Meghan McGeary: Reviews

“Meghan McGeary is like a blonde Karen Akers with a better range. Ms. McGeary is a musical theatre find with her rich and luscious tones and superb acting.”

“Meghan McGeary remains unparalleled as Hannah, driving through her role with the smoky, energetic intensity of Lotte Lenya in her heyday”

"Meghan McGeary as Hannah is electrifying and passionate"

"McGeary is cunning and cutting in Hannah's Dada performance routines (think a period Maureen from "Rent").

"Meghan McGeary, has an eerily intense quality, especially when enacting one of Hannah's Dada routines”.

"It is not difficult to see that Meghan McGeary has spent a long time with the character of Hannah.  Her free spirited Dadaist character knows who she is and never falters from that position.  Meghan has a countenance similar to Chita Rivera both in vocal ability and grandiose mannerisms that perfectly fit her character."

"McGeary’s been playing Hannah since the show’s initial New York productions in 2004 and 2008, and she shows it, with a huge, expressive voice... McGeary delivers some outstanding solo numbers with enough physicality and talent to get Hannah a gig opening for The Dresden Dolls."

Two-piece meta-folk (like metaphysical for the indie set) band Dagmar stopped by the studio this morning for a live performance and succeeded in waking everyone up with their upbeat energy and attracted much enthusiasm for donations to the station. Arriving with an arsenal of instruments from the basic acoustic to the mandolin, the pair played three live songs, including works from their most recent yet-to-be-released album Door #3, as well as a song from member Jim Bauer’s musical The Blue Flower, which was written with his wife Ruth and is ten years in the making. The duo admits that their style and classification of their sound is ever-changing, now referring to themselves as “meta-folk” as opposed to “free-folk”; main vocalist and member of the cast of The Blue Flower, Meghan McGeary laughed and jokingly said “oh, that was so last year”.

MEGHAN McGEARY's STUFF

"The road taken by any up-and-coming thespian is an uncertain one - just ask Meghan McGeary. The Smith College alum is currently starring in the American Repertory Theater's production of The Blue Flower, but her resume includes stints on some unexpected stages..."

"Under Broadway: New York Holds Subway Auditions" Meghan quoted on NPR

Singer Meghan McGeary is part of a (duo) that's been singing under the MUNY banner for four years. She says there's nothing like playing in the subway for getting up close and personal with an audience.

"I've had men break out into tears," McGeary says. "It's a beautiful thing."

"Ethereal yet edgy folk"

"Because of their street (performance) cred, Dagmar played their way into WERS' Live Music Week..."

DAGMAR Squawk Coffeehouse, Cambridge, MA 4/3/08 A faun told me to seek out a Thursday oddity, and since I always listen to fauns, I climbed a set of stone steps to a giant wood and steel door entering the ominous and inviting Harvard-Epworth Church that hosts the weekly event Squawk Coffeehouse. This is the type of thing Dick Cheney has sweaty nightmares about; you can smell free expression all over this place. The main lights go down and tonight’s featured performers, the eccentric operatic rock duo Dagmar begins. Suddenly we are at the theater! A man who can’t get out of bed and a bug goddess that saves him. Our plot is a sticky leg fiasco of song and story. Jim and Meghan both sing and play seamlessly, bouncing off each other’s invisible rhythms. Meghan beats and blows on various implements of destruction including wind, wood and steel as Jim caresses guitar and piano. Meghan’s vocals are as elegant as they are tempestuous, an operatic equation mathematically accurate and unsettling. Jim’s musicianship and lyrical savoir-faire act like a mad Ferris wheel operator jettisoning us to the top of the ride. Golden bugs dance and swirl as trails of sound and light; Dagmar is for those who like their music impregnated with theater larvae. The next time they perform in Boston I suggest you take a head full of honeydew and trip to the theater. (Dr. Tumblety)

THE BLUE FLOWER BLOSSOMS ON THE UPPER WEST SIDE

"Meghan McGeary gives a tour de force performance"

"The performances are...free of excess, crafted with such extraordinary delicacy that they seem to have been born from the floor of the stage rather than merely stepped onto it from the wings. Darker and richer still are McGeary and LaVerdiere, who best embody the upright-meets-low-down era. Her cold exterior, forged within the fires of resilience, and his ominous grace as history's emcee are the defining forces of the propulsive era."

"(McGeary)'s surreal performance art [pieces]... adds beautiful layers to the production"

"The utterly committed ensemble cast performs as if possessed by their characters, which are inspired by actual personages... Each...performs with consummate skill."

DIONYSIS MEETS OZZY

"At its best, the show simply rocks, performing a misty mountain hop up Mt. Olympus. [The songs] show off the vocal power of the ensemble, making good on the premise that rock opera just might be the best way of conveying the intensity of Greek tragedy to a modern audience."

"Reichel's production . . . surges with animalistic intensity while also retaining a humanity found in Euripides' original . . . Not only do Cunio and Jarvis provide vocally powerful performances, so do Gordon Stanley (as Cadmus, the young men's hedonistic grandfather) and Meghan McGeary (as Pentheus' mother Agave, swept up in Dionysus' siren song)."

THE ROCKAE: I AM A GOLDEN GOD

" all the energy and intensity of a Bacchanalian bash"

"a fierce, loud and heart-pounding rock musical that blends classic with contemporary for a unique and very modern sound"

"Meghan McGeary goes from feisty to heartbreaking as the king's besotted (in every sense of the word) mother."

"...with songs this good, you're only missing out if you're not in the theater. Mills has unleashed... hits which pound through your veins and nerves with the same throbbing potency they surge through the sound system ...generally in the hard-rock mode...[including] the searing lament of Pentheus's mother (Meghan McGeary) over her disastrously devilish behavior."

"excellent voices from each of the 18 company members"

"A sexy good time"

ELECTRIC EURIPEDES

"Ingenious, energetic..."

SOUNDS OF THE SUBWAY

"Summer subway stations can be hot and sticky but underground performers do their best to keep your commute cool. Keep your ears tuned for the dynamic duo Dagmar, with a female vocalist whose soaring vocals match her signature winged appearance."

"UNDERGROUND" MUSIC

"I'm the insect god dess that's come to lift everybody out of their boring day!" announced Meghan McGeary, who kicked off the 20th year of the program by singing and playing drums in the rock-opera duo Dagmar 2.
Wearing a gold bustier and matching high heeled boots, an aviator cap with goggles and a gold- trimmed set of green mesh wings, McGeary sang a quirky song about a guy who can't get out of bed in the morning - and the "insect goddess who plunges from the ether to rescue him."