World class pianist and native Bay Cityan Kevin Cole, Nina's cousin, performed a cavalcade of music from plays in which Nina had starred over the years.
ONLY ONE NINA: Hundreds Bid Farewell to Bay City Players Icon Nina Spiess
October 29, 2014
By: Dave Rogers
Nina Spiess, who can forget her?
The personality, the voice, the dedication -- qualities that propelled her into the hearts of the local arts community were the subject of the outpouring of superlatives Thursday night.
Hundreds gathered at the Bay City Players Theatre to laud the longtime performer and volunteer. It was the first such event to be held there.
World class pianist and native Bay Cityan Kevin Cole, Nina's cousin, performed a cavalcade of music from plays in which Nina had starred over the years.
Cole surprised the crowd after his stirring concert, pointing to the Baby Grand and noting "that's Nina's piano that she bought with her own money when she was 16." She had long ago donated the piano to the Players.
Singers Jill Verdi, a longtime Players' performer, and rising high school star Betsy Moulthrop, Nina's grand-daughter, added their talented voices to the tribute acknowledged by a grateful crowd.
The glorious irony of the tribute was that Nina had been called on stage last Friday after Mr. Cole's concert to receive the plaudits of the onlookers for her lifetime of work for the Players.
She was found dead in her apartment Sunday morning, the cheers of the crowd from Friday night no doubt still ringing in her ears in her last moments of life.
A poignant note was added when Mr. Cole commented mysteriously that Nina had put a single red rose in a bud vase for him prior to his Friday night concert. The rose was accompanied by a note saying "you saved me." He exclaimed: "You can't write an ending like that."
The community leader who used her Bulgarian heritage and bubbling personality to captivate her adopted hometown (she was born and raised in Toledo), died suddenly last Sunday at age 82.
Nina gave up a promising career in opera, for which she had been training, to become a wife and mother of five but had an active singing career anyway -- as a lead singer in a dozen memorable Players productions.
Calling her one of the Players' tried and true and a Players' icon for decades, Leeds Bird (himself a Players' stalwart), commented: "Her magnificent singing voice gave her leads in "South Pacific," "Kismet," "Man of La Mancha," "Fiddler on the Roof," and "Gypsy."
"Her voice and personality made her a standout actress in "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "Miss Reardon Drinks a Little." Our grand and glorious renovation leading us into our second hundred years is owed to people like Nina. Curtain up. Light the lights."
Mr. Bird took the microphone at the memorial and regaled the crowd with recollections of Nina's career in the local community theatre, stressing the "dynamic power of her voice" and noting "she made the characters unforgettable."
Nina was the closest thing to a diva Bay City ever had, he exclaimed.
She also worked the box office and even made fudge for fundraising, said Mr. Bird, commenting: "when things needed doing, she did them."
She was abrupt in a friendly way, telling Bird, fresh from Army service, "why don't you have that gap in your teeth fixed?" and referring him to her husband, Bob, a popular local dentist. He did, and the late Dr. Robert Spiess was his dentist for years.
"Nina was a performer who could stop a show," observed attorney Dave Skinner. "I don't remember the show from many years ago, BUT I remember Nina! I'm sad."
Steve Levine wrote: "Growing up I remember her as a dear friend of my dad's and what a beautiful actress and singing; my heart and prayers go out to the family."
"Very classy and sassy lady," said Susan Craves, the "classy" appellation echoed by Karen Jean Scheib-Jacobs.
Relatives and friends from around the country took to the microphone to add their fond recollections of Nina, including her nonagenarian uncle from California, Chris Cristoff.
The evening tribute culminated in a dramatic crescendo -- a rendition of Nina's song "Everything's Coming Up Roses" in her final Players production, "Gypsy."
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