RSVP (répondez s’il vous plait) has slowly become totally foreign to our Anglo-American sensitivities. Few adhere to its message of requested response. When someone says, “Well, that’s Clarksville,” I say, “No, it’s not!” It’s Middle American people who just don’t understand. But as my New York shrink would say, “Knowing the problem is halfway toward [...]
Theatre 101
Herb and Sallie Baggett Lend Support to Roxy Center with Barbeque and Bluegrass Fundraiser on May 12
One of the first couples I met upon coming to Clarksville was Herb and Sallie Baggett. They were enjoying one of our earliest Roxy endeavors — which one, I no longer remember — but I do remember thinking, “This beautiful couple is really interested in what we are trying to do here on the corner [...]
Mrs. George L. “Monte” Narber had first heard about us at the Roxy from her best friend, the late but much-loved and admired Grace Cunningham. Although a Clarksville native, Monte was then living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, but Grace wrote to Monte with great praise for our efforts. So on a very cold winter’s day, with [...]
Teflon! That’s how Leslie Greene, my best friend and favorite actress, describes our older, yet wiser brains. We strive hard to learn our lines to get them perfect, just as the author wrote them. But, at 65, the words slide off grey matter (without the aid of spray-on Pam) and leave us blushing, flushing and [...]
Happily out of the blue, U.S. Congressman Marsha Blackburn stopped by the Roxy at the end of a Winter’s Tale field trip performance to add her support for our new center for arts and education. She was pleased with our partnership with the Parks and Recreation Summer Playhouse acting program, as well as our sharing [...]
A few Thursdays ago, I started the day off as usual by eating oatmeal and practicing yoga with Travis Kendrick at 8am, which is the only way I’ve found to start a day off right! Then it was on to staging twenty pages of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. This could have turned into a director’s [...]
The last time we produced Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage, an educator found fault with the statement, “War is hell,” and was upset by the phrase, “The generals are jackasses.” And when the central character Henry Fleming’s closest friend dies, Henry says, “Damn.” I adapt; I rarely create. I try hard, very hard, [...]
Oscar Wilde had no intention of becoming the icon for the gay movement, but that is how history has painted him. We remember The Importance of Being Earnest, which seems to pop up as a major play in several theatres’ canons. However, nobody thinks much of Lady Windermere’s Fan, An Ideal Husband, Woman of No [...]
I stumbled onto South Pacific at TPAC, a super production which made me want to produce it here. A lyric by Richard Rodgers struck me: “If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?” I thought about us, the Roxy, and the new center for arts and education. I stumbled [...]
My dream cast has assembled. Evy Gildrie-Voyles, protégé, dear friend, colleague and fellow thespian, for whose children Simon J. and Isaac D. we are godfathers, has come back to play the falsely accused Hermione in The Winter’s Tale. Along with Kendall Anne Thompson as Perdita (better known to Roxy patrons as “The Green Girl”), Kendall’s [...]
