Eric Link directs DIXIE SWIM CLUB for Lakewood Theatre Company

Director Eric Link leads a cast of accomplished local actresses in Lakewood Theatre Company's 31^st season's production of The Dixie Swim Club, a comedy by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten.

According to Link - who is vice president of Lakewood Theatre Company and is the recent winner of its Lakie Award for best lead actor of 2010 for his role in Jones/Hope/Wooten's Southern Hospitality - The Dixie Swim Club focuses on five Southern women (whose friendships began many years ago on their college swim team), who set aside a long weekend every August to recharge those relationships. Free from husbands, kids and jobs, they meet at the same beach cottage on North Carolina's Outer Banks to catch up, laugh and meddle in one another's lives. The Dixie Swim Club focuses on four of those weekends and spans a period of thirty-three years.

With Elizabeth Hayes, director Link co-wrote Passage to Fey, which was produced on the Lakewood stage last year.

"I am working with a dream team," Link explains. "The cast is made up of some of the most talented actresses in Nashville."

His cast includes LaToya Gardner, Jess Miller, Lauren Shakespeare, April Hardcastle-Miller and Jill Braddock-Watson.

Gardner recently starred in Circle Players' critically acclaimed production of A Raisin in the Sun, and has also appeared onstage for Circle in To Kill A Mockingbird, Fame: The Musical, Once Upon a Mattress, Footloose and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. She has also performed with Collards and Caviar Theater in the production of Split Second and in Keeton Theater's production of All Shook Up.

Miller is originally from Dallas and attended KD Studio Actors Conservatory of the Southwest there, where she received her degree and participated in New York Stage & Film's Powerhouse Theater Apprentice Program at Vassar College. Locally, she has worked in commercials and industrial films and with various theatre companies, including Circle Players, Encore Theatre Company, Steeple Players and Street Theater Company.

Shakespeare has been seen acting on Nashville stages for the past seven years. Her previous roles include Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Mr. Tumnus in a professional touring production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Alais Capet in The Lion in Winter.

Born and raised in Nashville, Hardcastle-Miles' first role came at the age of 14 in Circle Players' Brighton Beach Memoirs. Her favorite roles include: Shelby in Steel Magnolias and Babe in Crimes of the Heart, both on the Lakewood stage. April has also co-written and assistant directed many of Lakewood Theatre's youth productions including Peter Pan, Velveteen Rabbit: Tales From Under the Bed and Class Pictures.

Braddock-Watson has previously appeared in award-winning turns at Lakewood Theatre in Dearly Beloved and Christmas Belles,(both by Jones/Hope/Wooten) and as the mousy Muriel in Plaza Suite. She was a line dancer in an episode of Hannah Montana, and has a number of commercial and film credits on her resume.She has also performed in productions for ACT 1 and Pull Tight Players.

The Dixie Swim Club runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Sundays 2:30 p.m. April 29-May 14 at the theatre, located at 2211 Old Hickory Blvd. in Old Hickory. Reservations are recommended by calling (615) 847-0934. Tickets are $12 ($10 for seniors and students). More information about the company is available at www.lakewoodtheatre.com.

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