Estelle Speros Macdonald

Estelle was born in Boston Massachusetts to Danny and Olympia (Bebe) Speros on August 4, 1947. It wasn’t long before she was “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, entertaining friends and family singing and dancing her way into their hearts. The family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in late 1953 to join her grandparents, Yia Yia and Papou, who had moved there in 1948. In no time at all, Estelle found her way on to the Lew King Rangers Show, becoming a regular along with the likes of Wayne Newton and Linda Sue Riskas.

In 1959, the family packed up and followed dad, first to Dallas and Houston Texas then finally Tenafly, New Jersey while he oversaw the construction of several hotels for H&J Construction Company. She continued with her musical endeavors becoming an accomplished piano player….somewhere there is still an echo of her favorite piece, Fur Elise……

Estelle, upon returning to Phoenix, after a semester at Central High, attended and finished at Arcadia High School, graduating in 1965. She enjoyed her High School years with all the typical functions, pep rallys, chorus, musicals, plays and school politics where she was elected Treasurer, singing her way into the office with “If ya wanna know who’ll take care of your dough then vote Estelle” to the melody of “Its in his kiss”. A bit of Arcadia trivia, in the 1964 Arcadia Year Book, she was right next to Steve Spielberg….But then, so was Susan Stanford……

Following high school graduation in 1965, Estelle enrolled at Northern Arizona University and stayed there for two years. Then, she transferred to ASU’s theater program. She wanted to learn all about theater and involved herself in diverse aspects of theater such as performing, costumes, make-up, and directing. She designed costumes and makeup for numerous Valley theaters, but her real calling was directing.

Her studies at ASU were interrupted in 1969 with an unusual performing opportunity: she and four friends were selected for an “all-girl” USO tour, entertaining troops in Alaska and Southeast Asia. After returning from the USO tour, she resumed studies at ASU Theater, and in the fall of 1970, she had her first student directing project, a reader’s theater-style play called, U.S.A, which she took to Phoenix Little Theater and several retirement communities in Mesa.

About this time, Estelle envisioned a production on the Lyceum stage, done entirely by students, to raise money for a student scholarship fund. She turned her vision into reality by producing and directing Little Mary Sunshine, a musical take-off on the Canadian Mountie operetta films of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald from the 1930s. A musical is an ambitious project because it is inherently more complex, involving coordination of not only acting, but singing, musical accompaniment, and choreography. In addition, a musical typically has larger casts which means more costumes, bigger, sets, etc. On top of this, Estelle cast not only student performers, but several of the faculty from the departments of theater, speech communications, and English. The production was so successful that the show was invited to perform at a retirement communities in West Phoenix and Mesa. This established Estelle as a serious director. Following her graduation with her BA in 1971, Estelle pursued an MA in Theater at ASU and she was awarded a graduate teaching assistantship in the speech communications department.

For the next four years, Estelle was an in-demand theater director in the Valley. A partial list of Valley productions includes three main stage productions at Phoenix Little Theater – today known as The Phoenix Theater Company. The first was the winner of the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-Moon Marigolds, followed by a musical spoof on the Busby Berkeley movie musicals of the 1930s, Dames at Sea, done that following summer. Her third show at PLT was The Amorous Flea. Estelle directed two plays for Scottsdale Stagebrush Theater, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She also directed and performed in a pair of one-act plays at The Spice of Life restaurant entitled Saturday Night at the Movies and The Problem. Rounding out the list of her major productions are Eugene O’Neil’s only comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, at Scottsdale Community College and a Phoenix Little Theater production of the children’s classic, Androcles and the Lion, where Estelle was the director of youth theater for a time. She was also named resident director of Scottsdale Theater for Children, a professional group performing children’s theater in Scottsdale schools.

In her spare time, she worked with, or for, Carol Steele, aka C. Steele & Co in Scottsdale. She later met and then in 1983, married Bruce Macdonald. They collaborated on many artistic ventures including the revival of the San Carlos Hotel in downtown Phoenix. While there, they lived in the penthouse suite on top of the building, ran the restaurant and hosted a number of downtown events, one of which included depositing 150 tons of sand in the street for a beach party.

The Valley would lose Estelle’s considerable talents in 1984, when she left Phoenix with her new husband, Bruce MacDonald, to go to Boston to start a new chapter in her life. Bruce, who had been the director at the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, was selected to head up the Berklee College of Music in Boston. It didn’t take Estelle long to find a new passion….event planning. Starting in their apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, Estelle learned and built an event planning business that Bruce soon joined her in and together they rocked the scene with major city and state events including the Tall Ships festivals and signing major corporate clients like J.Jill.

Unfortunately Bruce passed away after battling cancer and Estelle leaned on and leaned into philanthropic endeavors, especially related to her church, The Nativity – Assumption of the Virgin Mary aka Panagia Greek Orthodox Church in Cohasset, MA where she served several years as President and laid the groundwork for the new community center, just now being completed. While in Boston, Estelle reunited with many of her extended family, cousins, aunts and uncles, who had remained in New England.

In more recent years, without Bruce and having to deal with some brutally cold Boston winters, Estelle found her way back home to Phoenix where she lived the rest of her life visiting with friends and family, her mother Olympia (Bebe), brother and sister in law, Jim and Kim, her niece Maria, nephews Danny, Vasilios and James, and their children Aviah, Sophia, Amalea and Alex.

While in Phoenix, Estelle was pleasantly surprised to hear from an old friend, Larry Barzoloski, the pilot that flew her and the USO troupe to various military bases and other parts unknown. Larry, himself a widow and living in Virginia, became a constant companion to Estelle, often spending hours upon hours on the phone talking, laughing, sharing glad and sad tidings, even watching full length feature movies together while on the phone.

Estelle passed on her mother, Olympia’s, Saints day, July 25, 2025. It’s only fitting since before her mother passed January 9, 2020, she and Estelle would spend hours and hours on the phone with each other. Her mom came to take her home.

The funeral arrangements are at Whitney & Murphy Funeral Home, 4800 E. Indian School Road, Phoenix AZ 85018. Memorial and Funeral Services: Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 6:00 pm (Reception to follow)

Topic: Estelle Macdonald Funeral Service

Time: Aug 6, 2025 06:00 PM Arizona

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In lieu of flowers, it would be Estelle’s wish that donations be made to:

The Nativity – Assumption of the Virgin Mary aka Panagia Greek Orthodox Church in Cohasset, MA.

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