Alicia Haymer hasn’t stepped inside Fisk University’s Little Theatre in 20 years, and the narrow auditorium calls her back to her roots. “It smells the same,” the actor-director-playwright says with a smile. “It just feels like home.”
Alicia Haymer photographed at Fisk University’s Little Theatre
Haymer, a Nashville native, graduated from Fisk with a degree in speech and dramatics in 2000. She found her first post-college role in a play with the community theater group SistaStyle Productions in 2005. Back then, says Haymer, the best hope an actor had for getting work in town was landing a role in a production by Nashville Children’s Theatre or the Tennessee Repertory Theatre. While the competition was stiff for paid gigs, Haymer found a sense of community in local theater groups. In 2010, she was performing in a play at Amun Ra Theatre when NCT’s then-director Scot Copeland scouted her for a role in Bud, Not Buddy.
Haymer has been on the scene as an actor ever since. Recently, she performed the role of Diane Nash at Fisk University Chapel in From the Back of the Bus, a choral and orchestral performance that honored the Nashville Freedom Riders. Local writer-director Jon Royal wrote the monologues that created the play’s narrative. In her monologue as Nash, Haymer addressed a group of Nashville activists before they set out to ride integrated buses across the South, knowing that mobs of segregationists likely awaited their arrival in Alabama.
“I can’t imagine being a college student, signing a will and writing a last letter to my parents, like, ‘This is what I believe in, and this is what I’ll fight for and what I will give my life for,’ ” says Haymer. “It was great to connect with people who literally did the work for me, so I could have the freedoms that I have.”
Last year, Haymer was luminous in the Rep’s production of Pipeline. The role required displays of conflicting emotions: courage and fear, toughness and vulnerability, pride and self-doubt. Haymer nailed it. But she’s found that her true love is directing.
“As an actor, your job is just one thing,” says Haymer. “You get to bring life to your character, but you don’t really get a say in anything else. But from a director’s standpoint, you get to shape the characters — but also the set and the costumes and the music and how people feel from the time they walk in the theater. It’s terrifying but rewarding.”
Since 2017, Haymer has directed plays with Actors Bridge Studio, Nashville Story Garden, Kindling Arts Festival and more. She’s a member of the inaugural Directors Inclusion Initiative at Actors Bridge, a program that offers resources and training to people of color who have an interest in directing theater.
Last year, Haymer took part in the Tennessee Playwrights Studio’s fellowship for aspiring playwrights. Her play A Free and Public Citizen — the story of a black family living in the shadow of a pork processing factory that is making the whole town sick — received a warm reception at a reading in December. The play addresses the intersection of race, class and environmental justice, all couched in the context of a loving family, and recalls both Lorraine Hansberry and Lynn Notage. It has cemented Haymer’s reputation as one of Nashville’s most talented artists.
While some people in the arts view Nashville’s deluge of transplants as a threat to an established hierarchy within the community, Haymer embraces the change.
“It’s really forced people to do their own thing and make their own way, which I really appreciate and respect,” says Haymer. “There are so many chances to work and be seen and write and produce. It’s definitely opened up for the little guy who believes in their art and wants to produce it and get it out there.”
