CYRANO to Open Watershed Public Theatre's Riverwalk Arts Festival

The Riverwalk Arts Festival will return to Columbia's Riverwalk Park with the opening of Watershed Public Theatre's 2026-2027 season. The featured play is Cyrano, adapted and directed by Payton McCarthy and originally written by Edmond Rostand.

The festival runs for two weekends, opening each night at 6pm, when food trucks will begin serving. There is pre-show entertainment starting at 6:45pm, with different performers each night. Then as the sun lowers, at 7:30pm, the feature play Cyrano will begin. The festival takes place Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings: September 10-12 and September 17-19 at 102 Riverside Drive in Columbia, TN.

As always, the Riverwalk Arts Festival is free to the public! Watershed Public Theatre is a nonprofit professional theatre dedicated to bringing quality, affordable theatre and a variety of arts engagement to the Southern Middle Tennessee community. It's all thanks to the hard work of the WPT team and the generosity of its donors and sponsors, and additional donations are encouraged to help the festival continue for years to come.

Poetic soldier, Cyrano de Bergerac, has both a way with words, and a way with swords. He's a real renaissance man. But his poor self-image is a heavy setback. So when it comes to stirring up the romantic interest of the intellectual Roxane, a traditionally handsome but inarticulate soldier named Christian has the head start. The three find themselves in an entanglement: Roxane receives adoration and eloquent love letters, Cyrano pours his soul into poetry for her... but only as the ghostwriter for Christian. With Cyrano's talent and romanticism behind him, Christian takes the hand of Roxane.

Roxane is played by Maggie Hernandez, who is a real renaissance woman herself. She was the assistant director for Much Ado About Nothing for last year's Riverwalk Arts Fest. The year prior she played Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Maggie contributes to Watershed as a consultant, the graphic designer for every poster of the last two seasons, and even serves on the Board of Directors as a representative of WPT's Artist Company. Watershed Public Theatre is the only professional theatre company in the Columbia area, and Maggie considers her involvement to be a true privilege.

According to Maggie, "Payton McCarthy is a thoughtful, collaborative director who creates a fantastic space for his cast." Payton has directed some vibrant plays for Watershed Public Theatre, including the musicals Anastasia and Carousel. The park's outdoor setting is ideal for his bold retelling of Cyrano; Payton is giving the play a modern tone that is more grungy and "street" than most adaptations of this 1897 classic.

The powerful poster for the play depicts Cyrano staring into a shattered mirror. The focus isn't on Cyrano's face, but rather, the inner conflict he's facing. "We're stripping the story bare and letting the story speak for itself," says Payton McCarthy. "This play is about insecurities and how they lead to self-sabotage."

The actor playing Cyrano, Evan Taylor Williams, finds the lead character to be 100% relatable. "Like all of us at some point in our lives, he is his own worst critic." The audience might see a driven, brave and incredibly witty young man. Evan elaborates, "As a Gascon cadet, he has gone toe-to-toe with many enemies. But at the end of the day his self-consciousness - his warped idea of self-value and self-worth - those are his most formidable opponents."

Brett Lemmers plays the poetic pastry chef, Raganeau, in the play; another Watershed staple, he's excited and grateful to be performing in Riverwalk Park amongst nature's bounty. "I think it's of paramount importance for audiences and communities in Tennessee to have access to affordable live theatre." He believes exposure to the arts is what turns opinions into a greater conversation. "That's the beauty of storytelling and live theater."

In addition to Maggie Hernandez, Evan Taylor Williams and Brett Lemmers, the cast of Cyrano features Middle Tennessee actors Rebecca Harding, Scott Karan, E. Roy Lee, Luke McGuire, Austin Jeffrey Smith, Isabel Smith and Ellen Joy Vernier.

Riverwalk Arts Fest offers a reflection of community, and its feature play Cyrano is a story of rich, captivating characters. Their insecurities paint a tapestry of bad decisions and consequences to those actions. In the audience, our empathy will bring us together. Plus, who doesn't enjoy a good sword fight?

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