NASHVILLE THEATER 101: James Rudolph & Shawn Knight

It's a question asked of theater artisans forever, it seems: Why do you do theater? Plain and simple, to be sure, but clearly it's a query filled with portent and gravitas. Is applause enough to keep longtime actors on the job? In fact, is it enough to persuade a neophyte to seek a career onstage?

Why do you do theater? We've been putting that question to members of the Nashville theater famiy for the past month to find out what it is that motivates creative types to pursue an illusory and challenging career, while for others the theater gives them a creative avocation that helps keep them sane. Today, in our latest installment of Nashville Theater 101, we introduce two more members of our wildly divergent, almost prototypically dysfunctional theater family: James Rudolph and Shawn Knight.

Our questions: Why do you do theater? And why, for the love of God, do you do it in Nashville, the city most widely known as Music City USA?

James Rudolph has been onstage all over town - including starring roles for both Tennessee Women's Theater Project, Nashville Children's Theatre and Street Theatre Company, and he is currently in rehearsal for the upcoming Nashville Rep production of The Whipping Man, in which he co-stars with Eddie George and Matthew Rosenbaum.

I do theatre because I love it. I know that is a very basic answer, but I love it in the complex sense. I love how theatre pushes you as an actor. An old colleague of mine used to say "anybody can be a LA actor, but it takes real talent to be a NY actor." Took a minute to process, but I got it. Theatre is now. There are no second takes. That high note has to be hit NOW, spit take NOW, dance move NOW, crying NOW. That makes you sharpen yourself... push to be better. I love it for the spontaneity. Although you present the same piece of material every night, it will never be the same exact show. Mishaps can be pretty entertaining sometimes and they can also test your improv skills. I love it for the camaraderie. I always found it amazing how putting art together can make complete strangers into best friends over a two-month process. I could go on, but...simply said....I do theatre because it's art that can impact the artists and audience at the same exact time.

I'm a Nashville native. Started here professionally in 2007 with Street Theatre Company's Bat Boy: The Musical as Reverend Billy Hightower and I've been "playing" ever since. I love my hometown. I feel like Nashville is a great example of the melting pot we reference when we talk about our country. I do plan on living and performing abroad, but Nashville will always be my home.

Shawn Knight could possibly be one of the most understated, yet completely focused, actors to be found on a local stage. Currently, he is onstage with an all-star cast of local favorites in Mo Willems' musical Elephant & Piggie's We Are In A Play at Nashville Children's Theatre.

In 1999, I graduated from Belmont University with a double major in English and Theatrical Literature (a major I made up under the purview of the Honors program). I then went on to earn my MA in English at Auburn University, with the goal of becoming a Professor of British Literature, but while I was there, I continued doing theatre at Small Time Outreach Productions (STOP), a small community theatre. STOP was closing, but in their last show, I was cast as Charlie Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. We were a fun cast in a small, very simple, in-the-round production. One poorly-attended Sunday matinee (a whopping 17), our director found me in the dressing room and stopped me from changing; he said someone wanted to see me. I stepped back out into the theatre, and there was a mother and her young boy (three years old, I would guess). She said that her son just had to meet Charlie Brown. I squatted down to his level, and we chatted for a few minutes. He said he liked the show, he liked me singing, and he had a good time. His mother asked him, "Is there anything else you want to say?" He paused a minute, then said, "You're not stupid, Charlie Brown." He was so concerned that Lucy had called Charlie Brown stupid that he had begged his mother to talk to me. That was a profound moment in my life and career, as I realized that if this silly theatre piece performed before 17 people could affect a young child so deeply as to prompt him to express compassion for another, then the value and power of theatre were extraordinary. I finished my degree, then earned an MFA in theatre, and I've pursued a theatre career ever since.

I've been in Nashville as an Equity actor since 2005 and done almost twenty shows locally, mostly at NCT. I've also performed in a dozen others in Atlanta, Memphis, and Horse Cave at Kentucky Repertory Theatre before it closed. I was born and raised in Erin, Tennessee, a small town about two hours away, so Tennessee is home. We live in a community that is incredibly talented, and theatre is a difficult way to earn a living, but it is worth the struggle. I am exhausted regularly, as I teach at Belmont University in the theatre department, perform (I am playing Gerald at NCT in Elephant and Piggie's We Are in a Play through February 10), teach camps and classes at NCT, and direct middle and high schoolers at two other local organizations. But the hope that one person I touch with one show might just grow up to be a little more compassionate and make this world that much better of a place for everyone to live energizes me through all the work.

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