After a long film festival circuit run in which the film was nominated for awards at 14 festivals, won eight awards (including five Best Short Documentary Awards from: Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, Chain NYC Film Festival, Oregon Documentary Film Festival, Upstate NY Film Festival and New York Long Island Film Festival), Just a Broadway Baby: Mary Ellen Ashley is now available on YouTube.
“We had been talking to folks at BroadwayHD and other cable outlets but ultimately decided we wanted anyone and everyone to be able to access and enjoy the film for free,” Mary Ellen shared from her home in Los Angeles. She recently tap danced on Let’s Make a Deal and had Wayne Brady in stitches and is featured in the new film, Thump, which recently screened at the prestigious Raindance Film Festival in London.
The short documentary, directed by award-winning actor, playwright and filmmaker Patrick Riviere, follows Mary Ellen’s storied career from making her Broadway debut in The Innocent Voyage at the age of seven, to being cast in the original Broadway production of Annie Get Your Gun with Ethel Merman and growing up with the show playing all of Annie’s younger sisters over the run. Mary Ellen, who began her career as Mary Ellen Glass and often just went by “Mary Ellen,” went on to star in radio and early TV shows (she was cast as The Tootsie Roll Sweetheart on The Tootsie Hippodrome TV show), and then opened for stars in Las Vegas at The Tropicana Hotel and toured her own club act around the country. Ultimately she has performed in some of the most beloved roles in the musical theater canon on Broadway, Off-Broadway, National and International Tours and the most renowned regional theaters in the country from Maine State Music Theatre and Walnut Street Theater; Paper Mill Playhouse and The Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre to ArtPark and American Music Theatre of San Jose to name a few. And that includes starring in over 12 productions of Hello Dolly and almost as many productions of Gypsy as Mama Rose.
Indie Shorts Magazine had this to say about the film: “Ashley is instantly likeable. Her flair for drama blends with humour to produce excellent theatricality as she recounts the story of how she got her start. “Picket Fences” the sequence that delves into a conflict between career and parenting, best showcases the film’s ability to throw in lower tones into the narrative’s colourful carousel and have it be richer for it.”
You can see the film by following the link here: www.youtube.com/watch
