CLASSNOTES
Where are Coming home
theynow?
Stephen Sondheim. She has handwritten accolades from comedy writer Larry Gelbart and a letter from songwriter Jule After almost two decades on Styne. She opens a sandwich bag conBroadway, Kay McClelland taining a few of Anna’s props from “The cashed in her celebrity and King and I”—crocheted gloves, a coin returned to Georgia purse and parchment letters. “I was full of bravura and ego in by John English those days,” she remembers. “I took notes from every opening night, which Right after her graduation, Kay I’ve saved.” McClelland (AB ’81) moved to New That world is light years away from York City to begin an 18-year run as where she is now, at home in Tyrone, a starlet in Broadway musicals. As married with children. a singer and dancer, she became a McClelland decided to move back to series of show characters—Zaneeta Georgia in 1999 when her parents both Shinn in “The Music Man,” the evil became seriously ill. stepsister Florinda and the baker’s “I never expected to come back to wife in “Into the Woods,” Ruth in Georgia,” she admits, “but I began a “Wonderful Town,” Irene Roth in second life here then.” She reconnected “Crazy for You,” Gabbi/Bobbi in “City with and married her high school sweetof Angels” and others. heart, Todd Naugle. The couple has two “My favorite role was Anna children, a 10-year-old son named Taylor, Leonowens in ‘The King and I,’” she and an 8-year-old daughter, Ella. recalls during an interview in her sub By the time she decided to leave urban Atlanta home. “That show was New York, McClelland had become realpure joy. I signed on as an understudy, istic about the tradeoffs of a high-flying but ultimately did some 300 perforcareer path on The Great White Way. mances over two years,” she says. “You have got to be ambitious to Her memorabilia inclues a photograph stay up there and I wasn’t willing to do of her with the late actor Christopher that. It’s really hard work, with almost no Reeves and another with composer time to play,” she says. The last show she was in was the 1998 revival of “The Sound of Music,” playing the Baroness, the one Captain von Trapp doesn’t marry. “For the part, I needed to be acerbic, which I’m clearly not,” she says with a raucous laugh. McClelland says she never thought she was much of an actor, but UGA drama professor Stanley Longman, who directed her in a student JOAN MARCUS production of ShakeKay McClelland and Christopher Coucill in “Crazy for speare’s “The Taming of You,” a Gershwin musical comedy at the Schubert Theatre in 1996. the Shrew” in Cortona,
KAY MCCLELLAND
Italy, thought otherwise. “She was stunning in her rendering of the sharp-tongued, illtempered Kate and audiences loved her. On Broadway Kay performed to stunning reviews,” he says. In the mid-’80s, she had roles in Neil Simon’s film “The Slugger’s Wife” and in the TBS soap opera “The Catlins.” “But I didn’t translate well into film,” she says. “My life is on a whole different time frame now,” she says. “I’m up at 6 to get the kids off to school. I want to be a role model for my kids, so I follow the rules more. It’s been a huge adjustment becoming a parent after being a crazy single for many years. I live in a quite different world now and don’t keep in touch with many friends from those days.” Not many people in Tyrone know of her lustrous theatrical career. And McClelland’s fine with that. “I still take dance lessons to stay in shape,” she says. “My dance teacher knows.” —John W. English, a professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Georgia, is a frequent contributor to GM.
Where are they now? is a feature in GM that spotlights students who made a name for themselves while at UGA. Have a standout classmate you’d like to catch up on? Email Kelly Simmons at simmonsk@uga.edu.
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