Biography
A Troubadour's Life
Internationally Acclaimed Comedic Character Actor, Author, Speaker, Educator and Arts-In-Education Advocate Martha Hannah
has story performance and joke telling in
telling in her blood. “I come from a long line of characters that were long-winded and funny,” she says.
Martha‘s deep, rich heritage is from a large Scotch-Irish clan that came to America in the early 1700’s
and settled in Tennessee. “I was blessed with my grandmother, Mama Roxie, who had a grand sense of the
lyrical and dramatic telling of an event. She was a natural comedienne. My father always had a delicious
compulsion to tease and tell jokes. His mother, Nanny, early on introduced me to a fascination with ghost
stories and a belief in the unseen.”
When, as a five year old, Martha drew three-dimensionally, created songs on her xylophone and gave speeches
to trees to rehearse her defense when she got in trouble, her parents knew that their youngest child was ‘different’.
By age eight
she proclaimed things like, “I won’t stand for it!” and with equal fortitude, as an early teen, she was
determined to overcome an innate shyness. She began to write and, despite visible shaking and a quivering
voice, deliver speeches, adapt performance pieces and travel to compete in acting competitions.
In high school Martha became a published newspaper columnist. Early on, in performances, she was so strong
on stage that she became known for the ability to move audiences to tears or laughter. Many regional acting
awards followed and Martha found her shyness overshadowed by an abounding love and addiction to working with
a live audience. So, by sixteen, Martha Hannah was hooked and found writing, theatre and the arts synonymous
to breathing. And, in doing so, she firmly began her speaking, writing and performance career.
A performance scholarship led Martha to college and to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art and Theatre
with a teaching certificate. She taught art and theatre, became a published illustrator and freelanced
graphic design. Her extensive professional theatre career has covered years of performing on stage, in
dinner theatre, improv, standup, radio and industrials and film with many commercials to her credit.
Gracious and charming, Martha brings her wry sense of humor and special brand of wit with a penchant
for the ridiculous to conversations, her writing and on stage. When asked if her shyness is a thing of
the past, Martha says, “It is always there. It’s like arm wrestling with the devil. And, the devil is
that now I’m such an extravert.”
For over twenty years, as a touring performance artist, artist-in-residence, speaker and avid
arts-in-education advocate, Martha has worked with many state and regional arts organizations performing
and teaching action-packed, multi-media oriented and participation-
based learning, theatre, workshops and motivational and creativity seminars. She has performed on touring rosters
for the Tennessee Arts Commission, the Community Foundation for Middle Tennessee, Kentucky Center for the Arts,
South Carolina Arts Commission, Leonard-Bernstein Center-Nashville Institute of the Arts and North Carolina’s
Spirit Square. Currently Martha is a performing artist on touring rosters with the Texas Commission on the Arts
and the Mid-America Arts Alliance which covers a six-state region including Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska,
Oklahoma and Texas. She is also on the touring roster for the Writers League of Texas' Project WISE
(Writers in the Schools for Enrichment).
In her journey as a speaker, author, educator and performer, Martha has written and developed a myriad of
workshops and performances and performed for and taught tens of thousands of students and educators. “Long ago
a seasoned arts-in-ed performer told me, ‘If you can just reach one. If you can just reach ‘one’ student,
then you have made a difference.’ And, that is what I strive for.”
As an author, Martha has continued to write plays, teaching materials, motivational workshops, monologues,
one-woman shows, articles, short stories and novels. She has presented her work on stage, in dinner theatre,
on radio and television and at endless events and venues. She has a semi-autobiographical novel in progress
that ties in her college theatre life and ghosts. She also is developing the publishing and production of her
various children’s stories and songs including the next in the ‘Maid Martha Tells It All’ series. Martha is a
member of the Writers’ League of Texas, SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators and the
Dog & Duck Art & Beer Club.
It was Martha’s lifelong fascination with ghost stories and the “unseen” that took her and her author/ illustrator husband,
Larry Dowell, down many dimly lit back streets in England during evening ghost tours. They have traveled across
Europe through castles and cathedrals from Edinburgh to Venice, collecting ghost stories and what she calls
“a head full of medieval trivia.” This led Martha to develop her hilarious character, ‘Maid Martha, Medieval
Comedienne and Stand-Up Historian’, which she uses on stage and in her workshops to bring the Middle Ages and
Renaissance and comedy to life for countless enthusiastic audiences.
As a creative husband wife team, Martha and Larry own and manage the publishing company, CicadaSun.
Their titles include “The Ghost of Hampton Court’. This richly illustrated book and wonderfully performed audio book
is the first of the ‘Maid Martha Tells It All’ series. Authored by Martha and illustrated by Larry, it is a haunting
historical fiction ghost story about Henry VIII and his fifth wife, Catharine Howard. Martha’s stage character,
‘Maid Martha’ in this book and throughout the series, tells the story as it unfolds, adding an element of delight and humor.
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