Vali Forrister News

Nashville mayor Megan Barry will join Actors Bridge Ensemble (ABE) for its V-Day Nashville 2017 benefit performance of Eve Ensler's award-winning The Vagina Monologues on Friday, February 17, at City Winery, 609 Lafayette Street.

Alicia Haymer directs the Nashville premiere of Detroit '67 by Dominique Morisseau, as Actors Bridge Ensemble's 21st Season continues February 24-March 4, at the Darkhorse Theater.

Hand to God is a ballsy, brassy and in-your-face consideration of life in a Southern church and its impact on the lives of its congregants, exposing the hypocrisy of small-town convention and social mores that continue to evolve at a glacial pace. You'll be singing hosannas in the show's aftermath, reveling in the knowledge that you've seen some very talented people doing what God - or any other higher power or reverential deity - must have intended from the very beginning, as in '…in the beginning…' Who knew a church's puppet ministry could be so intriguingly facile yet uproariously entertaining?

Actors Bridge Ensemble's 21st season continues with the Nashville premiere of smash hit Broadway comedy, HAND TO GOD by Robert Askins, directed by Mitch Massaro, December 9-18 at the Actors Bridge Studio at Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue, Nashville, 37209. The entrance to the Chapel is on 47th Avenue.

Actors Bridge Ensemble's 21st season continues with the Nashville premiere of smash hit Broadway comedy, HAND TO GOD by Robert Askins, directed by Mitch Massaro, December 9-18 at the Actors Bridge Studio at Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue, Nashville, 37209. The entrance to the Chapel is on 47th Avenue.

Actors Bridge Ensemble joins theatre artists from across the United States in a series of theatrical events in response to the outcome of this year's presidential election. Actors Bridge Ensemble will take part in the National Month of Outrage with two evenings of performances by Nashville citizens and artists with RALLY/CRY on January 13th and GRRRL NATION on January 14th.

The Dramatists Guild of America will offer its first event in Nashville this Saturday, November 5, at Actors Bridge Studio at Darkhorse Chapel. Free to all Nashville artists interested in new works for the stage and taking place at the Darkhorse Chapel at 4610 Charlotte Ave, the event starts at noon and is open to Dramatists Guild members and non-members alike.

Have you decided on your Halloween costume yet? You better get to work since it's only four days until the big night is upon us and you won't want to caught with your pants down, so to speak. May we respectfully suggest a trip to your local, neighborhood theater? Not only will you be entertained, transformed and transported - we're willing to be on this happening - but you'll also probably get some great costume ideas in the process! And there is the added bonus that the theater company might be in the business of renting out costumes which would make your efforts even easier than you first thought…

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.

Two Broadway veterans join with a group of seven of Tennessee's most enduring, influential and outstanding theater artists to comprise the Class of 2016 First Night Honorees, who were revealed Monday night during the annual First Night preview party, hosted by First Night founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis.

Delving into the deeply complex culture of Russian life and history - and the fanciful, yet somehow disturbing, tales that have inspired and informed Russian literature for centuries - Miroshnik's equally complex play offers an intriguing and entertaining treatise on that literature, brought to life with contemporary twists and turns that make the stories more accessible to modern theater-goers, while inviting comparisons and contrasts of Russia in the 21st century with the ancient Tsarist era and the hardships of the Communist years of the last century.

Actors Bridge Ensemble's 20th anniversary season continues in April with the Nashville premiere of Meg Miroshnik's The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, directed by Leah Lowe and running April 15-23 at the Belmont Black Box Theater.

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).

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

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).

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.