Door County Idol Showcases Past Winners

Maren Larsen, the first winner of Door County Idol in 2005, is traveling from Boston, taking a week off of work at the Institute of International Urban Development (impressive!) to be a part of tonight’s show. A graduate of Sturgeon Bay High School, the excitement in Larsen’s voice is palpable over the phone.

“We all know each other,” Larsen says of the other nine winners – Lee Spude (2006), Matthew Burress (2007), Devin Thomas (2008), Lily Larsen (2009), Lilli Nelson (2010), Zephyr Ciesar (2011), Lena MacDonald (2012), and Luke Spude (2013) – performing for the reunion show. “It will be like a big family reunion, we all share something. No one in Boston really understands when I say I won Door County Idol,” she laughs. “I feel like the old lady and wonder how many watched and saw the progression of the show. I’m taking this as an opportunity to sing again – sing stuff I love to sing.”

Maren Larsen.

As she did in 2005, Larsen will sing “what I want,” she says. For the premier Door County Idol performance, she sang “Adelaide’s Lament” from the musical Guys and Dolls. “I came out in a bathrobe and had this real nasally Brooklyn accent,” she recalls. She also performed “Defying Gravity” from the musical Wicked. “Idina Menzel [the star in the original production of Wicked] is my hero of all time,” she says.

Larsen took away great memories from that first show, which was modeled after the popular television series American Idol. Judges and audience votes combined to decide the winner. “It was a great ending to a great year in high school,” she says. “I graduated at the top of my class, the football team did great that year. It was the frosting on the cake – it was good to be recognized for that and not just my grades – I loved singing.”

Larsen credits William ‘Doc’ Hoehn and his wife Carol for her Door County Idol success. “They prepared me,” she says. “It was really, really fun to perform with Doc, a great goodbye.”

Though she’s not singing so much publicly these days, she is proud to be among this group of past Door County Idol winners. “Everyone that is going to be on stage has continued to perform in some way, shape or form. Some are recording, playing acoustic shows, in musicals, doing karaoke, singing in the shower,” she says. “The nerve level was so high [during the contest] – now it’s a free for all, no one is winning anything. We are all singing what we want.”

Tickets for tonight’s Door County Idol Reunion at 7 pm are $15 for adults and $10 for students. Door Community Auditorium is located on Highway 42 in Fish Creek. For more information, call 920.868.2728 or visit http://www.dcauditorium.org.