
courtesy of Darlene Gidney Facebook page
DECEMBER 25, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY BETSY MURPHY
CORRESPONDENT |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Darlene Gidney sat in a booth at Daily Treat one recent morning happily sharing the Board of Directors Award she received from AUDELCO at Symphony Space in New York City last month for outstanding service to the theater community.
“It’s the black Tony of theater,” she said proudly of the award, from Audience Development Committee Inc. Gidney has put a lot of work, and a lot of love into the dedication that earned her this coveted award.
Born and bought up in the village, where her great-grandfather started Glidewell Taxi, later Ridgewood Taxi, she moved back to Ridgewood when her sons, Yates and Edward, were about to enter the fifth and first grades. Today, Yates Gidney is in the U.S. Navy and Edward Blair IV will graduate from college in 2016.
Gidney acknowledges her own “good strong foundation from the community of Ridgewood,” where she was “always encouraged to explore other things.” Among her mentors she counts Ella Rae and Dudley Saunders, who owned Colonial Post and who were among the founders of Order of the Lamp. Many Ridgewood students benefited from scholarships from Order of the Lamp.
Congratulations, Darlene.
You could have shown her face rather than her midsection.