Grace Keagy

Grace Keagy (December 16, 1921 – October 4, 2009) was an American actress, best known for her work on the stage in character roles. She is best known for her Drama Desk Award nominated performance as "Rosa" in the original 1979 production of Joseph Stein and Alan Jay Lerner's Carmelina.

Keagy was born in Youngstown, Ohio and ultimately settled in Minneapolis where she taught voice and piano between 1964 and 1968. She made her first professional stage appearance in 1967 as Dame Margery in Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday at the Guthrie Theater after which she became active in regional theatre productions. She made her Broadway theatre debut in 1975 as Queen Isabella of Bavaria in the original production of Larry Grossman and lyrics by Hal Hackady's Goodtime Charley.

In 1979 she returned to Broadway in January to portray several smaller roles in the original production of Jerry Herman's The Grand Tour. After the show closed in March, she went into rehearsals for Carmelina which premiered on April 8, 1979 at the St. James Theatre. Although the show ran for only a few weeks, Keagy garnered high praise from critics for her performance and earned a Drama Desk Award nomination. She almost immediately joined the original cast of Richard Rodgers's musical version I Remember Mama, replacing Dolores Wilson as Aunt Jenny. After that show closed in September, she spent the following year touring the United States as Aunt Eller in Oklahoma!.

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