Tracy Furlong (Mae Ellen) remembers that during her first year as a young, very green music teacher, Tracy Furlong attended the opening night of ECP’s very first production: Side by Side by Sondhiem, and was so inspired she went on to direct a group of senior high students in the very same musical.  Tracy is a native of Williamston, South Carolina, but has lived in such diverse areas as Oklahoma and London, England. In 1984 she received her Bachelor of Music Education Degree in Classical and Choral Music from Winthrop University and taught music education, chorus and musical theatre in South Carolina and Oklahoma for four years. In 1999, she met husband Trevor Furlong, a London native, and spent the next 10 years in Swinging London, having a ball and studying tea and tea lore from Jane Pettigrew, one of the world’s leading experts in tea. Tracy has been a PA to a traveling motivational speaker, IT instructor,  church choir director, the keyboardist/ guitarist/ vocalist of a British Pub Band called Road Dog Jackson (along with husband Trevor), and is now the co-owner of The Victoria Tea Room: A Genuine English Tea Room here in Anderson. Most recently, Tracy played keyboards and sung in the House Band Teddy Radiator for ECP’s fundraiser Cooper and Friends: Mo’ Blues. While Tracy has performed in and directed mostly musicals (including  You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown, in which she both starred and directed during different incarnations of her life), she recently rose to the challenge of playing totally against type in Dearly Departed here at ECP. Tracy would like to thank her husband Trevor for his support and patience, and her family and friends for believing in her. Tracy hopes one day to grow up to be a genuine raconteur.