THE FRIDAY 5 ON THURSDAY: Raymond McAnally of SIZE MATTERS

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to BroadwayWorld Nashville's latest installment of The Friday Five: five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find onstage throughout the Volunteer state.

This week the spotlight shines early - it's Thursday, after all - on Raymond McAnally, a local boy from Franklin who's made good in the acting game and has brought his one-man show (Size Matters) home for a weekend run at the historic Franklin Theatre in his hometown. Give his interview the once-over, then call and make reservations for the show and we'll see you at the theater!

What was your first "live onstage" taste of theater? It was a Drama 1 showcase at Franklin High School. The drama teacher, Mrs. Sandra Joyner, realized I was a "class clown" who didn't flinch at making a fool out of myself. I loved the empathy of it all; daydreaming myself into someone else's life. I was hooked right away, but it took another eight years to realize I could make a living at it.

What's really fun is out of my four years of Drama class at Franklin High School, a number of us have gone professional: There's Nashville playwright and director Nate Eppler; Matthew R Wilson, who's a major player in D.C.; Erica Elam, who travels all over the world with Second City; and so on. I don't get to see them much, but they were such a big part of me falling in love with theatre that I am always cheering them on.

What is your favorite pre-show ritual? I have a couple of different things I do to shed my day and get into the character, because different ones work on different days. Music is usually a big one - I'll give a character a certain song or playlist can really catapult my mood into a completely different time and place.

What's your most memorable "the show must go on" moment? I was in college at Sewanee and I'd been cast in the lead male role of a world premiere play by a visiting New York playwright. At the same time, my father lost his three-year fight with cancer. The playwright and the director left the decision up to me. I'll never forget returning to rehearsal after getting back up on the Mountain...I disappeared into that role as much as I possibly could, because it felt so good to be someone else for a while. I needed the show to go on. Six years later that role helped me earn my first Off-Broadway theatre credit.

What's your dream role? I've always wanted to play Lennie in Of Mice and Men.

Who's your theatrical crush? Mark Rylance. He's an absolute chameleon. I first saw him play Cleopatra at the Globe in London when I was studying over there in college for a summer. Full commitment! Ever since, I've seen him in everything I could go to and were it not for the name in the playbill, I wouldn't recognize him from role to role. To me, that's inspirational.

About Size Matters: May 1 and 2 at The Franklin Theatre (419 Main Street in Franklin): Hilarious and honest, Size Matters is an autobiographical one-man show with fifteen characters, starring Tennessee native Raymond McAnally. The show addresses the topics of bullying, body issues, love, and family responsibility from a refreshing and often unheard male perspective.

In the show, McAnally weaves an emotional and comedic tale of his current life as a plus sized actor, new husband, and uncle to an admiring overweight ten year-old nephew, Morgan. Startled by seeing his past reflected in his unconfident nephew, Raymond and the audience explore his life to find out how much, or how little, Size Matters.

Artist's Biography: Raymond McAnally is a professional actor who has worked in film, television, voiceover, video games, and won multiple awards for comedic stage performances. Theatre credits include Defending the Caveman; God's Ear, Off Broadway, The Vineyard Theatre; One Man, Two Guvnors, Repertory Theatre of St Louis; Mrs. Mannerly, Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati & Theaterworks Hartford; The Foreigner, Cincinnati Playhouse; Mere Mortals, Two River; A Midsummer Night's Dream, Long Wharf.

Television credits include guest starring roles on Modern Family, Law & Order SVU, Royal Pains, and 30 Rock, as well as Boardwalk Empire, Nurse Jackie, Mozart in the Jungle, etc. Film credits include Compliance, I Don't Know How She Does It, Ghost Town, and Gods Behaving Badly.

Born and raised in Franklin, the son of a former Miss Tennessee from Cookeville and an International cattle broker from Hardin County, McAnally's story has deep Tennessee roots. In the show, McAnally credits his drama classes at Franklin High School for sparking his love for acting. Scenes in the show center around locations like Cottonwood, Grassland, a friend's farm in Dickson, and McAnally's wedding in Nashville. Franklin isn't just the backdrop to many of the scenes in Size Matters, it's part of the very fabric of who McAnally is as an actor and storyteller.

As a playwright, Size Matters is Raymond's first full-length play in production. His short plays The Odd Ball and Homeland have been produced at festivals on both coasts. As a screenwriter, Raymond's first television pilot script was a semi-finalist in the 2014 L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival script competition (A Top Ten International Comedy Festival). Raymond has had over fifty original comedy shorts produced by Daily Fiber Films, LLC. His comedies have been featured on FunnyOrDie.com, CNN, New Media Rockstars, and The Food Network.

Raymond holds an MFA in Acting from Rutgers University and a BA in Philosophy from Sewanee: The University of the South.

Show History: Size Matters was originally produced by Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati in May 2014, as the final show in the theatre's 27th season. The production ran for three weeks; garnering outstanding reviews, standing ovations, and sold out performances. In November 2014, Size Matters received an eight show run by at Hamilton Stages Performing Arts Center in Rahway, New Jersey.

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