WOMEN IN THEATER: Actors Bridge's Vali Forrister

As members of the Nashville theater community join with members of the theaterati far-flung across the world to celebrate the 20th birthday of Actors Bridge Ensemble - the cutting-edge, forward-thinking, boundary-pushing, status quo-challenging theater company that has helped to make Music City USA somehow more creative and more welcoming to artisans who flock here to pursue their dreams - we are reminded of the company's early days and the days even before that when we first came to know of a young woman named Vali Forrister.

It was back in the late 1980s, we were publishing Tennessee's first weekly GLBTQ newspaper - at first known as Dare, later to become Query - from a small office on Hayes Street. One of our reporters, Joel Meriwether was working on a story, as reporters usually do, by trying to avoid the task at hand: "You really should get to know Vali Forrister - she's remarkable, so talented, you will just love her - I've never known anyone quite like her," he told me, his enthusiasm growing as he spoke of this theatrical wizard who then was toiling as an undergraduate theater student at David Lipscomb University.

Vali Forrister, theatrical wizard, was one of Nashville's up-and-coming young actors and already she was startling theater audiences and attracting the attention of the small cadre of people who covered theater in Nashville and in Tennessee as seriously as others reported the comings and goings, the exploits and achievements of the country music industry in our hometown.

After that, every time that Joel Meriwether would enter our office, he would tell another story about Vali Forrister, this young woman - barely more than a grrrl - who was burning up the Lipscomb stage, challenging her professors and classmates, and making a name for herself as an actress in a town where theater was often treated as an after-thought. "I've got to tell you, Jeff [I was still hung up on that superfluous second F]...she's amazing and you will absolutely love her," he suggested.

Charming, intelligent, clever, imaginative and so very fierce, this young actress would knock my socks off, I was assured, as certainly as she was rocking life on the peaceful, conservative and bucolic Lipscomb campus in Green Hills.

After so much advance publicity and hype from Joel, to my way of thinking it seemed clear that Vali Forrister already was a legend in the making in our theater community and I subsequently contacted her for an interview about an upcoming show at LDoT.

"From the first interview you ever did with me (and Mark Paulk) in the skybridge bar between Church Street Center and the Renaissance Hotel - I think it was 1988 or 1989, as we were in preparing to do The Barretts of Wimpole Street at Lipscomb," she recently reminded me.

To be honest, I don't remember the story I wrote and Church Street Centre was razed a few years back and is now the main branch of the Nashville Public Library, but what remains fresh in my memory is meeting this exceptional young woman (who was probably the same age as her theater company is this year) for whom the phrase "force of nature" may have been coined. Full of energy, with an innate graciousness that I learned later came straight through her heart from her beloved mother, she lived up to Joel's advance publicity, which was borne out by her very genuineness.

Vali Forrister was - and still is - just as spectacular as I was promised she would be. I was completely and absolutely captivated and mesmerized by her kindness, her total attention to every word I had to say and the ability to answer all my questions as if they were the most fascinating words she'd ever heard (advice to aspiring theater artists: if you want to impress a writer, follow Vali's lead and listen to every word a reporter says to you).

Instantly, I knew this was a woman destined to make an even bigger mark on the local theater landscape, a direction from which she has never wavered in the more than a quarter century I've known her: Vali's commitment to pushing the envelope for live theater in her hometown is nothing short of amazing and it is definitely something not for the faint-hearted. Rather, it requires much thoughtful consideration - you have to question everything you've been taught, everything you've predisposed to along the way and you must execute a constant and never-ending search for honesty in a world that, as children, we supposed was "make believe."

When she co-founded Actors Bridge with Bill Feehely, it was as if Vali's dedication to making Nashville a more vibrant creative community began to take on a tangible shape. Together, the two created a theater company that took on the challenge of reinterpreting classics of the stage, encouraged the creation and discovery of new ways to transform and transport, and sought to bring to the stages here works once thought unviable for production in Nashville.

But perhaps her most enduring legacy will be the creation of Act Like a GRRRL, inspired by her desire to create a better world of creativity for her beloved niece Havilland Forrister, which continues to provide opportunities for young women to pursue their creative dreams, limited only by their own imagination. By providing a safe and nurturing home for these young women to challenge their preconceived notions, she is making this a better world.

One of the best things about being a critic in a town with a lively - they clearly have always managed to put the "fun" in dysfunction - coterie of artists focused on creating new and different forms of theater, always striving to make themselves better and to create a sense of family and belonging for every newcomer who ventures into their charmed circle.

Vali Forrister - and all of her Actors Bridge cohorts, including Bill Feehely and Jessika Malone - has been an instrumental figure in the evolution of theater in Nashville and to celebrate 20 years (which is the timespan of a generation) of their artistry is truly awe-inspiring and one of the greatest pleasures in my professional life.

"Jef - you have such a unique perspective on us," she told me recently. "From the first interview you ever did with me...to the lovely party you threw for Actors Bridge at your home in Germantown after one of our first performances at St. Augustine's (I think it was Marcus' adaptation of Spoon River). You know our roots better than most!"

I remember that party so well - despite a surfeit of martinis (Linda Speir told me once that her first martini was at my house!) - and I remember all the talented people who filled my home to celebrate artistic achievement and the camaraderie which only seems possible in the theater.

After I took a ten-year respite from reviewing and criticism, I returned in 2009 to write for BroadwayWorld.com, wondering if people would remember me, would accept my opinions, would welcome me back. One of the first shows I reviewed upon my return was an Actors Bridge production of Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone (featuring performances by Brooke Bryant, Paul Gattrell, Kurt Schlachter, Cynthia Tucker, Alice Raver and Judy Jackson, with direction by Feehely). I remember walking into the lobby of Belmont's Black Box Theatre to be greeted warmly and whole-heartedly by Vali Forrister, who introduced me, for the very first time, as "Jef Ellis from BroadwayWorld.com."

In that moment, Vali made me feel as important as any person in the room that night (In fact, I thought, "Oh, yeah, that's who I am now" after years of not knowing myself very well), as she does for every person she's ever had the slightest interaction with - she is the epitome of a gracious Southern woman who knows who she is and what her mission is: to engage us all as she creates theatrical magic that is certain to encourage every person she meets, no matter who they are, to become a part of the world of make believe. In doing so, Vali Forrister and the 20-year-old Actors Bridge Ensemble are helping the real world take on the very best attributes of that magical, make believe world of the theater by informing us, by challenging us and by illuminating the human experience by telling the stories we need to hear.

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