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Many teenagers have the dream to sing and dance on Broadway.
Some give it a try, move to New York City and wait tables at restaurants while they audition for parts and wait for their break. Most never make it.
Liz McConahay, 1988 Miss La CrosseOktoberfest who was a member of La Crosse Logan ‘s Class Act show choir, had that same dream, but she always knew she would make it.
"I absolutely expected to sing and dance on Broadway," McConahay said. "I thought I could be a Broadway star. I had some talent, and I had a lot of ambition and determination, and part of that has enabled me to be successful. I just never doubted I would make it."
In her senior yearbook at La Crosse Logan High School, McConahay wrote that her goal was to study musical theater in college, move to New York and perform on Broadway.
She moved to New York and never had to wait tables. She got her break immediately.
McConahay starred in an off-Broadway play, "Secrets Every Smart Traveler Should Know." She got the lead role of Alice Beane in the national tour of the Broadway musical "Titanic" and toured the country for 15 months with Onalaska, Wis., native Sarah Solie Shannon, who also has performed on Broadway.
That stint lead to her being a part of the original Broadway cast of "The Full Monty," which was nominated for several Tony Awards in 2001 when "The Producers" swept the awards.
Then she joined another show on Broadway as she performs one of the three principal female roles in the hit musical "Cabaret," the second longest musical revival on Broadway.
McConahay is back in La Crosse this weekend to be a judge at the Onalaska Show Choir Classic Saturday, and then she and Beth (Ekern) Lakmann will present a Broadway revue, “Pennies from Heaven,” at 4 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 13, at the Heider Center in West Salem, Wis., to benefit a new Gundersen Lutheran cancer patient fund, Paula’s Purse, which will help patients who are struggling to pay for basic necessities.
“We’re looking forward to this show because we get a chance to perform together and renew our great friendship, while benefitting cancer patients,” McConahay said. “It’ll be a lot of fun.”
After her Broadway career, McConahay produced and coordinated Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS event s in New York. For the last five years, she has been the soloist for the annual 9/11 Cantor Fitzgerald Memorial Service in Central Park in New York City, and she produced and directed the Tsunami Relief Benefit in New York City in 2004.
“Broadway has everything to do with opening doors, and it has shaped me and has given my notoriety and recognition, and I don’t mind if I’m exploited in a good way to benefit those in need,” McConahay said.
McConahay, also a musical theater instructor at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, said 100 percent of the revenue from the benefit will go to Paula’s Purse, named for Paula Tower, a Gundersen Lutheran mammography technologist who worked in the Norma J. Vinger Center for Breast Care for more than 16 years. Paula lost her battle with cancer in 2007.
After moving to La Crosse from Colorado during the summer before her high school junior year, McConahay wanted to audition for Logan's The Class Act show choir, but Dan Risgaard, Logan's choral director, had already cast the choir.
Risgaard gave her an audition anyway.
"She took my breath away," Risgaard said. "She was the whole package. She could sing, dance, act and perform. She was special.
"There was no doubt she would make it to Broadway," he said. "She had the drive, the ambition and the talent."
Risgaard said he always will remember a special moment when McConahay called him one day to thank him for her opportunities in show choir. "She called from Central Park after the taping of the Tony Awards show," he said.
At Logan, she acted in several plays, including "Grease" and "Dracula." She also was in "Baby" and "My Fair Lady" at the La Crosse Community Theatre.
At age 17, she was convinced to compete in the Miss La Crosse-Oktoberfest pageant. She sang "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from "Evita" and won the pageant. She went on to take second runner-up at the Miss Wisconsin Pageant.
"Theater and show choir in La Crosse laid the groundwork for what I'm doing now," McConahay said. "In show choir, we had to perform new stuff all the time, and you had to teach your brain to pick up dance combinations fast.
Her road to Broadway started slowly. She said she had to pay for her own college tuition, so she worked before enrolling at the University of WisconsinLa Crosse. She again took some time off to pay for her second semester.
When she was in college, McConahay acted in plays, including "The Importance of Being Earnest."
"I decided it was too difficult to work a semester and go to college the next semester, especially if I wanted to go into theater," she said.
McConahay quit college and moved to the Twin Cities, where she stayed for seven years. "I loved the arts community theater there, and that's where I really learned the ropes, joined the union, did commercials and kept on working," she said.
She acted at several theaters in the Twin Cities, including Chanhassen Theaters, where she had lead roles in "Educating Rita" and the "Nunsense Country Western Jamboree."
McConahay was one of 30 actors worldwide chosen to be a part of training program for the Royal National Theater of Great Britain. "I thought I was finally ready to go to New York and never looked back," she said. "I knew nothing about the business and soaked up everything like a sponge."
Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at trindfleisch@lacrossetribune.com, or (608) 791-8227
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