This will probably be an emotional weekend for Savannah Frazier as the curtain comes down on Amazing Grace, the Musical, the show in which the Nashville native made her Broadway debut. Closing after its final performance at the Nederlander Theatre on Sunday, Amazing Grace gave Frazier her biggest exposure to date in New York and with its closing she heads onward - and we daresay upward - in her pursuit of musical theater dreams.
Charming and exuberant, Karissa is doing the whole senior year experience to the hilt, leading her classmates in their final year at one of the nation's leading high schools, and somehow finding time to pursue her passion of theater.
On Thursday, March 1, Sophia Salveson-at 19, a college student (at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and an aspiring actress-suffered a massive stroke that left her with little to no movement on the right side of her body and major damage to the speech and comprehension center of her brain. Taking her family and friends completely unawares, Salveson's sudden and unexpected medical dilemma sent feelings of shock, dismay and disbelief throughout the country, with its reverberations felt most resoundingly in her hometown of Nashville, where word quickly spread around town and among members of the city's music and theater communities that she had been stricken.
One of the best things about living in Nashville - known throughout the world as Music City USA - is that even when you're mounting a high school production, you have the opportunity to draw inspiration from the wealth of talent found in the city. That certainly was the case this week when Daron Bruce, director of theater at Hume-Fogg Academic High School welcomed country music superstar and Broadway veteran Gary Morris to conduct a workshop for the cast his upcoming production of Les Miserables.
