Orlando Fringe 2023 review: ‘The Mysterious Life of Amy Thompson McKean’

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You’ve likely never heard of Amy Thompson McKean, a mid-century mother of two and unhappily wedded wife who composed countless “children” that were nearly lost to history. But she’s been rescued from “obscurity and irrelevance” by writer-director Charlie Griffin’s first-person musical biography, in which she resists her own erasure by telling us her tragic tale.

McKean — as embodied here by actress Karen Shriner — lived nearly a century ago, but her glamorous tales of life in Manhattan between the world wars reveal unexpectedly contemporary attitudes about sexuality and equality. The shocking 11th-hour explanation behind her disappearance, just as she found fame on the newfangled NBC network, delivers a devastating gut punch to the ideal of female liberation. 

Griffin’s dense script has a few too many wordy digressions that divert the pacing during his examinations of cultural appropriation and gender politics, and I wish he gave Shriner something more dynamic to do than simply sit and stand. But the show soars each time pianist Julian Bond accompanies Shriner, a veteran of Epcot’s Voices of Liberty, as she employs her angelic soprano on one of McKean’s lullaby-like tunes. Although the ending didn’t provide quite enough historical context to feel fully satisfying, Shriner’s multilayered and fully invested performance makes this a mystery well worth unraveling. 

The Mysterious Life of Amy Thompson McKean
Central Florida Composers Forum