Opportunity
Knocks - Celebrating Atlantic Canada's Success Stories
Newfoundland's Tina Maddigan
After 14 callbacks to audition in Toronto for the acclaimed musical Rent, most people would have given up at not getting a part. But not Newfoundland's Tina Maddigan. She knows it takes more than talent to make it big, it also takes a strong will and an abundance of determination.
Her perseverance and talent have paid off. She leaves home shortly to play the lead in Mamma Mia! at the Winter Garden Theatre on New York's famed Broadway.
For Tina it may have seemed like decades between performing in musicals at Brother Rice High School in St. John's to acting on Broadway, but in fact it has only been eight years. After high school she attended Sheridan College in Toronto studying in the 'triple threat' (singing, acting, dancing) program. From then on, she paid her dues, like many other 'wannabes', waiting on tables, living hand to mouth, and auditioning...auditioning...auditioning. She even applied to be an usher at Toronto's Royal Alexander Theatre but was turned down, and once paid $100 for an audition ticket to sing for the show Les Misérables. Occasionally, her luck would turn and she would spend summers performing at various theatre festivals in and around Toronto.
Tina's first professional break came when she won the part of Sister Amnesia in the highly popular play Nunsense. Then she heard that Mamma MIA! was to be staged in Toronto and she said, "I want that part." She auditioned and won the lead role, of Sophie, in the very theatre that had turned her down as an usher.
In the last year, playing the lead in Mamma MIA!, Tina has wowed audiences in Toronto, San Francisco, Los Angeles and most recently Chicago. She had hoped that part would take her to Broadway, but the directors were looking elsewhere. Finally, in Chicago, Tina received the call that changed everything. She landed a year's contract to play on Broadway after the director told her "we were crazy to think we could find another Tina." She's equally thrilled that two other Canadians will be joining her in this Broadway musical.
This is why Aliant has chosen Tina Maddigan as one of Atlantic Canada's greatest success stories.