First Night's Top Ten of 2010: Nashville's Best Actors in a Play

Nashville actors displayed an astonishing range in 2010, playing some of the most coveted roles in theater with imagination and creativity and exhibiting new stage personas for characters making their initial debuts in new, original works. It was a memorable year, to say the least, and Nashville men stepped up to the plate with vigor and conviction, showing greater promise for the new season now under way in 2011. These ten actors led the way for their peers during the season just past and we're proud to recognize their onstage achievements...

• Ed Amatrudo, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, ACT 1. Director Michael Roark's effective staging of the piece - and the spectacularly theatrical, yet somehow low-key and effectively underplayed, performances of Melissa Bedinger Hade and Ed Amatrudo - adds to the visceral reactions experienced by the audience in this almost epic dismantling of an American marriage, circa 1960-something. Hade's Martha and Amatrudo's George are as good as it gets in local theatre - oh, screw the "local," they are nothing short of amazing and their performances in this production could hold their own in comparison to anything we've seen. Amatrudo's performance is revelatory as he effectively becomes George, giving line readings that are almost musical in his intriguingly unexpected rhythms. Amatrudo is amazingly well-cast, proving himself capable of anything director Roark - and, clearly, playwright Albee - throws his way; Hade and Amatrudo's is an onstage pairing as ideal as that of George and Martha (who, obviously, are meant to always be together). Winner of the BroadwayWorld.com Nashville Theatre Award for best actor in a play (non-professional).

• Chip Arnold, Proof, Tennessee Repertory Theatre. Director Rene Dunshee Copeland's unerring eye for casting ensures that each show is superbly acted and her critical eye makes certain that every show is presented in a creative and imaginative manner. With her penchant for quality and her attention to detail, a Rene Copeland-directed show is certain to deliver more than an audience expects. Chip Arnold, cast as Robert, conveys a very real sense of paternal concern and patriarchal superiority in the face of his character's encroaching madness. His delivery of his lines is impeccable and he displays a sense of timing that his younger co-stars should study for future reference. Although some of Arnold's choices at first seem rather arch, they somehow add to his character's dramatic descent into madness.

• David Chattam, Bud, Not Buddy, Nashville Children's Theatre. When young Bud's journey finally ends at a blues club and he believes that he has finally found his birth father (David Chattam, one of Nashville's finest actors, in an altogether stellar performance as blues musicIan Herman E. Calloway), we learn the truth of his story and his beloved mother's story in a genuinely moving way that somehow (thanks to Curtis' original story, Jackson's adaptation, Copeland's always on-target direction and the ideal portrayals of the cast) never becomes predictable or even expected. Chattam, a handsome forty-something man, transforms into the elderly bluesman with an ease and grace that is amazing; his characterization is completely unforced and natural. The pair's final scene - when Bud and Herman E. Calloway come to terms with their real relationship - is powerful and honest.

• Joel Diggs, Signs of a New Day: The Z. Alexander Looby Story, Metro Parks Theatre Department. Certainly, there are many Nashvillians who have played integral roles in the country's civil rights movement, those people whose names are better known nationwide, but Looby's impact is immeasurable and insurmountable. His courtroom prowess is recounted, as are his initial steps toward civil rights martyrdom, but perhaps most moving and intriguing is German's treatment of the relationship between Zephaniah Looby and Grafta Mosby. They are presented as equals in this treatment and it is their shared vision that has resulted in the Nashville we know and love today. Both of the Loobys are heroic figures, deserving of our admiration and our undying gratitude for their courage, bravery and sacrifice. Joel Diggs gives a richly nuanced performance as Looby, using a Carribean accent that never falters, as he becomes the legendary man, shouldering much of the script's weight.

• Nate Eppler, Rear Widow, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. Eppler's exceptional acting skills are on a par with his splendid writing talents and he breathes life into the role of Judd Cain, the insurance company investigator, who sets out to ferret out fraud in the case of Barb Snyder and her dear, departed husband, only to find himself ensnared in Barb's fiendishly decadent web of desire and intrigue. Anyone familiar with film noir will recognize the various cinematic archetypes employed by the playwrights in their script, but it is their respect for the source material is apparent throughout the play. Their razor-sharp repartee and keen ear for dialogue that actually works - when enacted by a cast that so very clearly reveres the genre that they are sending up - provides a completely satisfying night of theatrical intrigue and inventiveness that audiences simply can't afford to miss.

• Patrick Kramer, Twilight of the Gods, Blackbird Theatre Company. Certainly the success or failure of a show like Twilight of the Gods depends upon the actors and in that respect, playwrights and directors Wes Driver and Greg Greene are given exceptional support by a group of experienced Nashville performers. Patrick Kramer virtually steals the show with his wonderfully over-the-top portrayal of H.G. Wells. Wells' histrionics are delightfully and almost epically comical and Kramer makes certain that every piece of scenery remains standing even after his vigorous chewing of the flats.

• Brent Maddox, Vincent in Brixton, Actors Bridge Ensemble. Set in the London suburb of Brixton, the play focuses on young 22-year-old Vincent Van Gogh's brief stay in Britain working for a Dutch-based art firm, learning the art of sales while sublimating his own artistic tendencies and his unbridled - and unedited - views of life and love. Brought by serendipity to the home of Ursula Loyer, inquiring about the possibility of renting a room there, the rather abrupt young Dutchman finally meets his match in the older and wiser woman, leading to a stunning denouement of ultimately devastating effects. The sexual tension between Vincent and Mrs. Loyer is fairly palpable, thanks to the exquisite pairing of Brent Maddox and Kim Bretton as Wright's leading characters. Maddox's performance is beautifully nuanced and perfectly modulated: His Vincent can be fiery and passionate at one moment, studied and introspective in the next as he creates a character who is believable and whole, never once relying on the obvious or theatrical to breathe life into the script-bound man.

• Steven Pounders, Doubt, David Lipscomb University Theater. Director Mike Fernandez's cast is uniformly consistent and committed to their performances, and his direction is crisply focused on the play's action and his deft hand is seen throughout The Players' onstage interactions that fairly crackle with intensity. Pounders is satisfyingly comforting and genuine as Father Flynn, showing the priest's compassion with conviction as we watch his character's emotional arc throughout the play's 90 minutes. Flynn's concern for his parishioners and his views of the Catholic Church and its role in a modern world are brought vividly to the fore by Pounders' wonderfully nuanced performance, while he perfectly captures the priest's ambitions and baser instincts in the play's later scenes that are powerfully written and acted.

• Derek Whittaker, Frankly My Dear, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. Whittaker is at his comedic best as David O. Selznick, whether he's re-enacting scenes from Margaret Mitchell's beloved book (Gone With the Wind) as Scarlett O'Hara herself, manhandling director Victor Fleming and screenwriter Ben Hecht, ordering his secretary Peabody about or when he becomes torpid as a result of overwork, exhaustion and, no doubt, that strange seven-day banana and peanut diet. Whittaker shows his extreme versatility and absolute devotion to his craft as he fearlessly becomes Selznick to bring him so vividly to life. The reason for Whittaker's fearlessness is likely his immense trust of his co-stars - though perhaps "co-conspirators" would be more precise.

• Bobby Wyckoff, The Diary of Anne Frank, Nashville Children's Theatre. The Diary of Anne Frank is brought vividly to life by the superbly talented cast of actors, not the least of whom is Tia Shearer in the titular role. Bobby Wyckoff, cast as Otto Frank, gives a stunningly genuine reading of his part, capturing a father's anguish as he is forced to hide his family from certain deportation to the concentration camps, and then displaying the resignation of a camp survivor forced to face the loss of everyone he's loved. Wyckoff's stellar performance is one deserving of countless ovations.

Pictured: Nate Eppler

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