Vali Forrister News

Directed by the company's producing artistic director Vali Forrister, Becky's New Car is a perfect choice for Actors Bridge, providing a showcase for a group of talented actors so charming and so engaging that you might find yourself falling a little bit in love with the whole lot. In fact, I'd probably drink the bathwater of the entire cast, so completely believable are they in this sharply written, inventively staged production. Take my advice: You best go look under the hood of Becky's New Car before its run ends on August 7.

Have you ever been tempted to flee your own life? That's the question posed by playwright Steven Dietz in his play Becky's New Play, opening at Belmont University's Black Box Theatre on Friday, July 29, in a new production from Actors Bridge Ensemble, directed by the company's own Vali Forrister.

Josiah Gibbs (Chris) and CJ Tucker (Ginger) discuss Steven Deitz's BECKY'S NEW CAR, directed by Vali Forrister for Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble, playing July 29 through Aug 7 at Belmont's Black Box Theater.

Danny Proctor, Helen Shute-Pettaway, Layne Sasser, Pam Atha, Dan Brewer and Gary Hoff were introduced Monday night as the six members of the 2011 Class of First Night Honorees during the First Night Preview Party, hosted by founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis at The Listening Room Cafe in downtown Nashville.

It was one of those moments in life when inspiration, like so much lightening, struck and thereafter nothing would ever be the same...When Vali Forrister's niece Haviland was 12, she shared with her aunt some of her poetry: 'I told her it was good,' Vali remembers. But shockingly, Haviland's response was: 'No, it isn't. My teachers tell me I'm too dark.'

Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble, named as First Night's Outstanding Theatre Company of 2010, today announces the creation of SIDESHOW: An Immersion Training Program for Emerging Professional Theatre Artists. Interviews and auditions for entrance into the new training program will be held May 7, from 9 a.m. to noon and 4 to 8 p.m. by appointment.

A cast of more than 125 performers took to the stage of the Troutt Theatre at Belmont University to fete the eight members of the 2010 Class of First Night Honorees in a production that featured the best of the best of Nashville theater and included a surprise appearance by Joseph Mahowald, winner of a 1989 First Night Award, now playing the role of Franklin Hart Jr. in the national tour of 9 to 5: The Musical, which opened in Nashville at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, September 21.

As Nashville's summer theater season continues to heat up, anticipation continues to grow for September's First Night Nashville Theatre Honors, the revival of the Music City theater gala that will benefit Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and sponsored by Macy's and BroadwayWorld.com. Set for Sunday, September 19, at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre, First Night 2010 will honor eight individuals for their sustained and continued commitment to theater in Nashville.

Reckless - Craig Lucas' skewed vision of suburban life in contemporary America - is brought to life in an engaging and entertaining new production from Actors Bridge Ensemble. Directed with finesse by Jessika Malone and performed by a cast of talented actors who are supremely confident in interpreting Lucas' off-kilter comedy, it's a well-crafted show that fairly crackles with humor.

As Nashville's summer theater season continues to heat up, anticipation continues to grow for September's First Night Nashville Theatre Honors, the revival of the Music City theater gala that will benefit Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and sponsored by Macy's and BroadwayWorld.com. Set for Sunday, September 19, at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre, First Night 2010 will honor eight individuals for their sustained and continued commitment to theater in Nashville.

Director Don Griffiths' staging of Miller's now-classic tragedy, with its echoes of the Greek classics, is heart-wrenching, certain to stir up all the emotions one can muster. Beautifully designed and executed, with superb performances from a cast that includes professional actors from Actors Bridge, along with the affecting portrayals of some exceptionally talented Belmont students, the production is completely satisfying on all levels, without even one iota of staginess to mar the proceedings.

With the strains of 'Auld Lang Syne' mere moments away, minds are apt to be caught up in reflection, remembering the year now ending as a new one awaits just over the horizon. Certainly that's what I've been doing lately, looking back over the past year in Nashville theatre as I pencil in dates in my new 2010 (Here's a question to ponder: Is it 'two thousand ten' or 'twenty ten'...think about it and get back to me) calendar for the shows set to open in the months ahead.

Staged at the W.O. Smith Nashville Community Music School, The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later offers a follow-up to the original work and was produced internationally on the 11th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was so brutally murdered by two young men near the city limits of Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998. Audiences the world over were given the tremendous opportunity to share in the new work with the contemporaneous productions, an undertaking that amplifies the notion that live theatre can be transformative in its power to challenge conventional wisdom and, quite simply, provoke thought and introspection.

'The Laramie Project is a play with tremendous historical and cultural impact,' said Vali Forrister, producing artistic director of Actors Bridge Ensemble. 'Actors Bridge was pleased to be the first theater company to bring this important work to Nashville back in 2002. And now, to be part of this nationwide unveiling of its epilogue is an honor, but also a reminder to ourselves, our audience and our community that Matthew Shepard's story still reverberates. Unfortunately, many of the issues the murder brought up are unresolved both at a local and national level.'

Thanks to director Jessika Malone and her cast of talented actors, you'll find oh-so-much to identify with and relate to in Nashville's own version of My First Time, onstage at Darkhorse Theatre through this Saturday night. It's a funny, poignant, laugh-out-loud hour that flies by as Malone's six thespians relate some of the dozens of tales sampled in Davenport's script. Gleaned from the thousands of responses to the First Time website (some 40,000 responses, in fact) that was launched in 1998 during those halcyon pre-blogging, pre-social networking days when posting something online could still be kind of anonymous and somewhat safer than it is now.

'The Laramie Project is a play with tremendous historical and cultural impact,' said Vali Forrister, producing artistic director of Actors Bridge Ensemble. 'Actors Bridge was pleased to be the first theater company to bring this important work to Nashville back in 2002. And now, to be part of this nationwide unveiling of its epilogue is an honor, but also a reminder to ourselves, our audience and our community that Matthew Shepard's story still reverberates. Unfortunately, many of the issues the murder brought up are unresolved both at a local and national level.'