultureMap Dallas, Where Traveler, American Theatre Magazine, among others. She is the arts and culture editor for the Dallas Observer and an adjunct journalism professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she teaches arts writing and criticism. She's been a critic fellow at the Chautauqua Institution, the O'Neill Theater Center and a resident critic at the Shreveport Regional Arts Council. She's published poetry in several literary journals. She holds a master's in arts journalism from Syracuse University and bachelor's degrees in journalism and English from Southern Methodist University.

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