Tennessee Shakespeare Company Presents its New Enhanced Literary Salon on the Tabor Stage

Created by Dan McCleary, with Lauren Gunn

January 25 – February 9

We are going to explore the world’s most infamous and bloody, yet innovative and cathartic, villains on our Tabor Stage January 25 – February 9 with the premiere of The Grace of Grace: Shining a Light Through Shakespeare’s Broken Villains sponsored by The Sims Family Charitable Trust.

Created and acted by TSC founder and producing artistic director Dan McCleary (most recently Cyrano de Bergerac) with veteran actor and fight director Lauren Gunn (Olivia in Twelfth Night; Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire), Grace of Grace represents a new and exciting expansion of our long-time Literary Salon Series.

This 90-minute Enhanced Salon will feature scenes from King Lear, Henry IV part one, Richard III, Coriolanus, The Taming of the Shrew, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, and Macbeth.

In a life buffeted by familial loss, religious persecution, plagues, political upheaval, and a forbidden Dark Lady, William Shakespeare might well have felt deeply compelled to create his canon of “villains.”  Indeed, many of them today are known solely for their evil acts or famous quotes. 

But for a playwright who took artistic pains to understand his own life through his work, to represent on stage people from all types of backgrounds (during a period when this often was illegal), and who wrote plays with themes so complex that they defy one-word descriptions, were his bad guys truly penned just for entertainment?  As mere one-dimensional evil people who we enjoy marveling at or being appalled by?

In our fully-produced premiere, Dan McCleary declares Shakespeare’s villains as so originally poetic, courageous, creative, and so vicious in their as to provide an undeniable subconscious grace for all of us today – and for their creator over 400 years ago. A direct pathway to compassion, as McCleary demonstrates on stage.

“After nearly 35 years of playing these men, I feel three clear arguments in support of their offering grace to us,” says McCleary.  “These are not academic arguments, rather they are feelingly known.  Our concert attempts to articulate the arguments through playing the men.  But we are encouraged to do so from inside what I believe to be the impossible landscape of one particular man’s mind: the too-kind Macbeth, whose self-aware descent has informed our modern psyche for over 400 years. 

“Shakespeare’s villains are profoundly self-aware, and they require a sounding board or compassion or witness from a live audience.  It has become clear over the years that either their conscious acts must be confessed, or their subconscious is screaming to be heard.  In an effort to heal.  I think they were, and remain, civilization’s gateways to compassion, self-responsibility, freedom, sacrifice, and grace.  And my hope is to find the allure in this, the rationale for why these men are what they are, rather than have us be solely appalled by them.”

Our Salon format is here enhanced by an original story told amid mangled abbey arches with a soaring musical soundscape and a full costume design as the two actors divine Shakespeare’s villains of deformity, abuse, honor, and prejudice.

“This Salon will be part rock concert and part fantasy, incorporating projections and monitors, sometimes bloody and violent, but always seeking understanding.”

The design team includes Jeremy Allen Fisher (Production/Lighting Design), Roger Hanna (Scenic Design), Austin Blake Conlee (Costume Design), Melanie Mulder (Props Design), and Micki McCormick (Sound Engineer). Jasmine Simmers is the Production Stage Manager.

In keeping with our Salon tradition, please note that material and music may change from presentation to presentation as the piece develops with a live audience.

RESERVED SEATING ON THE TABOR STAGE

Tickets are $35.  Seniors (62+) are $29; Students (+/-22 with I.D.) are $22.  Running Time: approximately 90 minutes. No refunds/exchanges. House opens 30 minutes prior to curtain. Credit Card charges require a $1.50 per-ticket fee. Schedule subject to change with notice. Free parking.

Grace of Grace Salon Schedule:
Saturday, January 25: 7:30 pm (post-show reception)
Sunday, January 26: 3:00 pm
Saturday, February 1: 7:30 pm  
Sunday, February 2: 3:00 pm (post-show discussion)
Saturday, February 8: 7:30 pm
Sunday, February 9: 3:00 pm

Artistic and Production Bios

Austin Blake Conlee (Costume Designer) TSC: Hamlet. Design credits: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cinderella, Gentleman’s Guide, Hamlet Replayed, Urinetown!, Twelfth Night, Cunning Little Vixen, Threepenny Opera, Joseph… Dreamcoat, and Streetcar Named Desire. Regional credits: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Santa Cruz Shakespeare, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Kennedy Center, Cumberland Playhouse, Northern Stage, Opera Columbus, Arena Stage, and the Folger Theatre. Austin is Professor of Costume Design at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Education: M.F.A. in Costume Design from University of Maryland and B.F.A. from University of Memphis. https://www.abcdesigns.me

Jeremy Allen Fisher (Production Manager; Technical Director; Lighting Designer) has been with TSC since 2013, designing 30+ productions. An 18-year veteran in the entertainment business with multiple degrees and certifications, Jeremy is a member of Local USA 829 United Scenic Artists with experience in all aspects of lighting. Founding his design firm in 2019, he has worked on projects of all sizes across the country. He is the Resident Lighting Designer for Opera Memphis and Youngblood Studio. He recently redesigned Ballet Memphis’ annual production of Nutcracker and completed several major public art installations at St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, and Oregon State University. Since moving to Memphis in 2011, Jeremy has completed 200+ lighting designs in the city, been nominated for 12 Ostrander Awards with four wins, and in 2017 was awarded the TAC Individual Artist Award for his work in Lighting Design.

Lauren Gunn (Fight Director/Actor) TSC: Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Tempest, Cyrano de Bergerac, Macbeth, Henry VI, Romeo and Juliet, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, Ada and the Engine. Southern Arena Theatre: Boeing Boeing, I Hate Hamlet. New Stage Theatre: Constellations, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Crimes of the Heart, A Christmas Carol, Cat in the Hat. Fish Tale Group Theatre: Voice of Freedom Summer. Lauren is delighted and honored to continue serving military Veterans at the Memphis V.A. Medical Center with TSC’s Feast of Crispian-South program. She is a member and associate instructor with Dueling Arts International. Education: University of Southern Mississippi (M.F.A.).

Roger Hanna (Scenic Designer) TSC: Twelfth Night, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Streetcar Named Desire, Hamlet, The Glass Menagerie, and The Tempest.  He has designed sets for theatre, opera, and dance in Japan, Israel, and across the U.S., including over 150 productions in NYC. Collaborators include Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz, MacArthur “Genius” Susan Marshall, and 10-time Tony-winner Tommy Tune. Awards include a Lortel Award, two Drama Desk nominations, and a True West Award from the DCPA. As an educator, Roger has taught and designed at major schools including Manhattan and Mannes Schools of Music, NYU, and Yale. He is currently the Head of Set Design at Colorado State University.

Dan McCleary (Creator/Actor), a native of Memphis, most recently directed TSC’s Shout-Out productions of The Comedy of Errors and The Tempest as well as A Streetcar Named Desire.  For TSC, he also has directed/acted in As You Like It (playing Jaques), Cyrano de Bergerac (playing Cyrano), The Trouble Begins at Eight: Mark Twain, Ada and the Engine, Blue Roses of Tennessee Williams (playing Tennessee with his son, Collins), Julius Caesar, Waiting for Godot, The Glass Menagerie (playing old Tom), The Taming of the Shrew (playing Sly), Richard III (playing Richard), To Kill a Mockingbird, Much Ado About Nothing, Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia Gothic, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The Tempest, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the all-female Julius Caesar, Othello, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), Themes from a Midsummer Night with IRIS Orchestra, Classical Creations in Quarantine, and Shakespeare’s Election of Coriolanus. Other regional theatre directing credits: The Servant of Two Masters, his adaptation of Anaïs Nin’s Henry and June, Vita & Virginia (Sackville-West and Woolf), My Own Stranger (Anne Sexton), and The Fiery Rain (Edith Wharton/Henry James/Morton Fullerton) at Shakespeare & Company, where Dan was Associate Artistic Director. He also has directed at Seattle Shakespeare, Orlando Shakespeare, and Georgia Shakespeare. He has played over 120 roles on stage, including Coriolanus (thrice), Richard III (twice), Macbeth (twice), Falstaff, Marc Antony, Caliban, Brutus, Petruchio, Hotspur, Bottom, Master Ford, Stephano, Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus, Cassio, Bertram, Demetrius, Silvius, Herman Melville, Porfiry, Charles Dickens, The Gentleman Caller, Hannah from Hamburg in La Cage, and Bertha Bumiller et. al. in the Greater Tuna series. Dan is a published poet, and the creator/director/actor of the plays Speak What We Feel: Shakespeare’s Radical Response to a Radical Time; Unto the Breach; Quintessence: Shakespeare in Performance; and Classical Creations in Quarantine. Memphis Magazine has named him among the “Who’s Who in Memphis” for six years. Dan presented his TEDx Talk “Shakespeare in Kindergarten, or Let Fall Rome” in Memphis in 2020, and the Germantown Arts Alliance honored him with its 2009 Distinguished Arts and Humanities Medal for Performing Arts.

Micki McCormick (Sound Engineer) TSC: Technical Director for the Shout-Out Shakespeare Series production of The Tempest and sound engineer for A Streetcar Named Desire. Design Credits: Lighting Designer Assistant for Opera Memphis’s La Bohème and La Calisto. Production Electrician for Opera Memphis’s The Rising and the Falling and The University of Memphis’ Rocky Horror Picture Show. Micki is the2022 Ostrander Award winner for Excellence in Sound Design for the University of Memphis’ A Bright Room Called Day.

Melanie Mulder (Properties Designer) TSC: Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Streetcar Named Desire, Hamlet, Ada and the Engine, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Additional credits: The Color Purple, Jelly’s Last Jam, A Song for Coretta, Ruined, In the Heights, and Once on This Island at Hattiloo Theatre. Melanie has served as Props Designer on productions for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Seaside Music Theatre (FL), Vineyard Theatre, Pearl Theatre, the New School for Drama, and The Signature Theatre (all NYC), Williamstown Theatre Festival (MA), Lake George Opera (NY), and Northern Stage (VT). Melanie is a native Memphian and received her B.F.A. in Theatre from the University of Memphis.

Jasmine Simmers (Production Stage Manager) TSC: Stage Manager for Twelfth Night, Hamlet, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Macbeth Initiative, and Assistant Stage Manager for The Tempest. Other credits include La Bohème, The Rocky Horror Show, Back When Mike Was Kate, The Forever Question, and Le Nozze di Figaro. She holds a B.F.A. in Theatre, Design, and Technology from the University of Memphis.

Box Office

Tickets may be purchased online here or by calling the Box Office at (901) 759-0604 Tuesday-Friday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, and one hour prior to curtain. TSC is located at 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis, TN 38018-6297. No refunds/exchanges. The house opens 30 minutes prior to curtain. Credit Card charges require a $1.50 per-ticket fee. Free Tabor Stage parking and covered drop-off at the front door are available.

Season 17 Sponsors

TSC’s generous sponsors of its season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include FedEx, International Paper, Arts Midwest, ARTSmemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Independent Bank, Evans Petree PC, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, Nancy R. Copp, Pat and Ernest Kelly Anne and Mike Keeney, J. Walker Sims and the Sims Family Charitable Trust, Deborah Dunklin Tipton, Pete Pranica, Edward and Gloria Felsenthal, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, and the Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund.

TSC’s season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee.