On the Aisle
Recent news from the local theater scene
Tennessee Repertory Theatre interim artistic director David Alford projects that the Rep will be announcing its 2004-05 season plans on, or just after, Valentine’s Day weekend, after he returns from Little Rock, where he’s currently performing in God’s Man in Texas at Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Alford’s a busy man these days. Besides tackling his new Rep duties, he continues to work on his original play, Ghostlight, the final production of Mockingbird Theatre’s season, scheduled for a May 28 world premiere.
♦ Actors Bridge Ensemble’s executive committee—Vali Forrister, Bill Feehely, Don Griffiths, Joe Keenan and Lisa Lisle—have been working out collaborative plans for the writing of the company’s contemporary adaptation of The Trojan Women, scheduled for a spring production. Meanwhile, Feehely and songwriter Marcus Hummon have been in negotiations for an off-Broadway production of their American Duet, which was first workshopped and presented at Actors Bridge in 1999. A backer’s audition will take place in New York on Feb. 16 and 17, and there’s serious talk that Hootie and the Blowfish lead singer Darius Rucker will be signed to co-star.
♦ Southern Writers Theatre head honcho Jaz Dorsey, along with his co-producing associate Susan Howe, recently made an excursion to Bowling Green to finalize plans for bringing the Public Theatre of Kentucky’s production of Fuddy Meers into the Darkhorse Theater Feb. 26-28. The zany comedy is written by David Lindsay-Abaire, whom Dorsey and Co. are hoping will make a side trip to Nashville during performances on his way home to New York from a speaking engagement at the University of the South in Sewanee. Lindsay-Abaire’s script has been optioned for film by Sarah Jessica Parker.
♦ Former ACT I husband-and-wife team Bob and Sean O’Connell recently announced the formation of GroundWorks, a nonprofit, non-Equity professional theater company, which will present three plays this year at the Darkhorse. The lineup includes Stephen Belber’s Tape (March 26-April 10), A. R. Gurney’s The Fourth Wall (Oct. 1-16) and Will Kern’s Hellcab (Dec. 3-18).
—Martin Brady
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