Martha Smylie was smitten with the G&S bug at age 10 when she sang Buttercup in a full-stage elementary school production where (a fact heretofore unbeknownst to most of you) she also played the violin in the pit orchestra for the overture!
As an adult she hid out in the chorus of The Savoy Company for 10 party years until she got the courage to step back into the spotlight again and has been performing major roles in G&S, musicals and straight plays since 1986.
Unabashedly incestuous, Martha has sung roles with all six of the major G&S societies in the Delaware Valley, a feat which may be unmatched ... "not that others couldn't do it, just that they haven't done it"). She's played most of the G&S contralto roles, sung in several International G&S Festivals in both Philadelphia and Buxton, England, and enjoys roles in musicals and plays around the region. Her favorite play was the Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 at Hedgerow Theatre ("working at Hedgerow is a whole other dimension - what an education!"), and she admits being the murder victim in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap was also great fun ("the real murder, though, is waiting through the second act to take your curtain call!").
In addition Martha has done some minor TV work - you can still catch her occasionally on repeats of Suzanne Roberts' little spotlight show on CN8. Martha sings professionally in concerts and ensembles, and has even done some interesting ad lib work in training trial lawyers.
Currently VP of the GSSCC, Martha's organizational talents are legendary! Board members of four local G&S societies have had to tolerate her participation, and three have suffered through her presidencies. "Like Ko-Ko, they must learn to bear it!"