Uncle Vanya (Gremlin Theater)
"Perry is nothing less than a transparent heart in Sonya." --Graydon Royce, Star Tribune
"Mo Perry, as the destined spinster Sonya, devastatingly conveys the acute sorrow of unrequited love and acceptance of a solitary future with heartrending resignation."--Brad Richason, Examiner.com
BEST ACTRESS - 2010 (City Pages)
Mo Perry
Mo Perry has found an increasing amount of work over the last couple of years on Twin Cities stages, and that is a very welcome thing. She can bring a sense of deep, knowing silliness to her characters, which was in abundance in a pair of roles in Torch Theater's The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Her Georgette was so full of treacle that spontaneous diabetes seemed an imminent danger, and her Rhoda was brassier than a James Brown horn section. She took a more serious turn in Hedda Gabler with Gremlin, providing repressed heat and the genuine sense of danger and unpredictability she generates when biting into substantive parts. In 2009 she seemed to be expanding her range, while also taking advantage of opportunities to be a big silly. Mo' Mo, please.
Dancing at Lughnasa (Torch Theater)
"Set in Tamatha Miller's rudimentary Irish cottage and under Paul Epton's warm lighting, Johnson's staging revolves around the strong performance of Mo Perry. Her Kate Mundy has a Catholic faith superseded only by her devotion to sober duty. That burden, though, has wearied this bulwark against the pulsing rituals of the Irish countryside and her white-knuckle rectitude cracks when she joins her sisters in the chaotic dance that celebrates Lugh, the harvest god." --Graydon Royce, Star Tribune
Second Annual Metro Magazine Keeper Awards
Mo Perry, 28
Actor
Hails from: Eden Prairie
"Why she’s a Keeper: Mo herself says it best: “I’m really not afraid to look ugly or weird or strange onstage. I think a lot of woman actors—understandably in this business—are preoccupied with looking good. There are a lot of roles specifically written for women who look good. I’ve always been more interested in being interesting than being pretty. So I’ll make that crazy face in a comedy that’s really ridiculous and unsightly but that makes people laugh. I can find that dark, pathetic, vulnerable, ugly place in the drama that’s not going to be attractive, but that’s real.”
Amen, Mo! You go balls-out weird, wild and ugly for every role, and we love that! Hell, that’s why you keep landing all the good parts and knocking ’em out of the yard. Your Hedda Gabler, in Gremlin Theater’s spring 2009 take on Ibsen’s classic, was remarkably nuanced. You stole the show as the spacey, loveable Georgette in Torch Theatre’s recent staging of episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Forgive us for indulging in a bit of dime-store psychology, but we bet that part of the reason you’re willing to be unattractive onstage is that before becoming a professional actor, you spent a couple years living in the real world where, yes, things can get a little ugly. Your decision to take a break from acting after studying theater at the University of Kansas? Brilliant! That allowed you to join the Peace Corps and travel to Africa, to live in a van in California, and to guide international tourists on camping trips throughout the Southwestern United States.
You told us that you don’t bring a lot of your own “stuff” to your characters, but when you returned to the Twin Cities, and to acting, in 2004, you attacked each role—Carol in Theater Limina’s Oleanna, for example—like someone who’d been doing some serious l-i-v-i-n’. Or maybe we’re totally off base and you’re just one of those young performers with an old soul who can do anything. Either way, your versatility continues to blow our theater-lovin’ minds. What we’re trying to say here is please don’t move to New York or Los Angeles, Mo. Local stages need your crazy, badass chops."
Some Girl(s) (Walking Shadow)
"Mo Perry's vulnerability and buried rage as the erstwhile high school sweetheart rings with wistful truth." --Dominic Papatola, Pioneer Press
"I was especially taken with Mo Perry's raw and lanky Sam." --John Olive, How Was The Show
"Mo Perry appears first, as the man's teenage love who is forced to admit that she's always harbored a fantasy of the two reuniting. "Every time I've reviewed Mo Perry in a production," wrote Matthew A. Everett earlier this year, "she's been one of the best things in it. Often she's surrounded by equally talented actors, but I never find myself saying, 'Hmmm. Mo could have been better.'" Nor do I." --Jay Gabler, TC Daily Planet
Fall's fresh faces
Five up-and-coming performers under 35
MO PERRY, ACTOR
Perry, 28, has been on our radar for a few years as an actor who does her homework and brings to the stage a detailed piece of work. Last winter, though, she demanded greater attention with her extraordinary portrait of "Hedda Gabler" at Gremlin Theatre. Perry has an innate understanding of character and that rare ability to submerge her ego and forget that the audience exists -- in short, an instinctive actor who builds from the inside out.
What's next: Perry is playing Rhoda and Georgette in Torch Theater's current production of three episodes of the "Mary Tyler Moore Show." She also plays Bianca in Park Square Theatre's "Othello" in October.
Her dream: "Lots of acting, writing -- exciting, challenging projects -- and not a lot of cubicles. I like my vegetable garden too much to move to New York, and I like eating too much to make it in Hollywood."
--Graydon Royce, Star Tribune, September 2009 (photo credit: Tom Wallace, Star Tribune)
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (Torch Theater)
"It's Edwin Strout and Mo Perry who come close to stealing the show. They're given the opportunity to play some of the TV show's larger-than-life characters, and they seize the chance and sprint.
Perry is quite good as Rhoda Morgenstern — Mary's mouthy
upstairs neighbor — in the first episode of the evening. But when she
dons a blonde wig and breathy voice to play the dim-bulb Georgette, she
offers a priceless, impeccably timed and altogether delicious tribute
to the character created by Georgia Engel." --Dominic Papatola, Pioneer Press
"Mo Perry shows the greatest range, first as the hard-driving New Yorker Rhoda Morgenstern and then as the doe-eyed Georgette, Ted Baxter's girlfriend. Simply put, she makes me laugh." --Graydon Royce, Star Tribune
A 'Hedda' worthy of theater heavyweights
Mo Perry delivers a wonderfully transparent performance as Ibsen's enigmatic heroine.
Small theater companies need a reason to exist, and for some of us that reason needs to be more profound than one more staging of "Uncle Vanya" or "The Crucible" or "The Glass Menagerie." Bigger theaters do those classics with better actors and bigger budgets.
Oh, you smug and silly critic. Weren't you sitting in that 60-seat hothouse the night Stacia Rice blew us away in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?" Bruce Hyde's Willy Loman for Starting Gate Productions in 2003 was absolutely revelatory. And do you recall squinting at the program when that big, electric newcomer danced on stage in Starting Gate's "Raisin in the Sun?" Ah, yes, Christiana Clark won an Ivey for that performance.
Now comes Mo Perry sweeping across the Gremlin Theatre stage as "Hedda Gabler," an imperious china doll who illuminates every tick and gesture of Ibsen's enigmatic heroine. Perry's performance under Craig Johnson's direction conjures visions of the actor sleeping with the script tucked under her pillow for years, hoping the playwright's ghost will visit her dreams.
Actors -- good actors -- often settle for an obvious Hedda, exuding bitter hauteur that tidily points to her purpose. Perry is so intelligent, thoughtful and careful that we are constantly surprised. Her Hedda glides about the drawing room, cat-like and aloof from her squareheaded husband, drolly condescending in conversation with a bumbling aunt and cowed maid. She is a bored prima donna coming to terms with the limitations she has accepted in her life. The ennui gnawing within shows itself with sardonic cynicism.
This is not to discount Johnson's sharp eye. As a director (he also adapted the script), his sense of relationships and physical space seem uncanny in their understanding of Ibsen's intentions. This is a play about power and manipulation -- those little things that add up to avarice. John Middleton's Judge Brack slyly inserts himself between Hedda and her unsuspecting husband, played as a cheerfully dim bulb by Ryan Parker Knox. If Brack uses suave intellect to intrigue Hedda, Wade Vaughn's Eilert Lovborg relies on his lusty, artistic sensuality to rock her psyche in the best and worst ways possible.
Gremlin offers no deconstructions or wild concepts with this "Hedda," only a solid production by a director who inherently trusts Ibsen's power. Oh, and a sublime performance from a very fine actor who -- if not for small theater -- might never have had this opportunity. Is crow best served cold?
"Mo Perry actually achieved this twice in two minor roles in Shakespeare’s Macbeth from Torch Theatre. As Hecate, Queen of Hades, she could have opted for pure wickedness and pulled it off splendidly. Instead, she showed us a Hecate, who though Queen of the Underworld, has her limits and her scruples. We got a clear sense she is rightly perturbed at the Weird Sisters who have cast a spell on the gullible Thane of Cawdor.
Later on Perry astounded as Lady Macduff who sees her son and herself meet a gruesome fate at the hands of the Macbeth gang. This scene is alway disturbing even in a bad production. But in Torch’s superb production, directed by David Mann, it was set up to not only harrowing effect but heartbreaking effect as well. It’s one of those times where you just had to have been there, but the way Perry explains to the boy that his father is dead, the sense of abandonment, and the subtext of how violence rules this orb, was astonishing. It’s as if she encapsulated the Oversoul of all life in its outrage against man’s cruelty. In our time of ‘endless war’, it was especially riveting." --John Townsend, Lavender Magazine
"Mo Perry as Hecate, the goddess of witches, and again as Lady Macduff continues to impress us with her fierce commitment and energy.... Torch enters a different realm with this staging, something between a "small theater" and the next level -- whatever that is. In production values, acting talent and directorial concept, "Macbeth" sets the bar high for future productions." --Graydon Royce, Star Tribune
"Foremost among the latter is Mo Perry, who shows discipline and a ton of range playing the quietly libidinous artistic director, an aw-shucks country singer of a leading man and - in a turn that approaches grand theft acting - an en fuego but savvy costume designer." --Dominic Papatola, Pioneer Press
"Mo Perry pulls off a real tour de force, playing in turn a lesbian producer, a male country singer and a flamboyant gay costumer." --William Randall Beard, Star Tribune
Anton in Show Business was ranked among the top 10 Twin Cities productions of 2007 by both Lavender Magazine and the Pioneer Press.
