Mary Lou Newmark

About Mary Lou Newmark

Mary Lou Newmark is an electric violinist, composer and playwright living in Los Angeles, California. Although classically trained with Masters degrees in both performance and composition, her work is far from traditional. As an artist of both music and words, Mary Lou creates works for theater that combine the performing arts to explore social issues. 

Her "Street Angel Diaries" looks at homelessness from the perspective of  homeless people themselves. Directed by Darin Anthony, "Street Angel Diaries" premiered in a full theatrical production on the Boston Court Main Stage in Pasadena, California in December 2006. Philip Brandes of the Los Angeles Times hailed Mary Lou's "modernistic musical sketches on her neon-lit electric violin -- picture Laurie Anderson on a good hair day, but aiming more at emotions than intellect."

"Breathing Room," Mary Lou's hybrid theatrical work, follows two neighbors in a LA suburb - Marilyn, an artist, and Professor, a high school science teacher. The two of them struggle with modern technologic vertigo as they negotiate living with hummingbirds, meatball eating bears, coyotes and backyard chickens. With evocative music played live on stage by Mary Lou, they explore personal relationships with nature, quantum physics, and embodied spirituality through playful, humorous storytelling. Structured like a symphony, this play within a concert is a convergence of music, science, theater, and poetry. "Breathing Room" premiered in a full theatrical production at the Greenway Court Theatre in October 2015 in Los Angeles, directed by Dan Berkowitz. In his selection of Best of LA Theater 2015, Ernest Kearney wrote, "And audiences were dazzled by Breathing Room with Eileen T'Kaye and Charles Reese in Mary Lou Newmark's disarmingly beautiful musical parable."