PORT ANGELES — In February 2010, Marianne Trowbridge knew she had ovarian cancer.
She didn’t stop for it, though, not then. At age 86, she was busy choreographing “Cabaret,” a musical about to go on stage in Olympic Theatre Arts’ new playhouse in Sequim.
Once the show was open — and drawing crowds — Trowbridge began chemotherapy.
From March 1 on, she went every week to Olympic Medical Cancer Center in Sequim for treatments that made her so ill her doctor asked if she wanted to quit.
“I said, ‘No. I came here to kill it,’” Trowbridge recalled this week.
The Port Angeles actress and dancer did kill it. She completed her chemo Oct. 31, and a test just last month confirmed she is cancer-free.
And now Trowbridge, who celebrated her 87th birthday Jan. 30, is about to return to the stage — and “kill it,” as they say, in another way.
On Friday night, she’s starring in “Four Women,” a story about a mother’s secrets and a daughter’s search for the truth.
As she has done five times before, Trowbridge will portray four characters: 101-year-old Elizabeth, the Southern belle Bootsie, the elderly Sheri who struggles with Alzheimer’s and Vera, a young widow who wants to get on with her life.
Performance Friday
“Four Women” will arrive on the stage of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd., at 8 p.m. Friday as part of the center’s springtime “Enter Stage Left” series. Admission is $5.
Those who attend will see Trowbridge in her element. Since 2007, she’s performed “Four Women,” by local playwright Rebecca Redshaw, at venues from Port Angeles to LaPush.
She’s shaped Bootsie’s drawl and Elizabeth’s New England vowels, perfected Vera’s accent and, as Sheri, been swept back in time by the music of her youth in the 1940s.
Trowbridge herself continues to revel in the present and in music and dance.
She teaches tap dancing to a group of seniors every Tuesday at the Sequim Elks Lodge, and this past winter, she choreographed “Nunsense,” Olympic Theatre Arts’ musical comedy hit.
She acknowledged that 2010 “was a tough year.”
But Trowbridge kept her mind on the future; she was determined to finish chemotherapy well before it was time to start teaching the “Nunsense” sisters to dance.
A pure pleasure
Preparing for Friday’s performance of “Four Women” has been pure pleasure.
“I love Rebecca’s writing. It’s so easy to play those parts,” Trowbridge said.
As for Redshaw, well, she’s in awe of her actress.
“I called her and asked if she was interested” in doing the 80-minute show again, “and she said, ‘Absolutely.’”
And as Trowbridge has done each time before, “she nails it,” Redshaw added.
“We make a good team,” Trowbridge said. “I feel pretty lucky . . . and I love doing this.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.