Nashville Actor/Director Marianne Clark Dies After Heart Attack

Marianne Clark, longtime leader of Nashville's theater community, died Wednesday while doctors attempted to bring her out of a drug-induced coma after she suffered a heart attack Sunday night at home.

Clark, who acted (possibly her best-known role was as Carrie Watts in The Trip to Bountiful) and directed for various theater companies in the Nashville area - including Circle Players, ACT 1, Pull-Tight Players and more recently helming productions at Towne Centre Theatre - had earlier Sunday worked with her cast members for the upcoming Pull-Tight Players' production of Suite Surrender. Daryle Tallent, a member of that cast, will step in to the role of director.

"We were with her Sunday afternoon, rehearsing the show she's been directing at Pull-Tight (Suite Surrender), and she was just fine," says actress Jennifer Bennett. "[She was] her normal, energetic self, full of life and putting her great comic instincts to work in fine tuning our show. Then we heard the next day that she had suffered the heart attack that night. As strong as she was, we all had hope she would pull through.

"I just can't believe she's gone. I considered her a mentor, and always told her I want to be just like her when I grow up. It's heartbreaking."

According to Bennett, "Our cast has decided we will go forward with our show, because that's what she would have wanted. Daryle Tallent, who is in our cast, is stepping in to finish Marianne's directing job. We will push through and do our best to make her proud."

Back in the early 1990s, Clark founded Nashville Playhouse, which was in the Belle Meade Galleria. The seating banks from that theater have remained in use at Darkhorse Theater since Nashville Playhouse closed. Her first show at Nashville Playhouse was Annie, which starred Susannah Smith White in the title role and the late Rita Frizzell as Grace Farrell.

Only a couple of seasons ago, Clarke played Ethel Thayer in a production of On Golden Pond at Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theatre, with Bennett cast as her daughter, Chelsea, in the production.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced. At top, Jennifer Bennett and Marianne Clark are pictured together.

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