“Mrs. Lincoln's Salon" at the Rock Island Public Library Watts-Midtown Branch -- March 28.
Saturday, March 28, 11 a.m.
Rock Island Public Library Watts-Midtown Branch, 2715 30th Street, Rock Island IL
With the hour-long event held in celebration of the current Women's History Month, busy touring performer Debra Ann Miller brings her one-woman show Mrs. Lincoln's Salon to the Rock Island Public Library's Watts-Midtown Branch on March 28, inviting library patrons an intimate audience with Mary Todd Lincoln as she shares stories of her fascinating life as wife, mother, and First Lady of the United States.
Mrs. Lincoln's Salon takes place in her Blue Room on April 4th, 1865. Abraham Lincoln and their youngest son Tad are at City Point, Robert; their eldest, is with General Grant in pursuit of Robert E. Lee; and Mary is alone in the Executive Mansion. The audience is consequently invited to reminisce with Mrs. Lincoln about her childhood, her days in Springfield, and her children as she celebrates Tad's 12th birthday and the end of the Civil War. Drawing from her own letters to friends, family and political figures of the era, Mrs. Lincoln's Salon paints a picture of Mary Lincoln that is both sympathetic and truthful.
Mary Lincoln portrayer Debra Ann Miller is a professional actor, vocalist, and voice-over talent with more than 30 years of experience as a performer for live audiences, television, and film. Miller has balanced her career between commercial and educational theatre since graduating from Michigan State University’s Department of Theater in 1985. She toured the country with such prestigious children's theater companies as Artreach, now the Children's Theater of Cincinnati, and Child's Play Touring Theatre. Since 1997, Miller has traveled the country with Michael Krebs of With Lincoln Production as one of our nation’s more controversial First Ladies, Mary Todd Lincoln in Visiting the Lincolns; accompanying him to such places as the University of West Virginia, the Gerald R. Ford and Abraham Lincoln Memorial Library and Museums, and the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
In 2010, Miller began creating her own company focused on writing and producing one-woman plays in which she portrays important historical figures such as authors Jane Austen, Beatrix Potter, Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, as well as her one-woman Mrs. Lincoln’s Salon. Miller still works in Chicago theatres, having most recently starred in A Midwinter Mummers Tale, and In the Observarium for Terra Mysterium Theatre, Flanagan's Wake at the Noble Fool Theater, and as Rose Kennedy in Chicago Dramatist's production of Rosemary at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theatre. Miller won Best Actress in the 2004 Chicago Indiefest for her performance in her first film, Zen Noir.
Mrs. Lincoln's Salon will be performed in the Watts-Midtown Community Room of the Rock Island Public Library Watts-Midtown Branch at 11 a.m. on March 28, and later that day at 3 p.m., Debra Ann Miller will portray author Beatrix Potter in a one-woman program at the Davenport Public Library's Fairmount Street Branch. Participation in both programs is free, and for more information on Mrs. Lincoln's Salon, call (309)732-7323 and visit RockIslandLibrary.org.
