NASHVILLE THEATER 101: Recalling a Family Feud

Since yesterday afternoon, when news of the death of Nashville theater stalwart Marianne Clark began making its way through the community, people have taken to social media to send their own farewells, to express heartfelt thoughts and to remember warmly the impact of Clark's stage career and the affects of the untimely demise of one of our own theatrical legends. You see, if Layne Sasser is Nashville's Betty White, as I maintain, and Nan Gurley is Meryl Streep, Denice Hicks is Emma Thompson and Vali Forrister is our answer to Susan Sarandon, then it would follow that Marianne Clark was probably our version of Elaine Stritch.

Outspoken and often hilarious in the manner of Stritch, Marianne Clark was a longtime leader of theater in Tennessee. She acted, she directed, she produced and in the late 1980s - 1989 is a good place to start - she opened her very own theater, located in Belle Meade Galleria, called Nashville Playhouse. That is where my story begins...

Back in the olden days (the late 1980s, I speak of), theater reviews and other news items were disseminated via a source now considered quaint: newspapers. My partner, Stuart Bivin, and I owned a newspaper called Dare (which ultimately became known as Query, thanks to a lawsuit brought against us by the folks at D.A.R.E., the drug addiction and resource education people...we ultimately settled...we were very happy...but I digress...). Dare was the first weekly gay and lesbian newspaper to be published in Tennessee.

Stuart was an attorney, I was a journalist and we were a gay couple (back in the days when two men or two women couldn't legally be married like now...oh, wait, in Tennessee they still can't) - it made sense that we would launch a gay/lesbian newspaper. In an effort to get our newspaper into the hands of a wider audience, I proposed we cover theater. I had studied reviewing and criticism as an undergrad at Middle Tennessee State University and I had been writing reviews since I was a freshman in college (1975 for those of you fascinated by dates...I may have been a prodigy who started college at 3...but I may also be an accomplished fibber).

My reviews had been greeted with shouts of glee and delight, which were very good things compared to the death threats, the bomb scares, the frightening letters from the Ku Klux Klan (the KKK had been "watching" me since college, but that's another story altogether) and the FBI investigations that meant we were making a difference in a state firmly entrenched in the Bible Belt. We were, in very short order, newsmakers ourselves, garnering coverage for our efforts from The Tennessean, The Nashville Banner and every TV news operation in town and throughout the state. We were welcomed warmly and sincerely by the theater community and they embraced us immediately, intelligently deducing there were some like-minded people interested in the art they were making in Nashville, of all places.

When word came that Nashville Playhouse was opening, I called to see if I could review the opening production of Annie. Speaking to Marianne Clark, who admitted she didn't know what Dare was, I was assured I would be welcome and that any subsequent coverage would be pretty darn swell...or words to that effect.

As my plus-one for the show, I invited Dot Harrison, then director of public relations at MTSU, my dear friend and journalistic mentor. Interestingly enough, Dot had grown up in the same neighborhood as Marianne and had actually dated her brother once or twice as a teenager. We were fairly excited about the show, the new theater and we both looked forward to the night. Marianne had asked me to bring her some copies of my paper, so I presented her with a manila envelope with copies of Dare inside; she showed us to our seats and we enjoyed Annie (which featured a cast that included Tim Holder, the late Rita Frizzell, Cinda McCain, Danny Proctor, Kari Himelrick, Susannah Smith and many other Nashville theater veterans, most of whom are still integral parts of the local scene).

Dot knew Rita Frizzell from Murfreesboro Little Theater, so Rita offered us a tour of the facility, which was pretty jazzy for Nashville in 1989...as a longtime actor/director/producer Marianne had created her dream theatrical home. Afterward, we said goodbye to Rita and company and I went back to my office to work on my review.

The following day, as I sat at my desk the phone rang: "Thank you for calling Dare...this is Jef Ellis, may I help you?"

"Jef...this is Marianne Clark from Nashville Playhouse..." she drawled. Marianne had a wonderfully throaty Southern drawl that immediately conjured up visions of bourbon and cigarette smoke in my mind. "I've been looking through these, well I don't really know what to call them, newspapers, I guess...that you brought me and I just have to ask you to not review my show and to never come back to my theater."

I was dumbfounded. Incredulous even. Outraged beyond belief. "I don't understand," I said, trying to comprehend what was happening. "You don't want me to come back or to give you coverage for a theater?"

"No, I didn't realize what kind of newspaper you write for until I saw these and I'm sorry, but you can't come back out here. I cannot condone or support the homosexual lifestyle. It could ruin my business and we're a brand new theater in Belle Meade, of all places." Direct and to the point, she attempted to put me in my place.

"You realize, don't you, that there are gay people in your show, right?" I queried.

"Not as far as I know...and I don't want to know if there are those kinds of people involved in my theater," she said.

I was dumbstruck. And I was rendered speechless for a moment. Finally, I said, "Well, okay, but I think you're making a mistake."

We both hung up and I related my story to my partner who, believe it or not was more outspoken than I and was always spoiling for a fight. However, I was able to convince him to let me handle the situation as I saw fit.

I called Dot Harrison and told her the story. She was aghast and advised me to print my review as I had planned and to ignore Nashville Playhouse moving forward.

I called some openly gay theater folk and asked them for their take on the whole situation. They were sympathetic and supportive of me, but weren't about to risk their already tenuous standing in the city's burgeoning arts community.

So how did I handle it? I ran my review with an abbreviated editor's note detailing this story you're now reading (I just hit the high points then) and urged my readers to voice their opinions by calling Nashville Playhouse to demonstrate the economic impact of the gay/lesbian community on the viability of a theater company. Freedom of the press belongs to he who owns one.

Unbeknownst to me, supporters in the theater community (both homo and hetero), went to work...they made reservations and canceled at the last minute, others urged actors to avoid working there and the like.

As a result, Marianne Clark and I engaged in a feud of titanic proportions in a small theater community that continued for years. We didn't speak to each other, we made no effort to patch things up, we both fed the public fascination with a feud between two individuals who could give lessons on being a better bitch. It really was as simple as that.

There were times that I was sorry about the feud because there were shows being done at Nashville Playhouse that I kind of wanted to see, and as Marianne confided to me later, she missed coming to First Night events where the very best of Nashville theater was honored every Labor Day weekend.

About three years later, a mutual friend approached me with an idea for brokering a peace accord between Marianne and me. He had assured me at the very beginning that he couldn't believe she would act the way she did...that it just wasn't like Marianne to be so prejudiced and bigoted.

Believe it or not, as happy as I am to go toe-to-toe with anyone about any issue that divides us, I'm also very tender-hearted as we Southerners often are and I hate to, well, hate someone for a long time. There's no payoff in a protracted feud; rather, it seems wasteful. I don't like to carry a grudge.

"I think Marianne wants to bury the hatchet," he told me. "And the funny thing is, I think y'all would be great friends."

Eventually, after much give-and-take and arguments about how this rapprochement would be implemented and who would make the first move towared peace.

Surprisingly, one afternoon, I got a call from my friend: "I just got off the phone with Marianne and she is going to call you. She's very nervous, but I have convinced her to get this over with...that the two of you should be friends."

My other line rang - yes, it rang; phones were different back in the early 1990s - and I answered, again identifying myself and asking the caller if I could be of help.

"Jef, this is Marianne Clark" she got out before being completely consumed by sobs, then I heard the familiar click signifying the caller had indeed hung up.

"Who was that?" Stuart asked.

"You won't believe it - it was Marianne Clark. But she was crying and hung up," I reported.

Everyone in our office knew what had transpired, so everyone's interest was piqued, awaiting the next ring of the phone. And so it happened and Marianne and I finally talked. After at least three years of that titanic theatrical feud.

As the conversation progressed, we exchanged pleasantries to be certain, but more importantly we explained what had happened since that time in 1989 when we came to verbal blows on the telephone. We talked for about half and hour and when I hung up, just as my friend had predicted, Marianne and I were friends. Maybe not best pals, by any stretch of the imagination, but sincerely and genuinely fond of each other.

First Night events were coming up a few weeks after that initial conversation and Marianne and I had run into each other on several occasions in the interim. "I really hope you will come to First Night this year," I told her. "You should be there 'cause you'll have a great time and everyone you know will be there."

When First Night Sunday rolled around, Marianne came - dressed impeccably, as if she'd just stepped out of a bandbox - and I could tell she was having a great time, especially when people gasped and guffawed when they saw us hug each other with apparent affection and respect.

During my speech at the end of the show, I mentioned how happy I was that Marianne Clark was in the audience and I welcome her warmly. To my surprise, Marianne ran onstage and we hugged again IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!

Truth be told, we both cried even. And those tears and the raw emotion we shared that night on the stage at Nashville Children's Theatre were as sincere and heartfelt as the tears I shed yesterday when I learned that Marianne had died after a massive heart attack on Sunday night (ironically, my partner Stuart died in 1997 in much the same way).

I had only seen her in passing over the past few years as she remained as active and as vital a part of the Nashville theater community as she had ever been. My plan was to honor her at The First Night Honors later this year, but I had not had a chance to ask her about that before she died, which I deeply regret.

We were never bosom buddies, to be sure, but I believe we both learned a lot about people in our shared passion for theater and during the feud that lasted longer than it should have, but is clearly the stuff of local theatrical legend.

Once, we were having drinks at a party or a bar (I simply cannot remember where it was) and we actually talked some more about our feud and she said, "You know, Jef, I'm really sorry about what I did. I don't know what I was thinking...I have a lot of gay friends and had never in my life ever thought or said anything even close to what I said to you. Let's just say I kinda went crazy and leave it at that."

Well, to my way of thinking, that's the best explanation to be had. We settled our differences, we became rather friendly and we both had a terrific theater story to tell people about and we shared something that we approached the legendary.

Marianne, in her own uniquel way, made things better by being a better person and showing me how to be a better man. For me, what this story represents - and what it has always meant to me - is that the theater's transformative powers are remarkable, its redemptive powers amazing. In short, we can change the world.

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