Nashville Theatre's Top Performances of '09: The Women

While there were plenty of productions to be excited about during the 2009 Nashville theatre season, as with any year the most memorable theatrical moments were due to the many fine individual performances seen on local stages. Featuring a blend of both veterans and newcomers, the 2009 season proved once again that Music City has an impressive retinue of actors to call upon. Whether it's in an emotionally draining drama, a laugh-out-loud comedy or a joyously inspiring musical, there are actors here who can deliver the goods, time after time. Here are the people to remember from 2009, thanks to their sterling portrayals, first the women:

• Holly Allen, Parallel Lives, Street Theatre Company. Versatile and well-prepared, Holly Allen is an actor's actor and no role has better showcased her amazing range than her performance in Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy's Parallel Lives, given a wildly entertaining production by Street Theatre Company. Paired with Cathy Sanborn Street, Allen's appealing performance was, by turns, moving and funny.

• Melissa Bailey, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Nashville Dinner Theatre at Senior Center for the Arts. Cast as Disney's quintessential musical heroine Belle, Melissa Bailey gave a lovely performance, her exquisitely sweet voice providing the perfect foil for the memorable score. Playing opposite Joe Robinson, her performance was dreamily romantic, yet grounded in reality.

• Denice Hicks, Steel Magnolias, Tennessee Repertory Theatre. Cast as neighborhood harridan Ousier Boudreaux, Denice Hicks once again displayed why she's one of the region's finest actresses, creating a portrayal that was completely believable and thoroughly fun to watch. Seeing her shuffle along, looking so much like an old Southern woman that you wanted to ask for a peppermint from her always-present handbag, the utterly ageless Hicks stole the stage from a cast of formidable Nashville actresses.

• Karen Himelrick, Dearly Beloved, Towne Centre Theatre. Playing Twink, the youngest of the Futrelle sisters of fictional Fayro, Texas, Karen Himelrick's wonderfully hilarious performance is hard to describe; clearly, it's a case of having to see her to believe her. Suffice it to say, her impeccable timing and exceptional delivery had her audience begging for more, and laughing to excess in the process.

• Jennifer Landes-Vann, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Street Theatre Company. Landes-Vann played Pippi, the archetypical stripper with a heart of gold, with plenty of soul and a big ol' heaping helping of sex appeal. She has an extraordinary voice, which she used to great effect while doling out some of the show's pithiest wisdom, like "Sniffin' is just a gateway to huffin'..." and "Strippin' is like an all-you-can-eat waffle bar; you just have to know when to walk away."

• Hannah McGinley, Fame the Musical, Circle Players. Studying theatre at New York University, Hannah McGinley spent her summer vacation back home, displaying her considerable talents in Circle Players' big summer musical, confidently stealing the spotlight from her other young co-stars, showing the promise of much bigger things to come.

• Alice Raver, Dead Man's Cell Phone, Actors' Bridge Ensemble. Part of the Nashville arts scene for years, Alice Raver is a familiar face on and around Nashville stages and it was her wonderfully acerbic performance in Dead Man's Cell Phone that shows the true depth of her versatility. Raver made her mean-spirited and spiteful character come across as somehow lovable and sympathetic - a true testament to her abilities.

• Vilia Steele, Warriors Don't Cry, Tennessee Women's Theatre Project. As young Melba Portilla Beals in Eisa Davis' dramatic treatment of Beals' life story as one of the young African-American students who integrated Little Rock's Central High School, Steele was supremely confident as she took her audience on the all-too-real journey through history. Heart-breakingly genuine, Steele's performance was as inspiring as the story she portrayed.

• Martha Wilkinson, The Christmas Belles, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. Arguably Nashville's best actress - with the reviews, awards and accolades to prove it - Martha Wilkinson could easily have been the actress for whom the role of Honey Raye Futrelle was created by playwrights Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Wilkinson competently walks the tightrope with every performance, skirting caricature and stereotype to milk the most laughs from her adoring audiences, while keeping every character (seriously, EVERY character) she plays grounded in richly drawn reality.

• Lisa Marie Wright, Eat the Runt, GroundWorks Theatre. A sexy redhead, an annoying arts functionary and a capable actress...Lisa Marie Wright can best be described with all those words thanks to her funny performance in Avery Crozier's darkly satisfying comedy. Playing a couple of characters, she shows her wide ranging abilities by becoming the people she plays and creating compellingly memorable performances.

photo of Ruth Cordell and Denice Hicks from Tennessee Repertory Theatre's Steel Magnolias