Donna McGarry Obituary, Donna McGarry Has Passed Away – Death Cause
Donna McGarry Obituary, Death – The news of the departure of our dear friend and fellow worker Donna McGarry (neé O’Connor) came to us today with a sense of profound loss and a feeling of profound heaviness in our hearts. Donna was an original member of Brassneck and helped guide the company forward as a member of our board of directors when it was first established. It was in her capacity as a member of that board that she brought to the attention of the corporation a script that she and Brenda Murphy had been collaborating on. The name of the one-woman show that was based on this script was “A Night With George.”
Instantly, we fell in love with it, and we set about looking for an actor who possessed the necessary gravitas to perform such a part. At this time, Donna informed us that we had a total of four hundred pounds in the bank and wished us “good luck finding someone.” After that, everything fell into place perfectly when one of the other board members suggested that Donna should play the role. Although Donna had been a part of many Dubbeljoint and Just Us performances in the past, she had never taken on anything even somewhat comparable to the challenge of performing a full-length one-woman show.
After considerable back and forth, with the awareness that we were completely out of money, we came to the conclusion that Donna should play the part. It seemed like the riskiest thing we’d ever do, but as soon as the rehearsals started, we realized that this was actually the least difficult choice we’d ever had to make.On the opening night of the play at the Roddys, just as our Artistic Director was about to take the stage to introduce the production, the set collapsed on top of him. An excellent beginning; the house was destroyed before we even got started.
The stage was put back together with the assistance of the entire front row of the audience, and once that was done, the performance could begin. After another hour and a half, we were treated to the loudest and most sustained standing ovation that we had ever received. No one of us, not even in our wildest imaginations, could have ever dreamed that this performance would turn out to be such an outstanding work of theater. The powerful, attractive, kind, bright, astute, and take-no-bullsh*t figure of Bridie Murphy that Donna had brought to life, from the page to the stage, absolutely blew the roof off of The Roddys. The only woman in the annals of theatrical history to have twice in the same night brought the house down with her performances.
