Nancy R. Miller

NANCY ROAMAN MILLER was well known for her merciless tongue and her generous heart. Many of us bear the scars or laugh lines from the former and the benefits of the latter.

Nancy majored in Drama at Vassar College. "It will be fun," she said, "and the bank I go to work for won't care about my major." As it turned out, she worked in the theatre all her adult life, first in Los Angeles and then in Fresno.

She was born in New York City in 1945 to Elizabeth Carlin and Harold Bayer. Her father died when Nancy was small and her mother remarried, to Mortimer Roaman. To her parents, Nancy was a treasure and a bit of a puzzlement, with her love of theatre and her fanatical hatred of vegetables. Her cousin Hugh Carlin, really more like a brother, sometimes served as a translator or diplomat in the family. Nancy was educated at the Lennox School for Girls and then at Vassar, where she made wonderful lifelong friends and learned the joys of sipping coffee and reading mysteries. But she never forgave the college for going co-ed.

In 1967 she moved to Los Angeles and went to work as a production assistant at the Mark Taper Forum. She began in casting, but gravitated to the Literary Department, and ended up running it. She and her associate were called "those Cassandras in the Annex" by the Artistic Director. Nancy met her future husband, Terry Miller, when he was hired to read scripts for the Taper as a UCLA grad student. They were married at Spring Break during his first year of teaching at Fresno State. They were still making each other laugh 40 years later. She gave him a t-shirt reading, YES, IT'S ME, TERRY MILLER, RAVAGED BY TIME. Her in-laws embraced Nancy immediately and cackled with laughter at her rude remarks.

For a brief period after moving to Fresno, Nancy worked as a journalist for the Clovis Independent. She also founded her own news monthly on arts in the Valley, THE BIG RAISIN. A very talented group of people worked on THE BIG RAISIN and it had a cult following. For the paper, Nancy wrote a column of local gossip and innuendo called "I Lost It In the Figs, featuring Luna Chesbrough."

Nancy was a founding member of Good Company Players and worked there with efficiency and passion for 35 years, her responsibilities including publications, auditions, acting and directing. The company offered another family for her, as many of her collaborators became treasured friends. She was a fine director: imaginative, literate, supremely organized and actor-friendly. Her many notable productions included CHICAGO, BIG RIVER, MY FAIR LADY and SUGAR at Roger Rocka's Music Hall and THE LITTLE FOXES, JANE EYRE, LYIN' UP A BREEZE and THE WOMEN at the Second Space.

In spite of her failing health, she was mentoring the director of LEND ME A TENOR shortly before she died peacefully at home on the morning of October 5. As she was limited in activity by her illness, she was moved to see her friends step up to help her in extraordinary ways. Her commitment to them and her sense of humor never left her.

For those who have asked, Nancy's favorite charities are the Ronald J. Harlan Memorial Fund (Madden Library Development Office/5200 N. Barton ML 34/Fresno, CA 93740-8014/Attn: Harlan Fund) and Nancy Hinds Hospice. The Harlan Fund supports the library's wonderful music and media collection, begun by the late Ron Harlan, an icon in local theatre and music circles, and an inseparable friend of Nancy's. They were seen together so often that she presented him with a t-shirt saying, I AM NOT NANCY MILLER'S HUSBAND.

Arrangements under the direction of Lisle Funeral Home, Fresno, CA.