By Maddy Vitale
As a little girl, Kate Flannery used to press her nose up against the glass and peer into the Ocean City Music Pier to catch a glimpse of a show.
Fast forward four decades and Flannery, who played Meredith Palmer on the hilarious NBC comedy “The Office,” will be one of the stars performing Wednesday at the very same venue she fondly remembers from her many vacations to Ocean City in her youth.
“If it is the one thing you haven’t done in Ocean City, if you never heard live music at the Music Pier, now is the time. It is a great place and the musicians are great,” Flannery said in a phone interview Sunday.
The actress, who also has a hit musical career, will join a star-studded Broadway cast and the Ocean City Pops Orchestra in an Aug. 1 celebration of two of Broadway’s most legendary figures: composer Leonard Bernstein and director/choreographer Jerome Robbins.
“I will be doing solo show tunes,” Flannery said. “It is kind of new territory for me. I haven’t been doing traditional musical theater since college. I don’t take myself too seriously. The stories are set to music. The show is going to be really fun.”
Flannery, who lives in Los Angeles, is currently Jane Lynch’s sidekick in her “anti cabaret” act and is featured on Lynch’s album “A Swingin’ Little Christmas.” Her original cult comedy lounge act, “The Lampshades,” plays Hollywood regularly, too.
“We are bringing back some female show tune songs,” she said.
She is also a regular on Hulu’s “All Night” and Cartoon Network’s “OK K.O.” Her Off Broadway shows include Nora & Delia Ephron’s “Love Loss & What I Wore” at the Westside and Alice in “The Real Live Brady Bunch” at the Village Gate.
Somehow, she manages to juggle it all.
“Every day is different. Every week is different. I just finished a Hulu show. I just did Meredith Viera’s new show, then there are the cartoons and auditions. I am all over the place,” she said with a chuckle.
But the friendly, warm and funny Flannery, seems to take it in stride.
She does a lot of comedy festivals for the lounge act. “I am super busy. Every week is kind of a road map to figure out. I am really lucky,” she said.
And she owes some of her success to her tenure on “The Office,” she said.
Flannery was on “The Office” for nine years.
“Just doing nine years of The Office, if I could have done nine more years, I would have,” she said. “It was the greatest job and I have to say, it completely changed my life. I had done Off Broadway and television before, but the show completely changed my life.”
Flannery was seven years old when her parents Joan and Tom Flannery moved her and her five sisters and brother to Ardmore, Pa. They spent many summers at their grandfather’s Ocean City home, Flannery recalled,
“My grandfather bought a home in Ocean City in 1923. We have been going there since we were born,” Flannery said.
Despite having such a whirlwind of a schedule that takes her from city to city to perform, Flannery manages to visit her father and siblings in Pennsylvania. Her mother passed away. They also head down to Ocean City for some fun.
There are many wonderful memories that involve Ocean City, she said.
And it goes back as far as 1967, when Flannery and her sister, Susie Flannery, won the Ocean City Baby Parade.
“We were dressed as Campbell soup kids,” she said. “I remember it. We were under three years old.”
Even though she played a drunk on “The Office” and her dad owned a bar in Philadelphia, one thing that really sets Ocean City apart from other resorts is that it is a dry town, Flannery said.
“We had a great time. I know my dad owned a bar, and I played a drunk on “The Office,” but Ocean City really is for the kids. Everyone really looks out for each other. It is different.”
She looks back at a time when the resort was much quieter because of the blue laws barring Sunday sales.
“I was frustrated you couldn’t go shopping or go on rides, but those were the days we spent the longest on the beach and riding our bikes,” she said.
At one point, Flannery even worked at different Boardwalk shops. She took a job at a hot dog stand and at a T-shirt shop.
She recalled a time when she was swimming in the ocean.
“I can remember being a little over my head and out of eyeshot of my mom. Someone picked me up out of the water,” Flannery said. “It was so great to spend summers in Ocean City and be on the Boardwalk. We had really fun summers there.”
This will be the first time the performer will play Ocean City.
“Jane Lynch and I performed in Atlantic City two years ago,” she said.
“But this feels much more special to me.”
The other performers in the show are Alex Getlin, Chris Blem, Scott Coulter and John Boswell.
The show is at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 1 at the Ocean City Music Pier. Tickets are $20 to $25 and are available at oceancityvacation.com/boxoffice, by calling 609-399-6111, or in-person at the City Hall Welcome Center, the Roy Gillian Welcome Center on the Route 52 causeway and the Ocean City Music Pier Box Office.
