48 Friday, January 24, 1986
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
BY VICTORIA DIAZ
Special to The Jewish News
Rehearsals are a way of life for Nancy Gurwin.
K
t is the middle of the after-
noon and Nancy Gurwin, ac-
tress singer, dancer, wife,
mother, and executive pro-
ducer of Nancy Gurwin
Productions, is at home. She is wear-
ing a black wooly sweater, skinny
black pants, and the highest of
•dl ,high-heeled black leather pumps.
She is talking with an interviewer,
answering the telephone, welcoming
her three sons (Matthew, 16; Sam,
15; Danny, 13) home from school,
and trying not to smoke. In 'a few
minutes she'll be driving one of the
sons to a doctor's appointment, drop-
ping in at the Birmingham Commu-
nity Theater to check on some sets
for a new show she's doing over the
weekend, visiting the podiatrist for
some problems she's been having
with her dancing feet, driving home,
making dinner, washing the
dishes ...
For the blonde, Joan Rivers
look-alike, who has been entertain-
ing Detroit area dinner theater
audiences for almost a decade now,
it's an easy day.
"I have a lot of energy," she
says. "To get organized or to do all
the things I have to do, I don't ever
make lists or anything like that. I
just keep going.
"Of course," she says, with the
straightest of straight faces, "I have
an EMS unit parked outside most of
the time."
Nancy Gurwin, 42, laughs a lot
and, even when she's not laughing,
looks — most of the time — as if she
wants to. Her conversation is as full
of italicized expressions and exclam-
atory sentences as a high school
girl's and sometimes, in her bubbly
enthusiasm, her speech is so rapid-
fire that it's hard to catch some of
the words.
"I was meant to act and sing,"
she says. And, even though that may
sound a bit like a line from an old
MGM musical, seriously folks,
Nancy Gurwin definitely is not kid-
ding.
"Years ago, I went to Detroit
Country Day School, when it was lo-
cated on Seven Mile Road. And the
first time I was onstage out there in
a school play — I was about 6 at the
time, I guess — that was it. I mean,
I loved the audience. I loved that
magic."
Gurwin's parents, Mark and
Charlotte Rovner, now live in
Florida and, because of her mother's
ill health, are not able to travel or to
see any of Gurwin's performances
these days. But when she was grow-
ing up in Detroit and Oak Park,
both took an active part in encourag-1
ing their stagestruck daughter's
interest in the theater, she says.
•