Melanie Ron Joins MACKERS Cast at Arizona Theatre Matters
Jeanmarie Simpson's dark comedy about a MACBETH production gone wrong will stage in Glendale, AZ.
Arizona Theatre Matters has announced that Melanie Ron will play Frankie in Mackers, Jeanmarie Simpson's new dark comedy about a production of Shakespeare's Macbeth that begins to come spectacularly apart during a preview performance.
Part narrator, part stage manager, part witness, Frankie guides audiences through a night of collapsing cues, strange accidents, theatrical superstition, and increasingly impossible events. As actors panic, technicians scramble, and the production teeters between disaster and collapse, Frankie remains the person holding the company together.
For playwright and director Jeanmarie Simpson, casting Ron was less a professional decision than a moment of theatrical gratitude.
"I reached out to her and Melanie accepted the role site unseen. She is an actor to her marrow," Simpson says. "She understands theatre people because she is theatre people. She knows Frankies. She has worked with them, depended on them, probably saved a few of them from losing their minds, and undoubtedly been saved by them in return."
Ron, a native New Yorker, has spent decades working as a dancer, singer, actor, and teaching artist. She holds a BA from Queens College and an MFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Her credits include Dr. Rachel in Grandma Sylvia's Funeral at the SoHo Playhouse, Shirley Dunbar in Welcome to the Moon at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Helga in Kindertransport, directed by Simpson.
In addition to her stage work, Ron has spent more than twenty years teaching through the International Music Together Program, helping young children and families develop communication, listening skills, rhythm, and creative expression through music.
The play's title may invoke Shakespeare, but its heart belongs to the people backstage.
As Martha Graham famously wrote to Agnes DeMille: "Keep the channel open… No artist is pleased… There is no satisfaction whatever at anytime... There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes “us” MORE alive than the others.”
In many ways, Frankie lives inside that philosophy—showing up, paying attention, and continuing the work no matter what arrives next.
For Ron, Frankie occupies a unique place within the world of Mackers.
"I think of Frankie as connective tissue, the glue that makes all systems GO (even when they are glitching)! She is vital to every moment, every step, and every breath of Mackers, both onstage and off. Jeanmarie Simpson gave Frankie a vitality, passion, and underlying grace that makes her one of those characters you just can't wait to sink your teeth into."
While Mackers unfolds amid backstage mayhem and Shakespearean echoes, the story ultimately belongs to the people whose work is rarely visible to audiences. Frankie documents the failures, manages the emergencies, protects the company, and keeps moving forward long after common sense suggests she should run for the nearest exit.
The result is a character who embodies the practical care, stubborn resilience, and hard-earned humor that sustain live theatre.
Written and directed by Simpson, Mackers follows a company performing Shakespeare's notorious Scottish tragedy when a series of increasingly bizarre mishaps begins to transform an ordinary preview performance into something far stranger. What starts as a technical problem soon becomes a test of trust, tradition, and the fragile systems that hold both theatre and human communities together.
Mackers will launch Halloween morning on ATM's YouTube Channel. It will be free and on demand in perpetuity.
