| Nancy Gormley Loquacious, audacious, bodacious and Soft-spoken, humble, compassionate A Study in Contrasts |  |
This is not going to be an unbiased story. Objectivity is elusive when you're
writing about a fey, feminine and fecund, faith-filled Irish Queen who has
graced the life of St. Joan of Arc for twenty-five years. She has portrayed
Mary Magdalene on countless Good Fridays. 
She gave voice to Edith in the
1970's reading Catholic Girls Who Have Considered the Rainbow. She played God
to Earnie Larsen's Everyman: a God; gentle, firm, remonstrating, urging him
to have faith, telling him to jump, leaving the decision open to him. No
questions asked. I would have jumped.
She is ready with willing hands to help set up a Seder, or a soup supper and used her ingenuity to be a part of this year's Cabaret. When the tickets were gone, she volunteered as a waitress so she wouldn't miss the fun. Wherever there is a role to fill, no matter how exalted or humble, Nancy Gormley steps up and says, "What can I do?"
When I asked to interview her, she was on her way to a six-week run in Simon's Night at the John Hassler Theater in Plainview. In the week between the time I finished the story and the time the photographer took the final pictures, Gormley had auditioned twice, finished a 10:00 PM to 3:30 AM shoot for a film she is making, worked her desk at her real estate office and baby sat her granddaughters for two days. That's a busy life and one full of contrasts.
One bright Monday, she had a free hour for our interview -- and she was radiant and ready to talk. I found her standing at the edge of her high ceilinged Victorian living room, holding a dozen roses a friend had just given her. She wore the slightly bemused, 'not quite sure why or how this has come to be' expression Anthony Quinn wore when he made one of the great curtain calls of all times after playing Zorba. It was a look that said, "why me? Oh how wonderful! Could this possibly be for me?, oh my, oh, aren't you grand? I'm astonished, I'm overwhelmed, I am awed."
The roses were gently placed in a vase with the tender care she shows to all
living things and she started her story. "I first came to St. Joan of Arc at
a time when I was looking around me, close to despair over the shattered
shambles of the life I dreamed. A friend in Maple Grove invited me to go
with her to St. Joan. I heard the congregation singing "Let It Be" and
thought, 'this isn't Mass, it is a play'." The tears came and with them
the embarrassment of 'being found out in our grief'.
She found a "prince on the altar”, a soul she could meet and work with in Harvey Egan. And fabulous people around her, women to talk and laugh and grow with. She describes it as her "first experience of being treated like an adult in the church”. She watched with the sensitivity of her artist's soul the interplay of the musicians, "these people so generous to each other's talent”. It was then she heard an inner voice that said, "This is home. You are home”.
Nancy Gormley grew up in a busy, rollicking household consisting of, "four roomers, two sons, and Grandma, Mom and me”. Although she never moved from that house, she went to eleven different schools. She and the school system weren't always compatible. She says, with a trace of pride, "after being expelled from the last school I was in, a friend said to my mother, 'you really need to put this girl in a Catholic school!'"
Gormley entered Holy Angels Academy where she played every part they would give her in school plays. She was always looking for opportunities to pursue acting. She entered speech contests, did radio shows appearing with Carmel Quinn for a time and continued her pursuit of a life in the theater. She explains, "I learned my craft in the trenches”.
She talks about the roles she has played in her own life. They included wife
and as she relates her story the name of Bob Gormley, "this smart and
gorgeous man", weaves easily into the narrative. 
The elements of their life
together create a ballet, with them complementing each other like graceful
dancers. There was a misstep and the marriage ended in a divorce but not
before she became mother to Tim, Molly and Brigid, a coach's wife, a suburban
homemaker, rural-land-living lady, a manager-owner of a motel ("a twenty-four
hour a day responsibility that nearly ripped the family apart." Through all
these years she pursued theater and "worked a ton". She keeps working and
recreating her life and persona - currently as a Residential Specialist and
Executive Sales Associate with a real estate firm and grandmother to two
granddaughters - Bailey and Samantha.
She's been a working actress, a member of AFTRA and Equity for twenty years. She's played a hundred different roles. Over fifty plays in twenty-five different venues, six one woman shows, feature films, radio, documentary and industrial and training films give testimony to her dedication. She is active in two groups that provide professional new script development. This is what she has done. It is not who she is.
When she talks about acting, she most eloquently tells her own story. She
describes the process of acting as getting into the author's mind, taking the
character apart to understand it and them putting it back together and making
it her own. That takes a lot of energy and intuition and knowledge of human
nature. It takes a willingness to feel deeply and to enter the parts of self
that are shadowy and frightening. But you have to be willing to do that if
you are to be authentic. An actor does all these things, and then, as she
describes it, "the odd thing is you do it publicly and immediately it is gone
-- poof”. 
It speaks to impermanence and the ability to delve deeply into
life and then to let go. And it speaks to the kind of courage, and the
talent that has sustained Nancy Gormley.
I remember seeing her as Agatha in John Hassler's Dear James at the Lyric Theater and I thought I had never seen anything as exquisite as she was on that stage, or a performance more nuanced or more real. All that Agatha was -- her life, her dreams, her sturdy strength of character and her fragility walked onto that stage, embodied in the small, beautifully sculptured body and face of Nancy Gormley.
It's difficult to get Nancy down on paper because she has so many facets.
Here's a part of her. As I entered the living room a vacuum cleaner stood
like a lonely sentinel, guarding the entrance. She said, "There is a strong
possibility I may even use it one day”. The nine-foot windows on each side
of the doorway let the light and the green of the day stream in and linger on
the petals and leaves of the plants lining the ledges and tables. Living
things are nurtured in this home. A four-year-old granddaughter is in the
kitchen painting a watercolor that would do an eighth grader proud and a
baby alternately walks and crawls across the polished wooden floors. The
house is full of the signs of a busy life and
is standing ready now to
welcome a friend who has a booth at the State Fair. It stands always
welcoming and ready. The woman of this house has things to do.
Dust motes float on beams of sunlight and create an ambiance. The dining room, where we met and talked, is high ceilinged with angled walls papered in rich patterns in lush colors. The wood is intricately carved and curves over doors and the patterns are reflected in the carving of the massive furniture pieces. At one end of the room is a built-in sideboard. Set into it is a panel of beveled glass and a shelf that contains some momentos. Perched among them is a bright, purple, spangled mermaid.
Contrasts. That's Nancy Gormley.
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But she just doesn't seem to get it. She doesn't seem to know that she's an Irish Queen; that she's a baggy pants clown; a storyteller with the comic timing of a Myron Cohen. She has a brogue and a wit that is guileless and knowing -- at one and the same time. She's a passionate and loving woman and she's an elegant lady who faces everything life has to throw at her and comes up laughing.
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