Edward Sylvan, CEO of Sycamore Entertainment Group
Nov 17, 2021
Asa part of our series about pop culture’s rising stars, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Mary McGloin.
Mary hails from the SF Bay Area and is a California girl at heart, though she moved to New York City after getting her MFA at The Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for Classical Acting at the George Washington University in DC. She is a SAG-AFTRA and AEA actor-creator-filmmaker, a member of Filmshop and NYWIFT, and since the beginning of the pandemic has been writing up a storm. Mary’s acting career has included performing Off-Broadway, regional theatre, and indie film. She was a Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award Nominee for her portrayal of Susan in How the World Began at The Custom Made Theatre Company. She is co-founder and executive producer of Goodly Rotten Apple Productions LLC. Her current project is Tech Bettys, a workplace comedy about women in tech, originally co-created with comedian Amanda Van Nostrand, based on Mary’s work in the tech start-up world as a real-life senior QA engineer. In collaboration with Painted Saint Entertainment, Mary produced three webisodes of Tech Bettys as a proof-of-concept, which has appeared around the world as an official selection in 37 festivals, was nominated for 30 awards and won 21, including Best of Fest at Miami Web Fest. Mary has since reformatted Tech Bettys into a half-hour television comedy, and the pilot script was a Maven Fellowship Semi-Finalist with Stowe Story Labs, an official selection at Catalyst Story Institute, and most recently a Second Rounder in the Austin Film Festival.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
Thank you for having me!
Growing up “McGloin” meant living in Sonoma County, California, in the small town of Petaluma with a big Irish-Catholic family who loved Disney, Atari, laughing, and fighting, as well as spending summers in Los Angeles or New York. I am number two of four (my brother is number three and the only boy), and I live up to the middle child stereotype. I am fiercely independent and often took the path less traveled, at times to the chagrin of my family. I am extremely grateful for the friends and family I grew up with. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without my loved ones, my need to define myself, and a few twists and turns along the way.
Fortunately for me and my siblings, we went to Disneyland every summer when we visited my grandparents in Whittier, California. My family tells me that at two years old, I was quite obsessed with Alice in Wonderland. I thought I was her. That summer, I went missing while we were in the Magic Kingdom. My parents feared that I had fallen in the moat around Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Disneyland has a “lost parents” area where panicked parents can go to find their children. After describing me, the staff said, “Well, we found a little girl who says she’s Alice in Wonderland.” My parents were relieved as they immediately knew that had to be their daughter. I guess I wasn’t quite as worried as my parents had been; when the staff asked me my name and where my parents were, I replied, “I don’t have any parents, I’m Alice!” And thus, my spunky and imaginative spirit was born.
My parents are both from New York, so I spent many summers there visiting aunts, uncles, and cousins. I loved playing with my little cousins in Brooklyn and the cool older cousins on Long Island. They seemed so grown-up, if not a little crazy. One Fourth of July, my older sister and I, along with my cousins, were stuck out in Oyster Bay when our boat ran out of gas. Meanwhile, my younger brother and sister were with my parents, aunt, and uncle who allegedly blew up a tree. I loved that house because it was constantly buzzing with friends and family. By the time I was a tween, I had become obsessed with New York City and Broadway. Returning home, I didn’t like that I could see hills from our house. I found Petaluma too small, Catholicism too stuffy, and I wanted more.
As a teenager, I was rebellious, but still a good student. I was in choir and drama and played soccer and softball. I was determined to get into a good college and start my life away from Petaluma and the Catholic Church. While I had been very religious as a kid, the older I got, the more I found it just wasn’t for me. When I turned 18, I gave up Catholicism and left home for college to do what I’d always done: forge my own path.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
When I was a little girl, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be. I knew I didn’t want to do anything practical. Early career choices were international woman of mystery (spy), rock star, or writer. These choices often changed but were always either about art, or saving the world, or protecting it from injustice. Then, at eight years old, my father, who was the principal of the high school, took me to the school musical, Once Upon a Mattress. I saw this girl playing Winnifred and I thought, “I can do that!” and I realized that if I were an actress, I could be anything, play anyone, tell people’s stories — and that was just about the coolest thing ever. Eight years later, as a junior in high school, I played Winnifred in Once Upon a Mattress on that same stage. There’s a VHS tape lurking somewhere…
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I’ve gone to Burning Man many times, though it’s been a while since I attended. At this point, all my time in the desert has blurred into one, so I can’t quite pinpoint what year this was, but likely early 2000s. A theatre friend and colleague who’d never been to Burning Man wanted to go and produce Macbeth, aka the Scottish play. All things being equal, producing theatre, or anything for that matter is difficult. Theatre at Burning Man comes with its own set of challenges, or let’s just call them “unexpected gifts.”
For those who don’t know, Burning Man is an art festival out in the desert. It is a festival of radical self-reliance. In fact, participants agree in the purchasing of their ticket that they are accepting the risk of serious injury or death by attending the festival. While there are certain elements that are the same each year, it is whatever the participants that go that year make of it. There’s no schedule, no time, no designated spaces. We were going to perform our fire-wielding production out in the middle of the playa. There would be fire, nudity, and an infamously cursed Shakespeare play. What could go wrong?
As we hit dusk, we ventured to the designated spot. There was a cordoned-off ring in the middle of the open playa, but not exactly a theater. We began the performance. All of us witches had fire torches or fingers, and both Big Mac and Lady Mac had fire as well. I remember when we started performing there was a small airplane, like a drone, flying low over the performance, creating this buzzing sound that was very annoying to everyone on stage. Lady Mac, who was the woman producing it, got upset, and it only got worse from there, as our audience kept dwindling. There’s a big “squirrel” factor at Burning Man because there is just so much to see or do at any given time, it’s hard for people to focus on one place for very long.
The kicker was that there was a double-decker busload of clowns that circled the performance, heckling us. That was the end of it all. I can’t remember if we made it through the whole show or not, I just remember it being a complete disaster. The lesson learned is that if you want to do theater out at Burning Man, build your own enclosed stage with dedicated time to perform. If you don’t, you’re likely to face a completely different show than the one you rehearsed.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This is a funny mistake about preconceived notions, and I did learn a lesson from it. It is also one of the best theatre experiences I’ve ever had. Years ago, I played Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona in an all-female production with Woman’s Will at a women’s prison in San Francisco.
I’d been to a lot of places, but never a prison. I didn’t know what to expect. We came in through security and then were led to the area designated for the performance. The space was like a large library room as I recall, and the audience sat very close to us in a semicircle. All I could think was, “Boy, I hope they like it!” We started to perform, and they were right there with us, actively listening. And they were vocal. Like Shakespeare, this audience had no subtext. If they thought it, they said it. What was brilliant about it was that they were totally into the story and their comments enhanced our performance.
For those who don’t know, the basic plot of the show is that Julia (played by me) and Proteus are in love. After promises of staying faithful, Proteus goes away to Milan to see his friend Valentine, who’s in love with Silvia. Proteus, being the dog he is, immediately forgets me when he sees Silvia. Even though he’s betraying both Valentine and me, he pursues Silvia romantically. Impatient, I decided to dress up as a boy servant and follow him. I find out that he’s being disloyal to me, and have a soliloquy directed to the audience where I plot to mess with his plans. At this point, this amazing audience is loudly cheering “Yeah, you go girl!” in support of thwarting his bad behavior. It was exhilarating.
As the play goes on, the Proteus tries to force himself on Silvia, Valentine intervenes, and I reveal myself. When Proteus realizes it’s me, he begs my forgiveness. I scold him and there is a moment where we’re not sure if I’ll take him back. It’s at this moment that the very vocal audience is now literally yelling, “Oh, no, girl, he’s bad!” and “Dump him!” — which Julia should do — but that’s not what Shakespeare wrote. I was a little nervous to continue as scripted but forged ahead. To my surprise, just as enthusiastically as they were encouraging me to dump him, they were cheering our reuniting. The show ended with a standing ovation.
I think the lesson here is, you just never know what will grab an audience. I think I mistakenly had preconceived notions of what it would be like to perform for people in prison. At the time, I had no knowledge of that world or the systemic issues in our justice system. They were hands-down the best audience I have ever had and for that, I am grateful.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?
Tech Bettys is my focus right now. What was once an award-winning web series is now a half-hour television comedy. The origin of Tech Bettys is that back in 2014, I went to South by Southwest, and I saw the premiere of HBO’s Silicon Valley. After the premiere, there was a talkback with Mike Judge and all the actors. I got up, and I said, “Hi, I’m Mary McGloin, and I’m an actress and a QA engineer. I used to work in Silicon Valley, and I thought it was hilarious. I have a question for you, and I don’t mean it to be challenging, but do you have any plans to have any female characters who are engineers? Because we exist.” The audience went nuts and started clapping and cheering, “Yeah, where are the women?” The actors made jokes like, “Oh, we’re nerds, we don’t know how to talk to girls!” Mike Judge was more eloquent about it and said, “Yes, I was an engineer, and my ex-wife was an engineer, so I know there are female engineers, I just haven’t written that yet.”
Back at home while at my day job at a tech startup, I told this story to a coworker. She said, “Wait a minute, I just read about that in IndieWire, is this you?” Then, she showed me an article, and sure enough, it was an article about this whole discussion and “this woman” who got up and asked this question. That night, I went to my neighborhood bar and told the story to my friend and fellow actor, Amanda Van Nostrand. She said, “Why don’t you write about your day job at the tech startup, and I’ll help you because I used to work at a startup as an office manager.” So, at a bar in Brooklyn, Tech Bettys was born.
Fast-forward to 2016, Amanda and I have now written a full season of the web series. We made a short trailer that got into a couple of festivals, one of them being the Silicon Valley International Film Festival. I attended the festival and when I told this story to the other filmmakers, one of them said, “Oh, so you’re the woman?” And I said, “Excuse me?” and he said, “I am the daily digitals editor for Silicon Valley on HBO, and we still talk about you. We haven’t solved that yet!” I was in shock and replied, “Oh my God, please tell Mike Judge about Tech Bettys!”
Shortly after that, a tech startup I used to work for was acquired. The shares that I had bought for next to nothing were finally worth something, and I got a payout. A friend suggested I produce the web series, so that’s what I did. I hired an all-female crew, including director Kathleen Davison. I played the lead role of Cass while surrounding myself with a wonderful cast and crew. We did as much as we could with a small budget and made three webisodes out of what we shot. Those webisodes have gone around the world to many film festivals and won many awards.
I decided I wanted to make it even better, so I started taking classes in television comedy with veteran showrunner Jerry Perzigian. I’ve been restructuring the show ever since and using those webisodes as the proof-of-concept. The first four episodes of the television series are now written. The pilot script was a Maven Fellowship Semi-Finalist with Stowe Story Labs, an official selection at Catalyst Story Institute, and most recently a Second Rounder in the Austin Film Festival. I think it’s in great shape and ideally, I’ll get funded to make the show with the actors intact.
The second project I’m working on is a half-hour cartoon titled Bright Blue. Here’s the logline:
An imaginative, deep thinking young girl and her reincarnated loyal and scrappy four-legged friend take on suburbia — dodging bullies, oblivious adults, and existential crises on the awkward journey of growing up.
This show has the first four scripts written as well, and I am happy to pitch it to anyone interested. This little girl’s voice has lived inside me for a long time.
You have been blessed with success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
The concept of failure has become sort of foreign to me. It’s not that I haven’t tried and failed. I have failed many times, but it’s just not the way I look at things anymore. I don’t believe you ever really fail. I think you try to get what you want repeatedly until either you get it, or you decide that it’s not worth getting anymore. I think this idea of failure is just up to you and your perspective. I tend to look at them as learning and growing experiences. As an actor especially, you’re going to get rejected daily, if not multiple times in a day. At a certain point, you just know your worth. You must know that you’re talented, deserving and that you belong. If you keep trying, one day you will book.
Despite your best efforts, you still may lose an opportunity. It may be that you did everything right. You were exactly right for the role, you nailed the audition, but they’re still going to go with their cousin or somebody’s girlfriend, or somebody else they know. Or you’re amazing, but somebody who’s exactly like you but two inches taller walks in after you and books the job because of those two inches. These are all the things out of your control, which means they are not worth worrying about. What is in your control is how you feel about who you are, your work, and how you show up in the work every day.
As a writer or filmmaker, it’s a little different. You send your script or film off to a festival or a competition and wait to know if you’re accepted or rejected. Sometimes you get feedback with the rejection, and you just take in all the information and criticism. You decide what’s useful to you. If it’s useful, you use it, and if it’s not, you toss it. Stand in the knowledge that you’re enough and there’s enough to go around and believe in yourself. You can always learn, always get better. Artists are just like works of art. Works of art are never done, and neither are we.
We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?
- We live in a diverse world. There are people from all walks of life. People come from different ethnicities, cultures, religions, belief systems, sexualities, genders, political affiliations, and schools of thought. It’s important to reflect that in our film and television because we’re trying to hold a mirror up to life and say, “This is us.” It can’t be “us” if it doesn’t at least attempt to include everyone.
- What’s personal is universal. It’s important to realize that even if we don’t have the same skin color, political views, or religion, it doesn’t mean that we don’t all have things at our core that makes us human beings. After all, art is about expression, connection, and communion — it’s about oneness. It’s about communicating with the universal soul which is in all of us no matter where we come from, or what we look like, or who we love, or what gender we are, or how we identify. If we don’t share what’s personal as being universal, then we are denying ourselves that connection.
- People fear the unknown. If you’re not fortunate enough to have a broad education or travel, or live in a big city with a diverse population, you may not have the opportunity to see outside your bubble. Film and television are shown all around the world. It allows people a window into others’ lives. Lives that we will see are not so different from our own. The more we can see each other as similar, the more we can empathize with others and perhaps heal the world.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- Find your money job. I know that sounds obvious, but some people get scared that they need an amount of flexibility that you just don’t need when you’re starting out. They’re worried they’re going to have golden handcuffs, and the truth of it is you don’t need any more flexibility than a parent does. You just need a job that’s portable and that you could do from anywhere at any time. Ideally, it has benefits, including paid time off, a 401K and healthcare. Take the job. Then, identify the minimum amount of money you need to live off and then anything you make above that minimum you put in savings. Max out the 401K or at least take advantage of the company match, put the rest in an emergency fund of at least three months of expenses, and the rest put toward your actor expenses.
- Find your niche or your break-in point. I know, I hate labels, I didn’t want to be labeled either. I know we’re all trained as actors to play anything at any time, but you’re not going to be cast that way. So, what you need to figure out is what your essence is when you walk in a room. That is your niche and that is how you want to market yourself. There are ways to figure that out. One way would be to look at all the stuff you have done and see the commonality between the roles. Identify the roles in which you are most often cast. The other way is noticing any role you see on TV that you readily identify with — that you think, I could play that role tomorrow! That’s how you want to market yourself.
- Produce your own work. Now that you have money, and you know who you are in the industry, you want to play that role in front of people. Either find a role in a play that is like that and produce it or write a film or have a friend write a film and produce it. Then, you want to get people to see it, either by inviting reviewers and industry people to a play, or getting the film into film festivals, and then putting it online.
- Never stop learning. An actor’s training is never done. You’re always going to be taking acting classes, improv classes, dance classes, or learning new skills like guitar, singing or circus arts. Figure out stuff that you’re interested in learning, and then learn those skills. It’ll make you a happier person, too.
- Find a self-care routine. I can’t stress this one enough. I often used to say, and I hear people say things like, “Oh, well I can’t really do that because I might get in this thing.” Don’t put your life on hold for the maybes. Take the trip. Spend time with your family. Hang out with your friends. Have fun and live your life. The work will be there. Then find a good nutrition plan and stick to it at least 75% of the time. Of course, you can’t be perfect all the time. I have a nutrition plan I follow 75% of the time and then the other part I eat the chocolate and I drink the wine and I do what I want. Because you must do that, or you’ll go crazy. Then find an exercise plan that works for you. I personally like dancing, walking, yoga, and Pilates. But find something you like doing, and you’ll stick to it. Find something that will ground you, whether it’s meditation or your religious practice — whatever it is, find something to ground you. Lastly, learn when to say no. As actors, we feel pressure to always be willing and available. The thing is there’s going to be things that aren’t worthy of your time. You need to discern what’s right for you and what isn’t, and don’t be afraid to say no if it isn’t for you.
Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?
The best thing I ever did for myself was learn to meditate. I would recommend the following to anyone: learn a mediation practice. Go to therapy. Take breaks when you need them. Find a way to exercise that makes you happy. Eat clean, healthy, unprocessed food at least 75% of the time. Be honest and take responsibility for everything in your life, in your interactions with others, and with yourself. After all, you are the one you must look at in the mirror each day. You want to be proud of that reflection.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think a lot about practicing compassion and kindness, especially in the moments when I have the least amount of it. Particularly in this time of global trauma, it gets hard to hold compassion and kindness in mind during our interactions. Therefore, I would encourage everyone to learn to meditate and practice meditation. Meditation allows you the space to think before you react. My meditation teacher calls it your “adaptation energy.”
It’s a space that allows me time to pick my response from a variety of reactions, rather than just react. At times, the best reaction might be to fight. But at least you’ll be making more conscious decisions in the moment. So, I hope to inspire people to meditate, and we can all practice having more compassion and kindness.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Just one person? There are so many! I’m grateful to a lot of people.
For acting: I have been fortunate enough to have amazing teachers from around the world. I have an MFA from The Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for Classical Acting, I spent a summer with the Moscow Art Theatre, and I had wonderful professors at UC Santa Barbara. But my foundation came from my high school drama teacher, Marvel Gardner. She was my favorite teacher in high school. I knew I wanted to be an actor, and that was the first opportunity I had to take a real acting class. She gave us all a solid foundation for a life as an actor. Marvel taught us a strong work ethic and respect for the craft that has carried me throughout my career. She also taught us that we should ground our performances in the truth. I’ve always thought if I ever win an acting award, she’ll be one of the first people I thank in my speech because, without her, I wouldn’t be the actor I am today.
For writing: I met Jerry Perzigian when I took his television comedy writing class at Jacob Krueger Studios in New York. I’d describe him as a cross between Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld and he is a gold mine of comedy. He’s been helping me shape my writing, and I am grateful to have him as a writing mentor.
For life: I am grateful for my family and friends. Even when we haven’t seen eye to eye, they have been a rock for me throughout my life and career. They have believed in me when no one else has, made me feel like I have a home wherever I go and ground me when I need perspective. Though my father is no longer with us, if I had to pick one person, he was my hero. He was there for me no matter what, and I am extremely grateful that he was my dad.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have a lot of good life quotes as well, but I will use this one for now. I learned this (among other life lesson quotes) from my writing mentor, Jerry Perzigian. The quote is: “No one does it alone.”
It’s particularly hard when you’re trying to produce a film or a play, or see something you wrote go into production. It seems like you are alone, pushing a boulder up a hill. The truth of it is that no one does it alone. We all need to build our community and relationships as much as we need to work our skills and craft and improve the work itself.
I had a big moment of realizing this when I walked on set the first morning that we were shooting the proof-of-concept webisodes of Tech Bettys. I had hired a bunch of people to do all the production roles, so I could just focus on being an actor during the shoot. When I got to set, there were all these people that I had hired, simply doing their jobs. They were putting things in place, setting up the set, and making it look like the VD-ME.com office I had imagined. It was at that moment I realized — this is so much bigger than me. I laughed because literally the night before I had been sitting on the floor of my apartment sobbing, thinking “What the hell am I doing? I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m going to fail!” But I saw the competence of everyone I hired, and I thought, it’s now time to let go and trust that I hired the right people. No one does it alone. Even people who say they did it alone probably did have help. I’m very grateful for everyone that has been involved in any project with me at any level and anyone who has helped me to understand how to make anything in this industry. I am also grateful to anyone who has hired me to perform or help them as well. Thank you for trusting me with your projects.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
I found this impossible to narrow to one person, so I narrowed it to three people.
The first person that came to mind when I read this question was Drew Barrymore. I’ve watched her in films since I was a kid, and she’s just always seemed to be such a warm person, the kind of person I would love to be friends with.
The second person was Issa Rae. She’s basically doing what I would like to do; she made a web series that got turned into a TV show, and now she’s a powerhouse. I’d love to talk to her about how she made that happen.
The third person was Mike Judge. I have felt since I asked that question at the premiere of Silicon Valley, and later when I learned they were still talking about it, that perhaps it had become somewhat of a thorn in his side. That wasn’t my intention in asking that. I mean, he’s prolific. I loved the show and I have enjoyed his work for years. I mean, who doesn’t love Office Space and Idiocracy?
How can our readers follow you online?
I have had a few jobs in tech in the social media space, so I’m on all the things. These are where I am most active:
Facebook: @marymcgloin, @techbettys, @GoodlyRottenAppleProductions
Twitter: @marymcgloin, @techbettys, @GoodlyRotten
Instagram: @marymcgloin, @techbettys
This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!