Luba Mason

Luba Mason is an American actress, singer, songwriter and dancer. She has starred on Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theaters in plays and musicals and television and film. As a singer, she has performed in International Jazz and Music Festivals as well as major jazz and music clubs around the country. Mason has trademarked her own musical format called Mixtura, "a blend of different musical currents." Early life Mason was born Lubica Anna Christina Gregusova to Rudolph and Ellen Gregus a first-generation American of Slovak descent on July 26, 1960. She grew up in Palisades, NY, graduating from Tappan Zee High School in Orangeburg, NY in 1979. At Tappan Zee High School she performed in many of the Drama Department's theatrical productions, including Gypsy (in the role of Louise), Kismet, Dracula, Don't Drink the Water, Anything Goes, and Cabaret. She studied classical piano for 12 years starting at the age of 5, trained classically in voice with teachers from The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music, and dance with Lee Theodore and The American Dance Machine. Mason also received a BFA in Drama from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and Circle in the Square Theatre School. After graduating from NYU, she used the name 'Kim Freshwater' professionally for a few years. Career Broadway Mason's extensive Broadway career began in 1987, when she made her debut, billed as 'Kim Freshwater,' as the statuesque, leather-clad nightclub owner in the short-lived musical Late Nite Comic. This was followed by her appearance in Sid Caesar & Company in 1989. In 1991, she was part of the original Broadway cast of Tommy Tune's Tony Award-winning The Will Rogers Follies, first as the second Ziegfeld Follies girl from the left, then assuming understudy assignments for the leading lady "Betty Blake" and sassy featured role of "Ziegfeld's Favorite". Next came her break-through comedic role of Hedy LaRue in the first revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying opposite Matthew Broderick and directed by Des McAnuff. Significant roles followed as the mourning mother Mrs. Kresinsky in Paul Simon's The Capeman, the doomed Lucy Harris in Jekyll & Hyde replacing Linda Eder, and later playing the hardened Velma Kelly opposite Brooke Shields' Roxy Hart in Chicago, directed by Walter Bobbie. Mason originated the role of Mrs.