Leslie McCurdy
- Actress
- Writer
- Composer
Named Outstanding Performing Artist of Windsor Ontario, Canada, Leslie
McCurdy, has been performing for many years in Southwestern Ontario and
the Mid-Western United States, a privilege her dual US/Canadian
citizenship affords her. Also a teacher, with an honors B.F.A. in dance
from the University of MIchigan, Leslie was slated to go to New York to
apprentice with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre when she
literally tripped, fractured her hip, and fell into acting. While she
has many theatre credits, Leslie is best known for the two one-woman
plays that she wrote and has toured with internationally for 15 years.
The Spirit of Harriet Tubman was a finalist for a Canadian Chalmers
Award for Best New Play for Young Audiences, though it is a play for
all ages, and her second play Things My Fore-Sisters Saw, about four
Black women who impacted Canadian History, was featured on the Canadian
Bravo Network. A two-person adaptation of the latter play entitled
Voice of the Fore-Sisters was commissioned by Black Theatre Workshop in
Montreal Quebec for one of its more successful school tours. Leslie has
also written a version of Harriet Tubman's story for the kindergarten
through grade two age range called Harriet is My Hero. Her credits
include; Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill; Risa in
Two Trains Running; Nurse Ratchet in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest;
Bobbie-Michelle in Last of the Red Hot Lovers; Dorothy in The Wiz;
Laura McClellan Williams in Checkmates; The Acid Queen" in Tommy;
Fraulein Kost in Cabaret; The Coochie Snoocher" in The Vagina
Monologues, and appearances in ABC's Detroit 1-8-7, and several movies.
including Ides of March and Beyond the Mask. Leslie has recently
returned to her dance roots and is a member of Dance Nonce, a modern
dance company based in Grosse Point Michigan.