I am sad about this.
Sincerely,
Hector J. Trau
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Curtain call
Remembering Cynthia Owen
Saturday, July 12, 2008
David Cuthbert
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Hyperlink to www.nola.com obituary:
http//www.legacy.com/nola/DeathNotices.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=113083355
The Guest Book may be signed at this hyperlink:
http://www.legacy.com/nola/GB/GuestbookView.aspx?PersonId=113083355
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An addition.
Please see this topic for the Memorial Service Information:
http://www.stageclick.com/topic/2122.aspx
Thank you.
HJT
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I am modifying me orginal post with the text of th articles below. To see pictures and videos, copy and paste the URLs into your Internet Browser. I am sorry I can not get the URls to display as hyperlinks.
Thank you.
HJT
Popular local singer Cynthia Owen, 44, dies in Las Vegas
03:45 PM CDT on Monday, July 7, 2008
Dominic Massa / www.wwltv.com
The New Orleans theater community is mourning the death of a well-known local singer and actress.
Cynthia Owen, 44, died Sunday in Las Vegas of an apparent accidental overdose of painkillers.
Her mother, local actress Lyla Hay Owen, said Cynthia had suffered from back problems and other ailments in recent years.
A 2003 Gambit Weekly article described Cynthia Owen as “one of those timeless entities of New Orleans theater. She is not so much a performer as a force of nature. Singer, actress, director, choreographer, teacher – the multiple Big Easy Entertainment Award winner's energy knows few boundaries.”
A veteran of local musical theater and cabaret performances (fans still talk about her performances in local stagings of Cabaret and Sweet Charity), Owen was scheduled to perform in Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre’s production of Pal Joey last month, but an illness prevented her from performing.
Owen is the daughter of Lyla Hay Owen, who is also a well-known local actress.
Owen was a frequent performer on the Eyewitness Morning News and the Angela show in the 1990s.
“Cynthia will be best remembered by those of us who knew her as a vivacious woman with a monster talent,” said WWL-TV anchor Eric Paulsen. “Her death is a loss to this city, her friends and family and to the business she loved.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.
http://www.wwltv.com/topstories/stories/wwl070708cbowen.317ddd32.html
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Singer Cynthia Owen dies at 44
Posted by David Cuthbert, Theater writer, The Times-Picayune July 07, 2008 4:15AM
Categories: Breaking News, Living: Arts and Entertainment
Actress-singer Cynthia Owen, who grew up in front of New Orleans theater audiences, died Sunday night in Las Vegas, on the eve of her 45th birthday.
Ms. Owen was in Las Vegas with a friend to see Bette Midler at Caesar's Palace, her mother, actress Lyla Hay Owen said. She was pronounced dead at Desert Springs Hospital, according to the Las Vegas Coroner's Office, where her death remains unclassified.
Actress-singer Cynthia Owen passed away Sunday, July 6, on the eve of her 45th birthday. Pictured here, as "Sweet Charity" for the Jefferson Performing Arts Society in Januaryof 2004.Ms. Owen, who lived in New York City, was in New Orleans last month for rehearsals of "Pal Joey" at Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre. She was to play the reporter Melba and sing Rodgers & Hart's "Zip." But a sciatica attack sent her to the hospital and prevented her from doing the show.
"Without her, I cut the song and the scene it appeared in," said Michael Howard, director of Tulane Summer Lyric Theater. "Her voice was so powerful, and she could also sing pianissimo notes that would break your heart. She floored me from the moment I first heard her. This was a girl whose voice made the hair stand up on the back of your neck. So vulnerable and sweet and spiritual, and it all came out in her voice. She held notes longer than the orchestra could."
Howard cast her as "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" at Summer Lyric when she was 18 and her talent at belting a song led to her portraying many of musical theater's most demanding roles: Sally Bowles in "Cabaret," Nancy in "Oliver!" and Annie Oakley in "Annie Get Your Gun!" at Summer Lyric, Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" and the title role in "Evita" at Rivertown Repertory Theatre, "Sweet Charity" at both Rivertown and the Jefferson Performing Arts Society.
Together with Harry Mayronne Jr. and Chris Wecklein, she created a long-running cabaret act that played a variety of local venues. She also sang solo and with her mother at Le Chat Noir, recording a solo album, "Light and Love," for the Louisiana Music Factory.
Her professional engagements also included gigs on the riverboats Robert E. Lee and the American Queen, a touring company of "Nine," a year at the Theater Factory in St. Louis, and bouncing between Los Angeles and New York, doing a cabaret show on Catalina Island and a stint as an ABC spokesperson interviewing stars.
"What a talent," said Le Petit Theatre director Sonny Borey of Cynthia Owen. "A very sweet and talented lady who always wanted to please." Ms. Owen never graduated from high school, but earned her general equivalency diploma, "so I could go on performing," she said in a 2004 interview. She attended Loyola University, served an internship at the Sacramento (Calif.) Music Circus and studied at Boston's Actor's Center. In recent years, she had started directing children's theater, working with what is now the NORD/Crescent City Lights Youth Theater. "As amazingly talented as she was, she wanted to teach," said Francine Segal, her friend and Loyola theater instructor.
She first appeared on the stage at 7 at the Children's Corner of Le Petit Theatre, where her mother wrote musicals and where director Luis Barroso cast her as Jane Banks in "Mary Poppins."
"She already had charm and stage presence," Barroso said, "but she had this little voice, which is unbelievable when you consider the voice it became. I'd sit in the back row and say, 'Sing so the person who's back here can hear you.' And I took her to the main stage, so she could see what working for a big house was like. She worked at it and developed this great Mermanesque voice."
After a string of musicals at the Children's Corner, Ms. Owen worked at her mother's theater, the People Playhouse, and at NORD Theatre under Ty Tracy's direction. "A great training ground," Ms. Owen said in past interviews about the experience. "I had to learn to hold my own." By the time she was 16, her voice knocked audiences for a loop in a Cole Porter revue singing "Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor."
She appeared at virtually every theater in New Orleans, including the Contemporary Arts Center in "The Class of 70-Something," directed by Carl Walker. "An extraordinary singer," Walker said, "a voice we have never heard the likes of around here."
Ms. Owen returned to Le Petit in recent years, this time the main stage, for "Leader of the Pack" and "The Full Monty."
"What a talent," said Le Petit Theatre director Sonny Borey. "A very sweet and talented lady who always wanted to please."
In addition to her mother, she is survived by her husband, Jim Holmes of New York City and a sister, Robin Owen of San Francisco. A memorial service is planned, but no details are yet available.
Theater writer David Cuthbert can be reached at dcuthbert@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3468.
http://blog.nola.com/davidcuthbert/2008/07/singer_cynthia_owen_dies_at_44.html