MARY JANE
HANSEN
ACTOR / WRITER
ph: 518.669.7536 / email: mjhansen33@yahoo.com
P
R
E
S
S
&
P
H
O
T
O
S
MACBETH
“As
the Lady herself, Mary Jane Hansen delivers a fine performance. Not
the erotic dame of some productions, this is clearly a vital and
romantic woman who dreams large and cannot control those dreams.
Her scene of persuasion, as she leads the conversation around to
dire deeds was lovely. Her cover-up of her husband’s madness as he
is pursued by ghosts was moving. Even the famous sleep-walking
scene, a bear to pull off these days, was well performed. It’s a
very good piece of work, a character well
portrayed.”
- Berkshire Bright Focus
“Hansen plays Macbeth's lady not as a fiend, however, but as an impassioned, flawed and charismatic woman. She is stunning as this character so familiar to audiences of Shakespeare. Hansen makes this gorgeous character her own.”
- The Daily Gazette
BORN YESTERDAY
“Hansen plays her with the right blend of wide-eyed innocence, toughness and grit. And what a voice! It is clearly Mary Jane Hansen's Billie Dawn that is the driving force behind the evening.”
-The Independent
“Actresses like Ms. Hansen are what being a star or wanting to be a star are all about. Ms. Hansen acts hard.”
-White Plains Citizenet Reporter
A LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW
“a perfectly marvelous world premiere...the writing is intelligent, informative and engaging, with Agatha Christie-like suspense and first rate characterization and dialogue.”
-Boston EDGE
“...wonderful play. There is no doubt NYSTI has a Halloween hit on its hands.”
-Gail Sez
WAIT UNTIL DARK
“It’s a big job for an actress, emotionally and physically. It asks for a long stretch from timid housewife to vigilante avenger. It also requires an actor to stay onstage virtually the entire play while navigating the apartment, ‘blind.’ Hansen does all of this with aplomb. Her scenes with her overbearing husband Sam are appropriately waifish. Her early scenes with the criminals are gullible without foreshadowing the final moments. And her moments of clarity, as she discovers the plot against her ring true.”
-Times Union
“Hansen is really quite wonderful. All of us watch to see how down pat the sighted actress has Susy's blindness, but her performance is about more than technique. Hansen's expressive face, line readings, and gestures make us care about this woman. We feel her helplessness and her pride.”
-The Daily Gazette
AMERICAN SOUP
“Ample flavors in Warhol ‘Soup’. Hansen gets us to care about whether Maggie will ever be happy.”
-Newsday
“Gourmet ingredients help make American Soup a pleasing treat. Hansen’s character grows from an impressionable little girl to a seemingly confident but truly insecure woman. She handles these layers seamlessly.”
-The Daily Gazette
THE LARK
“At the heart of The Lark is Hansen’s Joan in her cold silver tunic and tights. Hansen displays a vocal range equally adept at creating the higher-pitched teenager beaten by her father, tormented by her inquisitors or bullied by the Dauphin’s bureaucrats, and the woman who, standing alone center stage, creates both halves of the conversation between Joan and the saints who convince her to lead France against the English. This is a Joan whom an audience would believably follow, and reveals a richness in Hansen’s acting.”
-Metroland
HOLLOWVILLE: A GHOST STORY
“Part séance and part ghost story, Mary Jane Hansen's novel is a challenging and atmospheric hymn to America that touches on images as diverse as Rip Van Winkle and the atom bomb. As narrator, iconic character actor Bruce Dern adds his well-known droll delivery. This poetic story about release and regeneration proves why reader's theater is often called the theater of the mind.”
-Audiofile
Nominated for 2 Audie Awards,
including Best Original Work
ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE
“Adapted by Mary Jane Hansen, it is thrilling, tight and displays perfect proportions of Christie’s darkness, humor and suspense.”
-The Daily Gazette
“Hansen has done an excellent job of bringing Christie’s complex and tormented characters to life in a script that moves briskly while still retaining Christie’s own quite deep ponderings on the questions of guilt and innocence, justice and injustice.”
-Gail Sez
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE
“Mary Jane Hansen looks lovely in Robert Anton’s stunningly beautiful costumes and she acts the pants off of Vera Claythorne, the new secretary hired for the party. Is she guilty of child murder? Will she die by her own hand or by the actions of a madman? She knows how to keep her secrets in the most antagonizing manner. There is nothing tentative about her Vera. She acts as she must act, does what she must do? Is she the villain who has planned the deaths of so many others? She certainly could be as she moves about the stage calming everyone, frightening everyone. Her performance is the key to the mystery’s success.”
-Berkshire Bright Focus
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
"Mary Jane Hansen who takes the central role of Tracy Lord. Her face, hands, body and voice are ever at work; her mind resonates with Tracy’s thoughts. She literally embodies the role. She hasn’t got Hepburn’s brittleness; she doesn’t use Grace Kelly’s mannerisms. She brings to life a new Tracy, one of her own creation and she does it with flair. On her brow and around her mouth we can see the trials of a woman about to embark on a second marriage. In her gestures we feel the daughter who feels betrayed by a philandering father. Hansen manages all of this and also gets the comedy that her character needs to be truly enjoyed. It is a wonderful performance."
-Berkshire Bright Focus
A Murder is Announced
“Mary Jane Hansen's flash transition from kewpie doll to con artist is arresting.”
-Times Union
Anastasia
“Mary Jane Hansen has never been better. Hansen is a ‘snow princess’ in this play. Pale, wan weak and uncertain in the first act, deliberate and grand in the second act, pale, wan and determined in the third act, her Anna is a living question mark.”
- Berkshire Bright Focus
Sherlock's Legacy
“Mary Jane Hansen is seductive yet cool as the woman with a cloudy past.”
-The Record
Of Mice And Men
“Hansen plays the unnamed ‘Curley’s wife’ with a fine mix of innocence and flirtatiousness. She allows us to know that the character simply wants someone to care about her.”
-The Daily Gazette
1776
“Mary Jane Hansen as his wife is lovely, almost too lovely, but she adds a great deal to the reenactment of their legendary affair. Her number, ‘He Plays the Violin’ manages to tug a few heartstrings.”
-Berkshire Bright Focus
Miracle on 34th St.
“Delightfully gung-ho goofiness comes from Mary Jane Hansen as the blousy company secretary.”
-The Record
The Killings Tale
“Hansen's beautiful shadings of a woman torn between self-respect and love.”
-The Daily Gazette