The voice behind the infamous GLaDOS of Portal and Portal 2 will be returning to Chicago in 2013 to celebrate Anime Midwest. GLaDOS’s first ever live performance of "Still Alive" and "Want You Gone" was at Anime Midwest two years ago, in 2011, and so far Anime Midwest is the only place fans can meet Ellen McLain in 2013.
Ellen McLain, the voice of GLaDOS, the artificial intelligence antagonist in Portal (for which she won an AIAS Interactive Achievement Award for Outstanding Achievement in Character Performance) and Portal 2, hails from Nashville, Tennessee. She has worked in theater and opera for over thirty years. Her professional career began on Broadway with Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady and with the legendary Peggy Lee in her show, Peg. Ellen’s credits range from Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman to Mimi in La Boheme. McLain provides voices for many characters in several video games from Valve. Among them are the announcer in Team Fortress 2, and the voice of the Combine overwatch for the Half-Life 2 series.
McLain is the only person to have her voice in all the games in the Orange Box. She sang the ending credits song to Portal, "Still Alive" and Portal 2, "Want You Gone", both written by Jonathan Coulton, and sang the Turret Opera by Mike Morasky featured at the end of Portal 2. McLain now lives in Seattle with her husband, fellow voice actor John Patrick Lowrie, who insisted she get a voice demo for years and is therefore responsible for her subsequent fame as the much loved and hated GLaDOS.
Her husband, famed sci-fi novelist John Patrick Lowrie, will also be returning. John Patrick Lowrie was born in 1952 in Honolulu, Hawaii and raised in Boulder, Colorado. At 16 he left home to make his way as a singer/guitarist/flautist/trombonist in a rock ‘n’ roll band, sleeping in parks and communes and getting to know several hippies. Surviving the draft, he graduated with highest distinction from the Indiana University School of Music and for a few years managed to make a living as a composer and guitarist in his acoustic fusion duo The Kiethe Lowrie Duet, garnering critical acclaim and opening for people who were much more famous than he was. He then decided to become an actor because the pay was better and the work was steadier. To this day he remains the only person he knows of who has done this. He met Ellen McLain, his wife of twenty-four years, in Arnhem, Holland on a European tour of a Broadway show and started his acting career in Palermo, Italy telling jokes to an opera house full of Sicilians who didn’t speak English. Success continues to dog his heels like an angry Pekinese. John and his wife now reside in Seattle, where they divide their professional time between acting in live theater and voice acting for computer games and radio.
The pair performed "Still Alive" and "Want You Gone" live at Anime Midwest 2011, with Ellen singing and John playing guitar.
Over 3,000 people will converge on the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Rosemont, Illinois from July 5-7, 2013 for the next Anime Midwest. Anime Midwest features over 100+ events, dozens of dealers and artists, dozens of video game tournaments, and dozens of epic guests. Some of the convention’s events can be found at http://animemidwest.com/events