Getting to Know...TIM OZGENER of Oz Arts Nashville

As Nashville's role in the contemporary world of art and culture continues to grow exponentially, the local theater community seemingly grows by leaps and bounds - daily, it would oftentimes seem - and so we find ourselves lost in a sea of new faces and unfamiliar names. Therefore, what better way to get to know these new personalities than via a new column in which we put them under a blinding spotlight and demand answers...

Who are they? Where are they from? And what the hell are they planning to do in Nashville? Those are among the questions we hope to get answers to in the coming weeks, months, years, decades - or however long we are, quite frankly, nosy enough to help us ferret out the stuff we all should know in order to make our queries more welcoming and hospitable and less off-putting and demanding.

Today, we're Getting To Know...Tim Ozgener, president and CEO of Oz Arts Nashville, Music City's center for the contemporary arts scene in a town whose cultural life is ever-changing and constantly evolving.

OZ Arts is described as "an inspiring destination for world-class, innovative contemporary art experiences."

According to its mission statement, "OZ Arts supports the creation, development and presentation of significant performing and visual art works by leading artists whose contribution influences the advancement of their field."

Ozgener's family have been Nashvillians since 1968, and are internationally recognized for innovation in their entrepreneurial endeavors: Having built one of the world's foremost cigar companies-in spite of the puzzlement of so many in their field that such a company could emerge in Nashville, Tennessee-the Ozgeners brought unprecedented artistry to cigars and, previously, humidors and Meerschaum pipes. Having sold the company, CAO Cigars, the family adapted their former headquarters into a contemporary performance and installation space and event center.

"In 2013, the Ozgener family established the non-profit cultural institution, OZ, as a gift back to the city and country that have been so hospitable to them as first-generation, Turkish-Armenian immigrants," according to the Oz website.

Where are you from originally? Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee!

Where did you go to school? University School of Nashville, K-12, and then University of Southern California, where I received my BFA in Acting.

What was your first introduction to live theater? I was fortunate to have gone to New York City with my folks a lot when growing up. We have relatives in Queens. My parents and I would wait in the Broadway discount ticket lines and then go see shows - so I collected a lot of Playbills! In particular, I remember seeing John Malkovich in Burn This and thought he was the most mesmerizing theater actor I had ever seen. This motivated me to want to act. I then started doing plays, in addition to acting classes, during my junior year at University School of Nashville. When I graduated from USN, in 1988, I first went to the University of Denver, which was primarily a business school with no substantial theater program. I left there after one year to prepare to audition for nationally ranked Universities with Conservatory Programs in acting.

This preparation took me another year, which I did in Nashville with acting coach, Ruth Sweet. I went to Vanderbilt during this time to get some GE's out of the way and ending up doing some wonderful plays while there, of which my favorite was The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter. Then I went to Chicago in January in the middle of a blizzard to audition for these top acting programs. I really wanted to go to the University of Southern California because the program there was so highly regarded, it was in LA, their Film School was strong, and it also had a campus which made it felt like "a college." I was thrilled to have been accepted. I had the best time while there and got a chance to really dive deep into the craft of acting, receiving my BFA Degree in Acting in 1993. My highlight there was playing Reverend Hale in USC's mainstage production of The Crucible.

What are your favorite shows? I think Book of Mormon has to be the funniest musical I've seen (I haven't seen Hamilton yet) - I don't think I've ever laughed so hard during a musical. I loved Amadeus, Burn This - as I just mentioned. Believe it or not I really liked Annie and Rent, too. I saw Trainspotting in London and that was something completely different and raw. I remember seeing Raquel Welch in Woman Of The Year and thinking that she was really hot! More recently I saw Jude Law play Hamlet on Broadway in an imaginative interpretation (I love Shakespeare).

What brought you back to Nashville after college? Again, I was born and raised here. However, I lived in Los Angeles after college for nine years and moved back to Nashville in 1999. I returned because of our family cigar, humidor and pipe business. While in LA, my "day job" was selling our wares to retailers in the West Coast. I ended up specializing in Product Development of our cigars, which led to travel between Nashville, Central America and Los Angeles. It was much easier just to go between Nashville and Central America. Plus, Nashville became a lot more interesting in the late 90s, thanks in part to Mayor Bredesen landing the Titans and the Predators. It infused new life into the city.

What was your first involvement in Nashville theater? In high school at USN. They have a great theater program there and I had a wonderful teacher named Gus Gillette, who encouraged me. There was another fantastic teacher in Nashville at the time - the late Ruth Sweet - who helped me tremendously. Ironically, most of the theater that I've done subsequently has been in California and not in Tennessee. I worked at California Shakespeare festival in Orinda, California right after college. Then I worked at Laguna Playhouse, Santa Monica Playhouse, Long Beach Playhouse, Irvine Playhouse etc. I also had spent time with the Groundlings, and did stand-up comedy in places like the Comedy Store, and The Improv. When I moved back to Nashville I was so fully "into" the cigar business and growing that that I didn't have any time to dedicate to acting anymore. Since that time we built and sold our brand "CAO" in 2007, and then we, as a family, decided to start OZ Arts as 501c3 nonprofit Contemporary Arts Center in 2014, as a way of starting something that we felt the community lacked. Our programming is similar to that of BAM in Brooklyn.

Theatrically speaking, what sets Nashville apart from other cities in which you have lived? Well there are quite a lot of theater groups here. More than one would think, which means there's a lot of people interested in performing. I'm not sure how much cohesion there is.

What do you hope to accomplish in Nashville theater? OZ Arts Nashville is a Contemporary Arts Center that focuses on bringing all different types of contemporary performing and visual arts to Nashville. So it's not exclusively theater, even though I absolutely love that art form. What I would hope we can accomplish within the genre is to bring innovative theater that's being done nationally and internationally to Nashville. It's all about broadening our cultural base.

What musical best exemplifies your life story? None that I can think of at the moment, maybe Fiddler On The Roof. Just because Tevye has an accent; I love doing accents, especially my father's. Plus, I'm first-generation from parents that are Armenian and Turkish.

Who would you like to play you in the onstage version of your life? Robert Downey, Jr....with a shaved head!

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