Consuelo Murdoch Roy Performing Arts Scholarship

The Scholarship is being established in memory of Consuelo Murdoch Roy by her daughter Suzanne Quamme. Known as Connie, Consuelo Murdoch Roy was born in 1915 in Newport News, Virginia where her father worked as a Naval Engineer in the shipyard. Her family were all from Belfast, Northern Ireland, but moved to the United States prior to her birth. In 1920, her family relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when her father was transferred to another shipyard there. The following is a portion from Connie’s autobiography, Life was uneventful as far as I was concerned until my Sophomore year in High School when I got bit by the Acting Bug. Roles in Shakespeare plays and modern ones at school just whetted my appetite for more. The summer of my Junior year I was fortunate to be accepted as an apprentice at the Hedgerow Theatre, in a suburb of Philadelphia. This professional Theatre and School was run by Jasper Deeter, a veteran Broadway director and one of the original founders of the Provincetown Players, where such players as Ann Harding, James Stewart and Henry Ford got their start. Many Broadway names came each summer to play lead roles, with the resident amateur company filling in and that began my dreaming of a journey to New York to try my luck there.As often happens in life, circumstances changed and Connie never made it to Broadway. Instead, she married and they had two girls, Carolyn and Suzanne. Although the girls new about her “acting bug,” they didn’t learn about her big dreams until after her death and Carolyn found her autobiography, written years earlier. Carolyn and Suzanne both participated in school plays and choirs but never developed the strong desire to perform. Fortunately, one of Consuelo’s grandchildren has her desire and talent. Kaitlyn Burns, is currently a Junior at Colorado Mesa University and is pursuing double BFA majors in Acting and Directing, and Design Tech Theatre. Because of all the performances Suzanne has attended over the past two years to watch Kaitlyn and her friends, she has had the opportunity to see all the incredibly talented students at CMU. She decided that a scholarship in her mother’s name would be a great tribute to her and maybe provide an opportunity for some lucky student to fulfill their dream of making it to New York.