Moe Harrington: Passion for Acting, singing

She had her first audition in the early 1980s — it was disaster, she said. That only encouraged her to get better and better

By Mary Beth Roach

 

“Everything in my life has led to the next thing.”

With this belief, local actress and cabaret performer Moe Harrington has taken her life experiences — from her inauspicious first audition — and has built a career that has included a wide range of roles, whether they be on the stage, with area nonprofits, government or as a licensed massage therapist.

That first stage audition was memorable — but maybe for all the wrong reasons.

It was the early 1980s, and Harrington was studying theater at Onondaga Community College when she decided to try out for a part in a summer production.

She sang two notes, froze, ran off the stage, went outside and got sick in a bush.

After recouping, she decided there was only one way to go — up.

And she certainly did that and she joked that she has come to love auditioning.

She has aced countless tryouts and over the past 40-plus years the 65-year-old has toured extensively through many of the eastern states and in Central New York. She has been cast locally in such diverse roles as Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate” and Founding Father John Adams.

In the early 2000s, she was working with pianist Jeff Unaitis on “Tapestry: The Music of Carole King” for the Contemporary Theatre of Syracuse and the pair would team up to make beautiful music and entertaining shows together.

Of the “Tapestry” show, Unaitis said, it “was such an amazing production and the six performers and four musicians bonded unlike any other show I had done.”

“It was shortly after that when Moe asked if I’d be interested in becoming her music director for a one-woman show she’d been thinking about doing. I jumped at the opportunity,” he said.

“She loves to sing songs that tell a story and allow her to use her amazing acting skills. I think we both like emotional songs and I’ll admit nothing makes us happier than if somebody comes up after a show and says that we made them cry,” he added.

Over the past 20-plus years, Harrington and Unaitis have done cabaret shows, too numerous to count. Many of them have been fundraisers for organizations that are important to them.

But her roles are not limited to the stage. She has worked as a communications director and constituent liaison for State Assemblyman Al Stirpe; she had an unsuccessful run for council in the town of Camillus, where she currently resides; and she worked for ACR Health for 10 years and was the development associate for the Q Center, its LGBTQ youth center.

Currently, she is director of mission delivery for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Central New York, helping to grant wishes for seriously ill youngsters.

 

Taking her acting career on the road

After graduating from OCC, she decided to pursue an acting career on the road.

“I felt like I needed to try it and see what I could do. I needed to see how I measure up to other people in other areas,” she said.

She traveled for about seven years and one of her most favorite jobs during this time was with the prestigious Birmingham Children’s Theatre in Alabama. Calling it a wonderful learning experience, although her biggest lesson came from a youngster. Harrington explained that the theater had two casts, so in addition to performing, building costumes and painting sets, each group of actors watched the other’s shows.

She was in the theater watching “Beauty and the Beast,” when one of the kids from the audience shouted, ‘I can’t hear you.’

“There is nothing in the world that will make you learn quicker than performing for a bunch of kids,” she said, laughing. “You never forget that kind of feedback.”

Since then, she always remembers to project to the back to the last row.

But after so many years traveling, she was growing weary.

It was when she was invited to an actress friend’s 50th birthday party that she decided that while the on-the-road lifestyle worked for her friend, she didn’t want to be 50 and relocating to different cities every few months.

“I just realized in that moment that I wanted to do more. I wanted to have a home. I wanted to have a child. I didn’t want to consistently be on the road,” she said.

Following the passing of two of her grandparents and her stepfather, all within six months, she decided it was time to return to her native Syracuse.

Returning to Central New York, she got a job with the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse in Auburn, where she performed, helped direct the children’s theater there and handled travel logistics for the troupe.

And her return also meant a return to many of Central New York’s stages, where she landed some of her most favorite roles, including Keely in “Pete ‘n’ Keely,” a musical comedy about a divorced couple who reunite for a TV special. Unaitis produced and directed the music for the show and the show’s playwright, James Hindman, even traveled from New York to see the CNY production, giving the cast his highest praise, Unaitis said.

Of the roles she has played, she said, “There has to be something about it that I love or something about it that piques my interest.”

A character that most certainly fits that criteria had to be Mrs. Robinson, from the Covey Theatre’s production of “The Graduate.” As Harrington explained, another actress had been cast but had to bow out, “and the role came to a very lucky me.”

“She was unlike any character I had played — wicked, a horrible mother,” she pointed out.

There was a nude scene in the play, which Harrigton believed was essential to show the character’s mental health status. But yet, she was concerned about how her daughter, Mae, would react.

“I remember we had a private dress rehearsal. Mae came into the dressing room after and I thought, ‘Oh God, I hope this is not going to embarrass her.’ She looked at me and said, ‘Mom, you’re beautiful.’ That was the only review I needed,” Harrington said.

Earlier this year, Harrington took on the role of John Adams in the Baldwinsville Theatre Guild’s production of “1776: The Musical.”

She admitted she was nervous taking on such a big role, since it had been about 10 years since she had done a full musical, but she found it compelling that the show, with an all-female cast, was being staged during the country’s 250th anniversary.

She found inspiration for this role in Adams’ shoes, which had big buckles and were slightly painful.

“I loved that because he was slightly uncomfortable during the entire period, that whole month and a half of writing and talking and debating and cajoling people during the entire period,” she said.

Her motivation, too, comes from her need to challenge herself, but also the respect she has for her audiences.

“There is a tremendous responsibility to the audience. These are people that are walking in; they’re giving you two to three hours of their time; they’re laying down hard cold cash. There’s a responsibility for you to know your lines, to be present, to be in the moment, to be engaged and have a direction,” she said.

 

Away from the stage

It was while working for Assemblyman Stirpe that she learned of some job openings at the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Although she had been very happy working in the state assemblyman’s office, she was becoming disheartened with the tenor of the political climate. So, she reached back out to Make-A-Wish and went to work there.

“You’re the one kind of bringing hope and joy and maybe trying to create a few good memories, which is wonderful,” she said.

Long before she became a staff member at the Make-A-Wish Foundation, she helped to grant a young girl’s wish. The youngster had wanted to travel to Disney World and meet the princesses. Unfortunately, her condition didn’t allow her to make that trip. So, Make-A-Wish asked if Harrington could perform various Disney songs for her. Of course, she was only too happy to oblige.

More recently, she helped grant the wish of a young Central New York boy to make a movie called Marshall Man, which tells the story of a character who has three superpowers, one of which was to vomit on command. When asked about this particular attribute, the youngster replied that when he got really sick, he would throw up and it would make him feel terrible. He was going to put a positive spin on that and when his character got sick, it would make his evil nemesis go away. The crew from the American High movie studio in Liverpool assisted with the production.

Harrington believed it was only fitting to have a premiere, so she worked with the Landmark Theatre to pull it off, with the boy arriving in a black limo and walking an orange carpet into the theater.

 

Don’t Bring Down the Curtain Just Yet

Moe Harrington is far from taking her final curtain call.

“I’ve still got one or two more musicals in me,” she said, adding that she’d love to play Mama Rose from the classic, “Gypsy.”

“I don’t know if I have the chops for it. But we’ll see,” she said.

She and Unaitis are planning a cabaret show in 2027.

 

 

Rich Roles, Amusing Anecdotes

Moe Harrington cannot only entertain with her roles, but with anecdotes, although space here only allows for the retelling of a couple.

For example, she told of a time was shopping at Wegmans and was approached by someone who had seen her in the Merry-Go-Round’s “Nunsense.” He stopped her and asked if nuns were allowed to perform on stage. While she was tempted to continue playing it up as a nun, she decided against it and told her fan that she was actually an actress.

Then, one summer in the early 2000s she was working at the Gianelli Sausage food stand at New York State Fair and had a flyer about her upcoming show, “One Night Stand,” in her tip jar. An acquaintance of hers was looking over the flyer. But then, it caught the attention of none other than former President Bill Clinton, who was visiting the fair and had stopped by the stand. As he looked over the flyer, photographers began clicking away, subtly (or maybe not so subtly) playing with the show’s title and Clinton’s reputation.

Within a few days, she learned that the photo had made its way to the New York Post and even the Jay Leno show.  When the production finally premiered at the Turning Stone Casino, some audience members actually showed up posing with Clinton masks on sticks, she said.

As she tells these anecdotes and highlights of her career, she weaves in names of some of the major players in Syracuse theater from the past 40 years — a true “Who’s Who.”

“Just the idea that I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many incredibly talented people. I think it’s a blessing for me.”

 

 

Moe Harrington Has Starred in all Jeff Kramer’s Plays in CNY

By Mary Beth Roach

Local playwright and former newspaper columnist Jeff Kramer didn’t know Moe Harrington until she came to audition for his first play, “Lowdown Lies,” which was staged in 2007.

But he was so impressed with her, she would go on to play the female lead in his following two productions, “Reaching for Marsby” in 2012 and “The Golden Bitch” in 2017.

“I relate to her in a lot of ways because she takes comedy seriously,” Kramer said.

Those who have read any of Kramer’s columns over the years or seen his plays know he appreciates comedy.

In “Lowdown Lies,” Harrington played Ellen, the wife of a guy who chickens out of getting a vasectomy but doesn’t tell her. Kramer said she had a great chemistry with the other actors in the play.

As Cordelia in “Reaching for Marsby,” she mastered a British accent “decked out in her Victorian costumes,” the playwright noted. In “The Golden Bitch,” she played a dog shelter owner and advocate who, with her husband, have a fight with their friends who have just gotten a designer dog. She delivered a soliloquy about the nobility of dogs that had audiences misting up, Kramer said.

Kramer explained that those three roles were quite diverse, but that the fact Harrington was able to handle them so well speaks to her talent and reach.

“She’s so light on her feet in terms of her ability,” he said. “She’s great at reading an audience and giving them what they want. She’s got really great range.”

“I don’t think there’s anything I could throw at her she couldn’t handle,” he added.