{"id":1687,"date":"2013-11-27T15:57:21","date_gmt":"2013-11-27T15:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2017-05-23T21:33:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T21:33:06","slug":"church-basement-lady-janet-paone-83-plans-encore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/2013\/11\/27\/church-basement-lady-janet-paone-83-plans-encore\/","title":{"rendered":"Church Basement Lady, Janet Paone ’83 Plans Encore"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever seen a Church Basement Ladies<\/em> performance, you likely have a smile on \"Janet<\/a>your face at the very thought. Inspired by Growing Up Lutheran<\/em>, a book by Janet Letnes Martin \u201968 and Suzann (Johnson) Nelson \u201968, the productions mine the humor of\u2014and give a poignant picture of\u2014women who faithfully serve in a Lutheran church kitchen.<\/p>\n

\"Janet<\/a>Since September 2005, Janet Paone \u201983 has played the role of Mrs. Vivian Snustad, the matriarch of the kitchen and a widow with traditional values who has a deep love for her church and its community. \u201cThe Last (Potluck) Supper,\u201d the fifth of the Church Basement Ladies series, has been so well received that the show will be extended through the end of June. Paone fondly recalls the day she learned from the box office that one woman who had never been to a play in her life was seeing the show because her friends had told her she had to see the church basement ladies before she died; she was 86.<\/p>\n

As an Augsburg student, Paone majored in theater and minored in music. While continuing her studies, she began singing with the Minnesota Opera Company, and continues to do so 30 years later! Having majored in theater, she now says that the mentoring of Dr. Ailene Cole at Augsburg was the \u201cbest educational experience one could have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Augsburg also figured prominently in\u00a0Paone’s life more recently, when she needed a kidney transplant. The College and many alumni and friends hosted a benefit production to help pay for medical expenses. Her donor was a pilot for Delta, now retired, and a fellow actor. She met him in Fiddler on the Roof<\/em>, in which she played Golda and he played Tevya. \u201cHe offered me his kidney after only knowing me for two weeks; he saved my life!\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to acting in a wide variety of plays over the years (including Hamle<\/em>t, Fiddler on \"Mrs.<\/a>the Roof, The Importance of Being Earnest<\/em>, I\u2019ll Be in a Home for Christmas<\/em>, and the world premier of The Ultimate Pajama Party<\/em>), Paone has enjoyed other long runs beyond the Church Basement Ladies gig, including two years in Nunsense<\/em>, and more than eight years with Tony \u2018n Tina\u2019s Wedding<\/em>, in which she played Italian mama Josephine Vitale in productions in both Minneapolis and Baltimore. (Check out her diverse talents and availability on Facebook, The Janet Paone Company.) Also, she has directed after-school theater productions at Irondale (Minn.) High School for 30 years, and was the keynote speaker for the National Kidney FOundation’s annual dinner.\u00a0She threw out the first pitch to Twins player Glen Perkins (twice). She was the first winner of the FM107.1 Undiscovered Divas contest, had a radio show, and sang with the New York City Opera. What especially pleases Paone about the Church Basement Ladies show is that it reaches a lot of people, makes them happy, has many messages\u2014and it\u2019s a show \u201cyou could take your mom\/grandma to\u2026even the men like it!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever seen a Church Basement Ladies performance, you likely have a smile on your face at the very …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48177,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions\/48177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.augsburg.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}