elcome to Mary McDonnell Vault, your online resource dedicated to actress Mary McDonnell. You better know Mary for her role as Captain Sharon Raydor for the TNT crime series The Closer & Major Crimes. But she also did others like Battlestar Galactica, Independence Day, Donnie Darko, Dances with Wolves, Sneakers and many others. Site is comprehensive of a big photogallery with events, photoshoots, magazines, stills, an extensive press library to collect all the articles and interviews on her and a video gallery section for recorded interviews, sneak peeks and trailers of her projects. We claim no rights to know her personally and it's absolutely respectful of her privacy and paparazzi-free!!!

A Weekend Near Madison


Character: Vanessa

Directed by: Emily Mann

Written by: Kathleen Tolan

Produced by: Dasha Epstein

Cast Members: Robin Groves, Holly Hunter, Randle Mell, William Mesnik

Language(s): English

Venue: Actors Theatre of Louisville / Astor Place Theatre

Production Dates: February 23 – April 3, 1983 / September 13 – September 25, 1983

Genre: Drama

A group of college friends from the 1960's gather twenty years later to thrash out the past and to see Vanessa, the feminist lesbian of the group, who has become a famous rock singer. It turns out the only reason Vanessa has come to the reunion is because she and her waif-like lover, Samantha, are looking for a man to father their child. But the singer unwisely approaches her former lover Jim and recriminations over the past come spilling out.

Trivia

→ McDonnell plays the role of a feminist lesbian who previously was into a relationship with a man, Jim, played by her life partner Randle Mell. McDonnell and Mell would tie the knot the year after; this was their first project.

Reviews

Again McDonnell creates her own performance rhythm to capture the various facets of a woman who sees the world in terms of her own coming out. She walks a thin line between an old life and a new one, straining to be conciliatory yet unyielding while point out to David that his suicidal teenage patient might be better off at a women-only concert than crying over the phone to a sexist shrink who draws strength from her illness. One minute she’s pleasantly explaining the needs for women to withdraw from men’s company, the next she’s asking her ex-boyfriend to father a child she and her woman lover will raise, and when someone points out her contradictions she snaps, “Oh, so what!” and laughs. A poisonous caricature could have been made of a lesbian separatist who wants a child, but McDonnell makes her sympathetic without sacrificing the seriousness or extremity of her commitments.Don Shewey

Script developed by Never Enough Design