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GOING GAGA: Augusta native's career taking off since winning impersonation contest

By BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer

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Going gaga over Lady Gaga?
Have a gander at her award-winning look-alike. You might recognize a familiar face.
Renee Cole, an Augusta native and 2002 graduate of Cony High School, won the Lady Gaga impersonation contest July 9 in New York City.
Attired in a bustier with black leotard underneath and cutaway long skirt, she won tickets to a Madison Square Garden performance by the real Lady Gaga, and — even better — worldwide publicity.
“It’s leading to a lot of other things,” Cole said. “It became such a big thing, I got so many phone calls and contacts, I decided to do it professionally.”
She now offers a show called “The Lady Gaga Experience,” and performs in the style of Lady Gaga.
Cole, 26, who has been a singer, actress, performer and playwright, sees it as a whole new career facet: professional impersonator.
For the Lady Gaga contest, Cole donned her costume — complete with oversized dark glasses —  in Union Square Park. “I put the costume together in an hour using a former Broadway show costume sold to me by someone who does wardrobe and other pieces I already had,” she said.
The paparazzi found her in the park, and then the crowd saw the paparazzi.
“People really thought I was her,” Cole said. “They freaked out. A woman almost passed out begging for my autograph and The Bitter End owner’s wife asked if I remembered her — Gaga performed there in the early days. I got followed all the way over to the contest, and that’s where CNN and Inside Edition interviewed me.”
Then she got a call from an agent specializing in impersonators: “Can you do Madonna, too?”
Cole agreed to try it and was “the ’80s Madonna” in an Aug. 3 promotion at Macy’s for Madonna’s new clothing line.
The recent career catapult came after a lot of hard work.
“Two months after graduating high school in 2002, I moved to New York City, never having visited and not knowing a soul,” Cole said.
She told Dan Wheeler, a former English teacher at Cony who coached her in the Drama Club there, of her post-high school plan.
“I told her, ‘You’re doing it the hard way,’” Wheeler said last week. “I gave information about a number of acting schools, and told her to do some course work and learn these techniques more in depth.”
Cole credits Wheeler and the music program with helping her get through Cony.
“I would never have survived if not for Drama Club and singing and performing,” she said.
She took his advice and enrolled in Long Island University-Brooklyn, briefly, but dropped out to audition full-time.
“I still hated school,” she said.
Wheeler has remained in touch with Cole: He and his family had brunch with her in Portland on Fourth of July weekend.
“I’m very proud of her,” he said.
He recalled her numerous performances on stage at Cony. “She could do drama, but she always really enjoyed the kind of off-beat comic roles,” Wheeler said.
He described one particular highlight: “We did a short play called, ‘The Mice Have Been Drinking Again.’ There were only four roles, and one was a really kind of spacey, New Age hippie kind of thing.
“She really threw herself into it. I can never look at that play without thinking of Renee in that part. She really made it hers.”
Cole has a couple of favorite mantras:
• “If I walk out the door and no one is stares at me, I'll go home and change outfits because it means I’m not looking fabulous or outrageous enough!”
• “Life is too short to not put in the effort to look your absolute most fabulous every day.”
Even prior to her recent spate of publicity, she’s been working fairly steadily.
“My goal is still to be fabulous and famous worldwide and win every award there is, including The Oscar,” Cole said.
She has done background work in “The Manchurian Candidate” movie and in TV, with “30 Rock,” “Mad Men” and “Knights Of Prosperity.”
“My cartoon, ‘Bunny Power’ — I voice Bunni — is now featured on Playboy.com,” she said. “The most exciting publicity boost for me was being featured on the cover of The New York Times Arts section last September and going on LXTV NBC to talk about the (Barbra) Streisand concert.”
Cole had entered a Web contest and won tickets and a red-carpet entrance to Streisand’s concert. That was her first encounter with paparazzi.
“It’s been eight years of persistence. No matter what, you have to be born with some kind of talent with singing and dancing. It’s about persistence and luck and talent, in the end.”
She is a NYC Playwrights member and recently founded The Leap Day Theatre Company.
“I am writing several plays, and a book called ‘There’s A Martini In My Water Bottle: The Starving Actors Guide to Surviving NYC.’”
One of her plays, “True Tales of an Actress,” based on her blog, had its first-off Broadway presentation last year. Cole served as director.
She also sings in with a band, The Missing Teens, which recently performed at the Astoria Music Now festival.
Her boyfriend, Andrew Raff, is an entertainment lawyer. “He looks over my contracts and gives me the go-ahead,” she said.
Her career aspirations started early.
“My mom (Betty Cole) took me to many local theater productions and art events as child,” Cole said. “I specifically remember seeing ‘The Wiz’ at (age) 3, and wanted to become an actress ever since. As a child, I hosted Lithgow Library’s talent show for five years and took dance classes at Encore Dance Centre.
“I always knew I would be famous; even then, it was a gut feeling.”
More information, photos and her blog about the life of an actress in New York is available at www.reneecole.com.

Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com