Mary Ann Renné Clark: A Musical Journey

By Susan Ehlers and Mary Ann Renné Clark

Excerpts from an article from The Republic newspaper, Columbus, Indiana, Friday, May 10, 1991

Mary Ann Renné [now Clark] has made an art of dodging norms. Yet in all her travels, she has never strayed from her beginning as someone with a propensity and talent for making music. She showed a love of music at an early age, singing all the radio commercial jingles she heard well before Kindergarten. Before long, she was singing Brahm's Lullaby for dinner guests at her parents' home and her mother was accompanying her on the piano.
That early show of talent led to piano and voice lessons, a stint in the church choir, Indiana University summer band camp as an oboe player and, finally, to a voice music major at IU. She knew the choice would not sit well with her father who had a wonderful sense of humor and, not caring a lot for singers of any kind, said that 'even a mediocre oboe player could eat -but, after all, singers were a dime a dozen!' (He even made her oboe reeds, just to show where he stood!)
But she stuck to her musical plan anyway, and before long Mary Ann established a name for herself in college and afterward as a coloratura soprano, a specialized category of voice requiring great dexterity and an upper-note range. "'She had a very lovely color to her voice,' remarked Virginia MacWatters, Indiana University School of Music professor emeritus. "She could sing unusual music."
MacWatters, an accomplished opera singer who had sung extensively with the New York Metropolitan Opera Company with 20 years of stage experience, also had praise for Mary Ann's acting ability."'She was a good little actress, very vivacious," McWatters said. Before graduation from Indiana, Mary Ann Renné successfully auditioned for a summer of performance with the St. Louis Municipal Opera. Hundreds of students nationwide auditioned, with only a few selected to fill chorus and play small parts or understudy roles. Describing it as a career highlight, Mary Ann still remembers the grueling pace-12 productions in often stifling outdoor conditions.

"It was a horrendous schedule," she recalls. "They never took anyone over 30 because they didn't think older people could take the pace." She admitted that, upon returning home to Illinois that summer, she slept for nearly a week.

Despite her early professional success, Mary Ann knew she needed an alternate vocation in case she drifted or was derailed on the track to stardom. Having no desire to follow the traditional and often suggested vocation of teaching, Mary Ann stayed another year at Indiana University to obtain a second degree in Radio and Television. In the spring of 1963, that meant breaking new ground-especially for a woman. Upon attaining her two college degrees, Mary Ann then moved to San Francisco and then Los Angeles, where she landed a job at a radio station owned by the highly regarded Metromedia Corporation.

Mary Ann started out as a 'continuity girl,' in the traffic deparment, gradually working her way up to department manager and then assistant business manager. While in California, Mary Ann sang soprano in supper clubs and participated in community theater as a writer, director, publicity director and/or performer. She continued those pursuits as a hobby, hoping to keep her voice in shape. However, the radio and television jobs-some in management-were demanding, leaving little time or energy for a lot of singing. Then, there were always the gender-related power games in 'show business.'

"Women who tried (to advance professionally) were also chased around the piano bench'" Mary Ann recalls. 'You had to have talent, but very often, it was who you knew. There was a price. And I didn't want to be faced with that"

In the 70's Mary Ann returned to the Midwest to assist her dad as caregivers for her mother who was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. She remained in the Midwest after her mother's death in 1979. By that time, Mary Ann could no longer reach the highest notes [or even the middle ones]-a phenomenon that comes with time for many singers.

Upon moving to Columbus in 1989 for another television management position, she made her first musical comedy appearance in many years as a 'smoky baritone' in the Columbus Theater Arts Guild's production of Side by Side by Sondheim. She now considers those inevitable voice's changes positive. "What I always really wanted to do was not to sing opera, but to sing 'today' songs. When you have a real high soprano voice, you can only sing certain songs."
Now, she can sing the music she really loves-cabarét and popular songs that include an array of Broadway tunes-old and new-and a repertoire of funny and amusing things-much more timely and interesting.