2015 First Night Star Award winner Jessika Malone has been named associate artistic director of Actors Bridge Ensemble. Her new appointment was announced in late August by the company's producing artistic director - and 2016 First Night Honoree - Vali Forrister, the ABE Board of Directors and company members.
Rachel Agee's bravura performance - which, arguably, any actor would love to add to a resume - as a fictionalized Tonya Harding-like personality is enough to guarantee that audiences will continue to talk about the world premiere production of Nate Eppler's latest work, The Ice Treatment, for years to come.
Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble is pleased to announce open call auditions for their 21st professional theatre season. Auditions will be held Sunday, June 26, at the Actors Bridge Studio at Darkhorse Theatre by appointment. Actors are asked to please prepare a contemporary monologue of their choice under 2 minutes in length and to provide both a headshot and resume for consideration. Callbacks for each production will occur by invitation.
Nashville actor and NFL Hall of Famer Eddie George, who makes his Broadway debut Tuesday night in the iconic musical Chicago, was named First Night's Outstanding Leading Actor in a Play for his searing portrayal of a former slave haunted by the spectre of abuse in Nashville Repertory Theatre's The Whipping Man. Rene Dunshee Copeland, producing artistic director of Nashville Rep, was named Outstanding Director of a Play, while her three-actor ensemble (which included James Rudolph and Matthew Rosenbaum) were awarded as First Night's Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Play for their rendition of the Matthew Lopez play.
Leave it to the ambitious and creative people of Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble to continue the celebration of the company's 20th anniversary season with the presentation of a new and compelling play – The Nether by Jennifer Haley – which ushers audiences into the dystopian world that has evolved in the not-too-distant future. It's an intriguing choice, to be sure, and one which could be fraught with failure and pretension were it not for the superb production concept and vision of director/producer Jessika Malone, given the wherewithal by ABE producing artistic director and co-founder Vali Forrister to challenge audiences in every way possible and to upend all conventional thought with a production that continues to haunt me almost a week after seeing it.
Jessika Malone directs Actors Bridge Ensemble's 20th Anniversary Season's upcoming production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, opening December 4 at the new Actors Bridge Studio at the Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue (entrance on 47th Avenue).
Jessika Malone directs Actors Bridge Ensemble's 20th Anniversary Season's upcoming production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, opening December 4 at the new Actors Bridge Studio at the Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue (entrance on 47th Avenue).
As members of the Nashville theater community join with members of the theaterati far-flung across the world to celebrate the 20th birthday of Actors Bridge Ensemble - the cutting-edge, forward-thinking, boundary-pushing, status quo-challenging theater company that has helped to make Music City USA somehow more creative and more welcoming to artisans who flock here to pursue their dreams - we are reminded of the company's early days and the days even before that when we first came to know of a young woman named Vali Forrister.
Although it may be difficult to fathom, but Actors Bridge Ensemble - one of Nashville's edgier and most progressive theater companies from its inception - is in the midst of its 20th anniversary season with a continued focus on presenting provocative and challenging theater for local audiences under the watchful eye of producing artistic director Vali Forrister and her band of artisans. Actors Bridge was honored in 2012 with the First Night Award for Outstanding Theater Company.
With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.
With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.
With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.
With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.
With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.
Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson will serve as co-hosts as the leading lights of Tennessee theater are heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, to be held Sunday, September 20, at Nashville's iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. The event will feature musical numbers by more than 150 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.
2015 First Night Honoree Kaul Bluestone claimed her place in the First Night record books in the 20th Century: She was the 1996 Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play for her role in Circle Players' production of Dancing at Lughnasa...and she has starred in two critically acclaimed plays directed by First Night founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis in the 21st Century: The Last Night of Ballyhoo and Picnic, both for Circle Players.
Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of Mary Poppins, Bat Boy, August: Osage County, First Baptist of Ivy Gap - and new productions from Actors Bridge Ensemble and Blackbird Theater. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse!
Hosted by 2014 MPA Emily Eytchison (a graduate of Nashville's David Lipscomb University) and 2013 MPA Cade Smith (an alumnus of Trevecca Nazarene University), the 90-minute show will feature members of this year's class of promising young actors performing a wide variety of musical numbers and dramatic/comedic monologues for their audience.
Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble has revealed some new course offerings for this fall, including Level One in the Meisner Technqiue taught by Vali Forrister, producing artistic director and co-founder of the critically lauded company - and includes a buzzed-about Star Wars Study Group, led by David Ian Lee.
2015 First Night Honoree Martha Wilkinson holds the record for the most First Night Awards with nine. A frequent performer on the First Night stage -- including particularly show-stopping numbers such as her rendition of 'You'll Never Walk Alone,' while clad in a white ballgown and backed up by a chorus of Nashville theater's leading men -- she's one of Tennessee's favorites for certain. She was first recognized by the First Night Awards in 1989, when she won the award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Musical for her role in Circle Players' production of Pippin.
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