Our Dr. Greta McCormick Coger Literary Salon Series continues with a celebration of gratitude for the season as described by its masterful literary caretaker.

A Little Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving: Louisa May Alcott is curated and directed by TSC’s Stephanie Shine.  It will be presented both in-person on TSC’s Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage and simulcast online beginning at 3:00 pm (CST), to be followed by a brief talkback with the actors.

The Salon, which will run approximately one hour without intermission, will feature excerpts from Alcott’s novel Little Men (1871) and short story An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving (1882), as well as music of the season.

TSC’s company of actors includes Jasmine Robertson, Ural Grant, Simmery Branch, John Ross Graham, Tristin Hicks, Lauren Gunn, Blake Currie, and Michael Khanlarian.

Little Men reprises characters from Alcott’s novel Little Women and acts as the second book in her unofficial Little Women Trilogy (concluding with Jo’s Boys in 1886).  The film and television culture, and perhaps most American families at home, have been attempting to inhabit the spirit of her Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving for decades during the Autumn.

“Louisa May Alcott wrote in Little Women, ‘…for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride,’ says Shine.  “This Salon celebrates the acts of love and gratitude so plentiful in Louisa’s writing.  She demonstrates over and over again her great faith in the healing abilities of the human heart, and the seeming belief that when love and gratitude work hand-in-hand, human beings rise to their happy best.  It’s delightful to bring her words to life, and I hope Louisa’s great spirit will inspire us all to future acts of love and gratitude.”

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) was born in Pennsylvania with her three sisters, who were educated by their Transcendentalist parents.  She spent her childhood in Boston and in Concord, MA, with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his library, excursions into nature with Henry David Thoreau, in conversation with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, within rock-tossing distance of Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Old Manse, and performing theatricals in the nearby barn.  Like the character of Jo in her Little Women, young Alcott was a tomboy.  Writing was an early passion.  At age 15, troubled by the poverty plaguing her family and confronted by a society that offered little opportunity to women seeking employment, Alcott persisted:  “I will make a battering-ram of my head and make my way through this rough and tumble world.”  She then did any work she could find, including as a teacher, seamstress, and household servant.

Her career as an author began at the age of eight with poetry, and later short stories that appeared in popular magazines.  In 1854, when she was 22, her first book, Flower Fables, was published.  A major critical milestone was Hospital Sketches (1863), a truthful account of her service as a Civil War nurse in Washington, D.C.  In 1868, when she was 35 years old, her publisher asked her to write “a girls’ story.”  Little Women, part I was dashed off within three months.  The novel, a phenomenal success about a free-thinking juvenile heroine, is largely based on the coming of age stories of Alcott and her sisters.

In all, Alcott published over 30 books and collections of short stories and poems.  She was an abolitionist, feminist, and an active participant in the reform movements of women’s suffrage and temperance.

She wrote in Little Men:

“As Mr. and Mrs. Bhaer glanced at each other down the long table, with those rows of happy faces on either side, they had a little thanksgiving all to themselves, and without a word, for one heart said to the other, – ‘Our work has prospered, let us be grateful and go on.’”

Box Office

Purchase tickets online at www.tnshakespeare.org or by calling (901) 759-0604 Monday-Friday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm.  The Salon will be available to patrons as both an in-person and digital online experience.

Online option:

The online presentation will show only once via a one-camera setup on TSC’s website with a time-stamped, specific password provided to patrons on the day of the Salon.  The digital waiting room opens 15 minutes prior to curtain.  All digital online tickets are $15.

In-person option:

In-person seating at the Tabor Stage is strictly limited to 54 socially-distanced patrons.  Face coverings must be worn.  Patrons must answer basic health screening positively and provide contact information prior to theatre entry.  Patrons may select the preferred seating section, and TSC will then select socially-distanced seats based on the party’s size and the order in which tickets were purchased.

Tickets in Seating Section One are $25 in-person (Students $18/Seniors $22).  Tickets in Seating Sections Two and Three are $18 in-person (Students $15/Seniors $18).  Tickets must be purchased in advance of the Salon (not at the door), printed, and brought with patrons to the theatre.  The house will open 30 minutes prior to curtain.

Credit Card charges require a $1 per-ticket fee. Schedule subject to change with notice.  Free parking at TSC.  There are no refunds/exchanges.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company’s 13th Performance Season Continues

A Christmas Carol: Charles Dickens’ Dramatic Premier Reading in Boston
Salon curated and read by Dan McCleary
December 4-20
 
The Hunting Heart: Carson McCullers
Salon curated by Stephanie Shine
co-sponsored by Anne and Michael Keeney
Sunday, January 24, 2021 at 3:00 pm

The Shakespeare Gala
a fun, breezy party to benefit our Education Program
Online Only
sponsored by TSC’s Board of Directors
Saturday, April 24, 2021 at 6:00 pm

Season 13 Sponsors and Partners

TSC’s generous sponsors and partners of its season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include International Paper, ArtsMemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and Arts Midwest, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, Independent Bank, Evans|Petree, P.C., Campbell Clinic, the family of Pat and Ernest Kelly, The Sims Family Foundation, Nancy R. Copp, the family of Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor, Dr. Greta McCormick Coger, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, University of Memphis’ Department of Theatre & Dance, Shelby County Schools, Collierville Municipal School District, Memphis Juvenile Justice System, the Memphis V.A. Hospital, and the Benjamin Hooks Library Friends.  TSC’s season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee.

About Tennessee Shakespeare Company:

Tennessee Shakespeare Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre and education organization in Memphis dedicated to live, diverse performances of William Shakespeare’s plays, as well as works of social significance by classical, Southern, and modern writers/composers; and to providing innovative educational and training programming in-person and online.

Founded in 2008 by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, Tennessee Shakespeare Company is Memphis’ first and only professional, classical theatre.  In 2017, TSC purchased its first performing arts facility, which is being renovated into the state’s only permanent home for professional, year-round Shakespeare performance, education, and training.  The company is in the midst of its $6.5 million Brave New World capital campaign.

TSC has engaged its community with 47 site-specific plays and events for over 50,000 patrons. Its ground-breaking Education Program has reached 120 schools across nine states, totaling over 250,000 student interactions. The Program has achieved a high regional and national profile, partners annually with most local school systems, and for the second consecutive year is one of just seven U.S. theatres to be awarded a National Endowment for the Arts/Arts Midwest’s Shakespeare in American Communities Juvenile Justice grant for expanded residencies with local incarcerated youth.

The Education Program this year has launched its inaugural Online Academy, a digital catalogue of nearly 50 online courses, classes, playshops, residencies, and performances for students in K-12, for college students, and for adult learners.  Taught entirely by TSC’s Teaching-Artists, the Academy provides a hybrid of live and pre-recorded classical educational opportunities at affordable rates that feature interactivity, dynamism, inquiry, and joy for all learners.