By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

You may not know Karmo Sanders’ name, but you might recognize “The Marden’s Lady” should you spy her just outside her Scarborough household. However, Sanders said she rarely leaves home without disguising her face with makeup to prevent Mainers from striking up a conversation about her character in the widely popular commercials, which is only a small part of her lifelong career in theater.

“I can’t go through a tollbooth without being the “Marden’s Lady,” she said.

The character is based largely on Sanders’ exuberant aunt Pat, who is just one of many long-time Mainers in her large family tree, she said.

“It’s not like I had to put on the accent, I had to lose it when I was acting,” she said.

At Sanders’ first college audition at Philips University in Oklahoma, fellow cast members barely understood a word of the heavy Maine vernacular. 

How did Sanders, who grew up in the town of Norway, end up in Oklahoma shortly after graduating high school?

“Well, I was looking for the cowboys!” she said. “I didn’t realize Oklahoma was just the midwest and all the cowboys were in Texas!”

Sanders said she was horrified at her freshman orientation when a school official said 75 percent of students at the college would eventually marry a classmate there.

“I thought, ‘Oh no! I’m in the wrong place,’” she said, but she and her husband would become a part of that very number.

The pair were married during their travels across the country after spending just one semester at the college. 

Sanders, who does not wear her wedding ring in public, wanted her husband (aka “Daddy”) to remain nameless in this profile.

“I like the mystery. I tell people ‘If you find him, send him home,’ and ‘Daddy’ is enough for me,” she said, referring to the commercial’s well-known lines.

How old is the mysterious “Marden’s Lady?”

“I think I’m 55,” she said.

Eventually the two returned to Maine and lived in Portland for 14 years while Sanders began her acting career. Their first daughter was 10 years old when Sanders played Sally Bowles in “Cabaret” at South Portland’s Lyric Theatre, her first major role since acting in high school. 

“I couldn’t do it when the kids were little. Being a mother is enough of a job in itself,” she said.

In 1984 Sanders moved into a house behind her mother’s, who had lived in Scarborough for much of her life. After being involved with local theater for four years, Sanders traveled to Boston and participated in a national audition. She earned a role in as Truvy in “Steel Magnolias” at the Horse Cave theater in the town of Horse Cave, KY.

“Steel Magnolias” filled the 360-seat theater every night, largely due to the fact it was located next to national park, Sanders said.

While the seven-month role allowed Sanders an opportunity to work with committed actors and actresses, she said it was during the “Steel Magnolias” production she decided she didn’t want to become a professional actor exclusively.

“The actresses had to work so hard to get their next role. They were constantly sending out letters and auditioning; you always had to have something going on,” she said.

After working with the Brunswick Theater Project for a while, Sanders co-wrote her first full length musical production, “Radical Radio” with her husband and a friend in 1992. 

“Then stuff just started happening,” she said.

Sanders said “Radical Radio” was written to entertain young people and their families, and it received positive reviews during a five-week production at the Ninety-First Street Theater in New York City.

“It wasn’t a Broadway type of thing, we knew that, but we filled a 1,000 seat theater on Staten Island for eight shows! It was like being a rock star, and almost made a living off it,” she said.

Sanders followed “Radical Radio” around the country for nearly seven years. Shortly after the play’s last show, she attended a two-week study session by Morie Irene Fornez, a renowned female playwright, at Boston University.

“After that, I decided ‘OK, [playwriting] is what I’m supposed to do,” she said.

Sanders said she was astounded when she was invited to attend the Masters program at Boston University (BU), where she studied under Nobel Prize winner Derrek Walcot, considering she did not have any other undergraduate degree.

Sanders said her daughter played a key role in her graduating from BU.

“I need to tear my diploma into pieces and hand them out,” she said.

While attending BU, Sanders wrote her first play, a comedy, originally title “Humpin’ Glory Bay” in 2000. The play, later titled “Homer,” takes place on an island and is based around a male character who could easily have come from Scarborough, Sanders said.

Since “Homer” stopped production, Sanders has begun work on “Gold Rush Girls,” another full-scale musical about women in the Yukon gold rush of 1898.

“They were all prostitutes of course,” Sanders said. “But they were really the entrepreneurs of our country.”

Sanders said the musical is inspired by a book by Lael Morgan, “Good Time Girls.”

“I didn’t even have to read the book to know what it was about,” Sanders said.

With the help of the Boston Playwrights Theater, Sanders has completed the musical score and “survived” several readings of the script.

“They tore it to shreds! Until you see the words in someone’s mouth, it really doesn’t exist,” she said.

After working on “Gold Rush Girls” for nearly eight years, Sanders said she is currently working on putting the 18-song musical score onto CD.

“Writing a musical is hell,” she said. “Somebody told me it usually takes about 10 years from writing to production. That was when I was five years into ‘Gold Rush Girls’!”

Although writing a musical can be a daunting task, it can be less frustrating than trying to produce a screenplay, Sanders said.

“[Musicals] are the most overlooked genre in theater; there’s really only a handful of musical playwrights in the country,” she said. “I guess Disney might be the largest producer of musicals now; I consider ‘Gold Rush Girls’ the exact opposite of a Disney musical!”

Sanders encouraged other playwrights actors to avoid self-doubt as they find their way.

“If you’re feeling like you’re where you need to be, you’re in the right place,” she said.

Sanders said she never regrets staying in Maine, rather than moving to New York or Los Angeles, which can be a common misconception for actors who believe they cannot make it big while living in such a rural community.

“Portland still has two active theater companies, which is huge!” she said. “You just have to grind away until you hit it out of the park. And for that, everything has to be perfect,” she said. 

In addition to working on her musical and acting in the Marden’s commercials, Sanders will be participating in the first annual Support Woman Artists Now (SWAN) Day with eight other female playwrights. 

The event is scheduled for 4 p.m. on March 29 at the University of New England Art Gallery in Portland. For more information about SWAN Day, contact organizer Laura Emack at lkecpa@prexar.com or for information on Karmo Sanders, contact her agent at 207-725-1364.