Lenny Schmidt

I am saddened to hear Mary Willard passed away this week. My heart goes out to Fred, Hope, and the entire Willard family.

I worked with the “MoHo’s” sketch group several years back. The only reason I stopped was all the travel I do. They are a lovely group of people who I looked forward to working with every week. As a whole they were great because they didn’t coddle your you so you would spend money and take their class. On the contrary, they didn’t want to waste time. Theirs or yours.

Mary Willard was the epitome of that. She was the glue, the spine, core, center, rock…. she was their leader. She was a no BS kind of instructor/Director. You wrote a sketch, brought it to class, gave it to Mary, she took it from there. She cold cast it, people would perform it, then input. Your sketch was funny, or it wasn’t. End of story. Mary cut right to the chase. She was my Mom if my Mom worked in comedy. I related to her. Accept when she gave me shit about using garlic salt. “No decent cook would ever use garlic salt”…. she told me.

it’s the only incorrect thing she ever said.

I was blessed to have worked with her.

RIP Mary Willard.