Episode 9: Bryce McDonald & Cumberland County Playhouse

Lacey: [00:00:00] Hi, Bryce McDonald of Cumberland County Playhouse in Tennessee. It's so nice to see your face. 

Bryce: [00:00:07] It's so nice to see you. How are you?

Lacey: [00:00:09] I am good. We are sitting here at 5:30 on a, what are we at a Wednesday? Who knows what day it is? Cause it's a pandemic, but here we are. And I'm so excited to learn more about your theater. We have a mutual friend. I'm going to just give her a shout out, Katherine Berman, who made this  connection for us and she lives nearby

Bryce: [00:00:30] Yes, she does very nearby.

Lacey: [00:00:31] very near. Okay. Very nearby. And what's the city in Tennessee that you're

Bryce: [00:00:36] It's Crossville, Tennessee.

Lacey: [00:00:37] Crossville, Tennessee. And it's in the Blue Ridge Mountains, right?

Bryce: [00:00:40] Yeah, we're we're in what they called the Cumberland Plateau. And there are mountains all around us.  Lots of trails, lots of hikes, state parks.  Nashville is an hour and a half away from us. Chattanooga is an hour and a half away from us. Knoxville is 45 minutes, and so we get a lot of traffic from both sides, but it's gorgeous up here and it's just very relaxing and beautiful.

Lacey: [00:01:02] I drove through the mountains when I drove from Asheville to Nashville, which is fun to say Asheville the Nashville, but you've probably said that many times, it's fun for a new Yorker to say.  And I've been to Chattanooga yeah,   I certainly don't know the area. I can't say that, but I've been there and really appreciated the beauty of that drive, actually, it was gorgeous.

Bryce: [00:01:26] Yeah, I love it. I love it here.

Lacey: [00:01:27] Okay. So can we start by talking about Cumberland County Playhouse, the mission and the community that you serve?

Bryce: [00:01:35] yes. The Playhouse has been around since 1965 which I'm very proud of  cause I grew up an hour away from here. So that meant a lot to me that this place was my first taste of live theater. And our mission statement currently is that we seek to create assessable and high quality theater that has the potential to touch hearts, opens minds and changes lives.

And, our community, there are three large retirement communities that surround our small little mountain town and  we have a lot of people that relocate to Tennessee, huge amount of people from Michigan New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and a new uptick, which we've never seen before this year, California .

People that are retiring are moving and it used to be, it was always 65 and older, but we're starting to get a lot of younger retirees people who are in their late forties to early fifties that are moving to stay here.  

Lacey: [00:02:29] I think I read about that, that people in  Silicon Valley now that they don't, everyone's working from home, they're all moving to places that like Tennessee, where they have this wonderful quality of life. That they didn't have in South Bay. And I actually, yeah, I read an article about that.

Bryce: [00:02:44] and our cost of living is so different.  I think people are seeing that and they want to come and golf and they want to be able to go to the Smokey Mountains and be in Nashville in a city.

 And then you come back and you're in this small little quaint town with it's, the streets and sidewalks roll up at 5:00 PM unless you're coming to the theater. So we, we deal a lot with an older population is a lot of our community, but we've been branching out with our education department and with some edgier shows for this area too bring in a younger demographic and we have a new probably, maybe it's five years old, there's a new group in town. That's called the Young Professionals Alliance and they're all 20 something to early forties that are business owners. And we've connected with them and hosted a couple events to get them to come and see shows. Especially some people who never thought theater was their thing. So we're trying to turn that demographic over a little bit, that we want to still serve our population that has been loyal to us for 50 plus years. But we also want to bring in new theater people because we battle a lot, anybody in the arts is battling with being able to stream at home, and Netflix and all of those platforms.

And we just want to remind them that sitting in an audience, breathing with another human is an experience unlike any other.

Lacey: [00:04:02] That could very quickly lead us into, a great topic of conversation because if streaming was a battle, as you said, before the pandemic what do you do when they can't come to the theater? When theater is now streaming essentially. And how, do you get them to come back once, once it's an all clear, I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

I also want to hear about what was happening in March when you shut down and what your journey has been. So take that in either order or however you like.

Bryce: [00:04:31] Okay.  I'll try to go in order for us.  It's just so crazy to think about everything where we've been and where we were. So when March happened in 2020, we had just closed  our children's theater piece which was Chitty Bang, jr.

And we had about a cast of 50 something from five years old to 18 years old in the play. It had a fantastic run on our main stage. We were running Tuna Does Vegas in our black box theater. And we were getting ready to open Clue on stage. And I had went to Nashville for an arts advocacy day to just promote the arts on Capitol Hill and to meet with our legislators and while we were there, there was all this discussion about  people are starting to shut down and drove home and we no more pulled into the parking lot and my artistic director are came in and said they just closed Broadway.

Lacey: [00:05:23] So this was March 12th.

Bryce: [00:05:25] March 12th, we went into an emergency board meeting to make a plan. We ran Clue for six performances and took our final bow on Sunday, March 15th. We closed Tuna Does Vegas two days shy of its closing date. And we were in rehearsal for The Savannah Sipping Society,

and we teched it and picked the set up and put it in the warehouse, took Clue down, put it in the warehouse and sent everybody home. And then we stayed like that until July. And then July, we came up with an outdoor theater venue, which I can talk about. 

  We felt 2020 is truly our year. Things are happening. We're gonna, it's going to be great.

We're going to turn things around. And the buzz was up. We had sold more tickets in the first one, three months of the year. Then we had two years prior to that and then March 12th. And then we kept trying to figure out what could we do when they allowed non-essential businesses to open and with  the state restrictions.

We had furloughed everybody, but we kept six people on staff . And we were walking every day because two of us live together and the other two lived across the street from us.

 We met in the yard six feet apart across the street and would talk about plans and,

Oh, I lost you.

Lacey: [00:06:38] Oh, yep. I had my mute on, because there were so many sirens outside my window, which is funny because what I was saying was that is so quintessential a small town and you keep your business going by shouting over the fence during a pandemic. And it just, I love that image.

Bryce: [00:06:53] Yeah, there was one day that I wish I'd taken a photo of it. Cause we literally carried dining room chairs and set in the yard across the street from each other. Which was amazing, but we decided, okay, we have this great outdoor space that's not been touched in about 20 years. Let's refurbish it and let's bring a kid show back and let's do a show that we know we can produce with the people that are still living in town.

Because our company of actors, we have about 11 that are residents that are the full-time company that have chosen Crossville now to be their home.  And then we have anywhere from 11 to 15 other company members that come from all across the U S so we were like, all right, there's this show that we've done called Smoke On The Mountain. We have the sets, we have the costumes, we have the props and all seven people who have done it prior are here. Let's re-mount that because we could do it in two weeks. Let's create a theater under the stars and they'll  come and sit in the grass.  We made a little circle pods and we'll produce a kid show that runs during the day and we'll do this Smoke On The Mountain musical at night.

And so we put all of our efforts towards making that happen in July. And then we opened back up with limited capacity in our theaters in  late August, early September.  We did six shows in the last half of the year  we took 500 auditorium to 115, and we took a 225 black box to 75 and just produced what we could with the smallest amount of people that again had lived here had been quarantined together and we just, we all banded together as a family and made it happen.

Lacey: [00:08:33] I thought it was interesting that your awareness was massively heightened of course, as everybody's was by Broadway shutting down fun fact, I was taking a voice lesson on sixth Avenue and 46th street in that hour, four to 5:00 PM.

And then like when that hour was over the teacher and I both looked at our phones and we're like, Oh, Broadway, just shut down. It was just so crazy. But that, that aside what was your state telling you or your jurisdiction telling you at that point? Because I know things were different all over the country.

Things didn't all shut down when Broadway shut down, it sounds like you shut down pretty quickly. Was that your decision or was that something that was forced upon you in some way?

Bryce: [00:09:14] It was not forced. We started seeing people cancel tickets. Like the minute that March 12th happened, people started calling and we have a great connection with our local government, but also our state government, like Governor Lee, he had his office call and say, how are you guys? You're a large tourism for this part of the state  How are you guys faring? And so the board and myself decided to impose a two-week shutdown cause that's when everyone was thinking, Oh, two weeks, we'll be back.

 And within that two week period, there was a announcement of all non-essential businesses to shut down  and we had a shelter in place order.  And from that point, I probably was on the phone with the governor's office once or twice a week.

We were talking to our local mayors and our legislators. The artistic director and I probably met twice a week, just virtually or over the phone making a plan. And we just continually kept trying to hatch and go with the flow of what was going on.  We also wanted to protect our people. We house a lot of our performers. That's part of our performers and our technicians part of their contract is we take care of them in housing.

And some of them said, I feel safer staying in this community than traveling home to New York are going home to San Francisco or going to Chicago, right? Can we stay? And  we raised enough money that we could pay for all of their utilities and let them stay in housing so that they feel like they could shelter in place safely .

And that also we thought would prepare for us for when we could reopen, 

Lacey: [00:10:46] that's great. You were talking about your full-time company and that's pretty unusual in this day and age to have, so are they considered employees? Are they S wow, that's amazing. So you're, you've gotta be one of the few theaters left that can do that. So I'd love to hear about that.

Bryce: [00:11:02] We are definitely one of the few that still do that we have I'll say normal times, right? Pre COVID at the height of our summer season going into the fall and Christmas, we have anywhere between 81 and 90 employees and 27 of those are generally actors, dancers, and choreographers.

And then add another 16 or 20 is  all the craftsmen, the technicians, and then I have a staff in the administrative team that's about 16 or so. 

And the majority of the 10 to 14 of the resident actors, some of them have been here 20 years. 24 years. And then we offer anywhere from three months to six months to a  full year contract when we bring new people in, and then after a couple of years, there's an option to just join the company.

And that works really well for us because we also operate in rep. 

 We have an education program, so a lot of our actors are also teachers in our education program. And it's just a way to continually offer full-time employment for them. And we let them, if they have a job somewhere else that they want to go to, we try to be as supportive of that as possible because the former producing director did the same for me.

And  when he allowed me to leave the company to move to New York on a whim, it changed my life forever. So we want to be a stepping stone for anyone who is I want to do some really awesome professional regional theater for a couple of years of my life build roles on my resume. And I want to go to Chicago, New York, LA and try something and hopefully learn something or achieve something that I can bring back to this company.

And to open up more opportunities in this community for people.

Lacey: [00:12:40] It's lucky to be able to be employed full-time at a theater as a performer,  I think lots of people wish there was still more of that around in the country. 

Bryce: [00:12:48] I wish there was  and I think you learn so much, I think it's a skill that you don't learn anywhere else, other than doing it. And we operate anywhere between 14 and 17 shows a year when you add on the theater for young audience. And then out of that, we also try to find people who are interested in directing or interested in general management or producing and say, do you want to shadow one of us for a couple of months?

 And I just, I wish there was more of us out there to do it because it really takes a lot to have four shows in your brain that you can Rolodex through to be like, okay, today is Clue. Tomorrow is Savannah. The next day is Driving Miss Daisy. The next day has Godspell. And that is a fascinating tool that I think can be beneficial to everybody.

Lacey: [00:13:35] so how wide a radius do you serve?

Bryce: [00:13:38] I will say pre COVID, we had 88,000 visitors to the theater. More than 50% of them were non Tennesseeans  that were traveling And, now we saw good numbers during COVID,  we were one of the few theaters that were able to have an outdoor space and to be open in the summer. So we started to see people coming from all the Nashville theater markets 

we saw people from Virginia and Alabama and Georgia and Missouri and Mississippi and Kentucky take day trips to come here because we had an opportunity to see a free concert outside. 

 We serve one of the largest underserved areas in the state of Tennessee.

So we have five surrounding counties and our education program is a big part of those five counties. We offer classes Monday through Friday  we do all styles of dance, we have musical theater, we have acting we occasionally pop in a stagecraft workshop.

We did a Shakespearian workshop once. The kids start as small as three and go up to 18 or 19. We have people who want to be performers, but we have basketball players that are just trying to get better balance. And someone said ballet really is going to help you, so take a ballet class.

Lacey: [00:14:54] That's the classic Edward Villella and the football players.

Bryce: [00:14:57] Yeah. Yeah. And it works and people, and I was so proud again, pre COVID. We had an all boys class. We had enough boys

Lacey: [00:15:07] boys ballet class.

Bryce: [00:15:09] And an all boys jazz class

Lacey: [00:15:10] Wow. 

Bryce: [00:15:11] And they were so excited and wanting to be there. And we were able to bring in like male teachers. The education department inspires me every time I get to be a part of it and see what they're doing, because that was me.

I grew up in a small town, an hour away from here and the things that I got to see  molded me into who I am  and, with everything that's going on in the world and people needing to be kinder to each other. And to be more understanding I think the arts is the greatest way to open that door 

 To be able to allow children to know that you're not just a number here, you matter and everything about you matters. 

Lacey: [00:15:47] Amen. Yeah. That's what it's all about. I think

You had mentioned something when you talked about how you were going kind of gangbusters at the beginning of 2020, and you used the phrase, we're going to turn things around. So I was curious what you meant by that. Had there been like a period before that, where you had some, issues?

Bryce: [00:16:06] I feel like any arts institution, right? Like I say to the board all the time, the words not-for-profit have never been truer than, than the arts, because we're not in it to get rich.  An arts organization anywhere outside of a metropolitan area has its challenges. 

 So we had a very challenging couple of years. Granting as is ever more it's tight. And there are so many people wanting granting, and we're one of the first things to get cut, right?

And as that money starts to get chipped away, we rely so much on that and re rely so much on ticket sales that you can pick one show that does not sell to what you think it's going to sell.

And it could be the best production you've ever had. But if somebody says it's not my thing, and they tell everybody in their church choir group, it's not their thing, that church isn't going to buy a ticket to come see it. And suddenly you banked all this on a show that's not producing. So 70% of all of our budget and revenue is based on ticket sales and 30% is sponsorship and support from the state and local government.

Lacey: [00:17:13] that's higher than some other theaters that I've talked to, where they were more like 50, 50. So that definitely makes it tougher for you or not tougher necessarily, but you have to be more aware  you don't know how it's going to turn out necessarily

Bryce: [00:17:26] And and I will share with you with, I even hate to say, because I think it's probably the best thing I've ever done here. I was obsessed with Bright Star.

I just think it's a phenomenal story and  I would have bet the house on what this is going to sell

Lacey: [00:17:41] doesn't it take place? No, it's Appalachia, I but

Bryce: [00:17:43] But North Carolina, like that we're in the same world, it's the same region. People are going to love it. It's bluegrassy and we did, I'm telling you, to this day it's will go down as one of my favorite things I've ever touched or had a chance to work on.  Got some of the best reviews we've ever gotten reviewed statewide and it sold to less than 50%. capacity.

Lacey: [00:18:05] Do you have any idea why

Bryce: [00:18:07] We were told that people didn't know what it was,  they didn't know the title,  then you start to really deep dive into your marketing to be like, how can we get this word across?

And then, I did a poll and we had people be like, I wish you'd bring Bright Star back. And I was like, for who? Who would you like for me to bring it back for? You have one of those, it dominoes through the whole season. So just, we were just things were looking up already from 2019.

So we thought, gosh, this is going to be great. 2020 is really gonna happen for us. We had already sold more tickets than the year prior because we were going to do Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella. Newsies, 

  We were going to do Scrooge. We were going to do Plaid Tidings.  And we ended up, with the COVID, we lost $1.5 million dollars in revenue,

Lacey: [00:18:52] And what's your yearly budget?

 Oh my gosh.

I just 

makes my heart hurt.

Bryce: [00:18:57] yeah, yours and mine, both. 

Lacey: [00:18:59] I'm sure  

Bryce: [00:19:00] and we want it to be good to our patrons.  We gave out something like $312,000 worth of vouchers. When we opened back up they can turn those vouchers in now to see something.

And we just let it be a fair trade, that's a, that's an organization and a auditing nightmare for a not-for-profit because you have all this money sitting in, this not really money. Sitting in a thing that, because you've given vouchers out, so you have to have something in kind for the voucher.

So it's, that's been a challenge in itself, to feel like we were going to be in such a good place with 2020, and then to be hit in the gut, just like everybody 

but I know that we are in a better off position than some of my friends, because we were able to do something in the summer. We were able to create buzz and to get people back in the building at a limited capacity.

Lacey: [00:19:47] Yeah, I was just going to say, thank you. That leads right into one of my questions for you, which was with a lot of people that I've been talking to, the question is how are you planning for reopening, but that's not the question for you anymore. Cause  you are open. So I'd love to hear about how you made the decisions that you made in terms of your capacity and other safety measures.

And you had mentioned a little bit about you've already, you're getting to the point where you've got small waiting lists and people wanting more, what did it take to get to that point?

Bryce: [00:20:16] Tennessee did a a movement called the Tennessee Pledge, which gave businesses, large venues concert halls, restaurants, that kind of stuff. Everyone had their own pamphlet that pretty much said, this is what we advise you to do. So we took that very seriously to heart and we redid our seating.

We sectioned off rows. We moved sets back 15 feet. We kept the patrons and the actors and the staff completely separated from each other. We did six foot distancing between parties.  All the things that you see everybody trying to do.

Everything was general admission, everything was touchless. There was no handing out of programs. We did QR codes. We did billboards that people could take photos of in the lobby to see who was in the cast. 

And the people were  like, we'll do anything. We just want to be back in the theater. So yes. General admission. No problem. Yes. I'll wait out here while you seat another couple. And then seeing that go so successful, we started planning our 20, 21 season and we opted to go down to 12 productions as opposed to 14. And we were not going to open until April 

Our phase one was April through June, middle of June is still at the same capacity we were at the height of our COVID scare in our County, which was Christmas, which is 120 people 75 in the black box. We are not going to open the black box up until the end of April and stagger things.

Through and keep that policy up and see where the world was on vaccinations. See where we were on vaccinations within our staff how the numbers were trending and always have an option that we could add 40 to 50 more seats if we needed to and still  feel like we could social distance. 

And then phase two is going to still have social distance, still have limited seating. We're going to go back to where you can purchase and pick your seats you want to sit in and we're going to make sure there are spaces around you.  Right now, we're working on the chess board seating plan, where if you have two in row A than the two seats behind them in row B are knocked off, but the two seats next to them are open. Yeah. Where we do that whole game. And we're going to start doing that to do the summer shows  and yeah.

Hopefully be able to open to maybe 45 to 50% capacity. And then with the two Christmas shows, we would love to be at 100% capacity, but everything thing has a fallback that we could stay at this capacity, if we had to.

And then how do we make that survivable? So we have a seasoned plan, but then we have backup shows that if the Fall starts to look scary, we could pull a show and put a smaller show in . And we've staggered our sales. 

Lacey: [00:22:58] I think that's really smart. Someone that I spoke with, I think it was Mary Kate Burke at Cape Fear Regional Theater spoke about, they made the decision that they weren't going to promise things they couldn't deliver because the first time your audience, your patrons will forgive it because they understand, it's a pandemic, but if you keep doing it, they're going to give up on you.

And so when you talk about not, not having your Christmas show available and on sale right now, that just is so smart because then if you have to cancel it, there's not that, but I have a ticket. What do I do at the ticket? And then they feel burdened 

Bryce: [00:23:35] That's our plan. And, I will tell you our County,  Cumberland County is one of the leading counties and vaccinations in our state. And I'm proud to say that we, all of our employees have been able to be vaccinated.

So that's exciting to me because I want them to be safe and feel protected, but our County is not really throwing away a lot of shots, which is great.

Lacey: [00:23:58] They're not throwin away their shot. Come on. You just set that up. 

Bryce: [00:24:01] Good job. Good spike on that. That was excellent. That was excellent. So that, I'm proud of that, and I hope that things continue on.  The phone is ringing, which makes me really excited to see. And we opened Clue. We opened Clue on April 2nd. 

thank you. We brought back a couple of the shows that we felt we could produce in 2021 that were in the 2020 season.

Clue was so fun and I felt like everybody in the world needs to laugh. There needs to be some sort of escape. They need to be in the same room, just looking at something that makes them smile. The first weekend we had 140 for both performances and they were on their feet.

And I'm not ashamed to admit it because I wear my heart on my sleeve. I sit in the back of the house and just bawled because people were  laughing and cheering and hitting each other saying, did you see that? Oh my gosh. It's playing about six times a week. It's the only thing running right now. The end of the month, we're going to open Savanna Sipping Society on our black box. And we actually, we had a group call, which I didn't think we were going to see

Lacey: [00:25:04] a group, 

Bryce: [00:25:05] had a group customer right.

And there are 56, six of them. They have all been vaccinated. They all live in a retirement village together and they've rented a bus and they're coming to see The Savannah Sipping Society.

So it just, that energy feels really forward and good. 

We have a volunteer Corps that serves as our ushers. We have about 300 retirees that volunteer in different capacities throughout the theater, mostly front of house.  They're ambassadors.

And we have had a whole year where for their safety we didn't let anybody back in the building and Clue opening a Clue was the first time in a year that they were able to come back. So we've had six volunteers a show and they're all masked up and they're all vaccinated and they are just busting to be back in the building

Lacey: [00:25:56] we will never again take for granted for even a second what these things mean to us. If we ever got so busy and, how many shows have I seen in New York where it's I'm mad that I had to wait for my table at the restaurant and I'm this, or I'm that, and the person next to me is opening their candy and I'm so irritated.

And it's I will never care about any of those things ever again.

Bryce: [00:26:15] That is so true. Talk about the perspective it's given us, 

And I just, I hope that stays with us because it was one of the darkest times in my generation that we've gone through of something that we love to 

Lacey: [00:26:29] Yeah. Yeah. I actually did some research online and I could not find any other shutdowns in the Western world besides the plague when Shakespeare was alive, when he wrote King Lear. No shutdowns of this magnitude. And that one was about three years apparently, but I couldn't find anything else, not even during the Spanish flu, not during the world Wars.

Yeah. I wanted to just go back while go back and go forward at the same time, by asking you about, you had mentioned, that Bright Star didn't do well because people didn't know the title and I'd love to hear more about how you make your programming choices, given that you have, as many regional theaters do, a community where they don't like to come see things that they don't know and somewhat related to that, but then also a separate topic,

I do like to talk about the other major event of 2020, which was the murder of George Floyd and the push for more anti-racist practices in our industry. That might dovetail to some extent with your, how you make your choices or the types of choices you may be thinking about making in the future for your programming.

And I also just like to say upfront that we are two white people having that conversation. And so if any of our listeners are hurt by any of the way that we inadvertently may put things from our bias, then please to reach out to me and let me know so that we can correct that in the future.

Bryce: [00:27:47] Yes. Programming is, it's one of my favorite things to do. And it's a great topic when I go out and speak because people literally think that we decided yeah, just throw a dart at the board and we'll do that. No big deal. We start, like with everything it's a year in advance 

we have about five seasons already mocked up. And then we look at them and then a group of us will gather . And we'll talk about what inspires us.

What is it that we want to do? What do we think will sell? And we play a shuffleboard game . Comedy is King for us and for a lot of places We try to do things that have humor to them, but also are trying to tell some sort of a story. We try to do at least one to two in a series of 12 or 14 based on the, you are doing the show because we want you to bring your children here.

Especially towards the Summer, we always try to gear a Summer show towards family. And then we try to gear a summer show towards an adult date night, and then we try to find something we've gone into the world of, we're wanting to find something that is a little more meaty for our company, but we try to bookend that in on something that we'll do incredibly successfully, so if that meaty project fails in the box office, we can be proud of the work, but we're not banking payroll on it.  We get a lot more play with comedies than we do dramas, but we're desperate to do a drama that is going to speak and tell a story in hopes that it does really well for us.

And then you look at the musicals, like what is popular, what is going to work? We also come from a, we live in a very conservative area, of Tennessee. They used to always joke and say, if there was a belt on the Bible belt, we were the buckle. So we have to be prepared for that.

 I get some letters and some feedback sometimes  that I pushed the envelope too much and we're extremely conservative.  But again, you have to play to your sensitivities, especially when you're based on a 70% house.

We occasionally will do a little focus groups. Like we'll take some dance moms  and say, Hey, let's go out and have dinner tonight. And then be like, Oh gosh, have you ever heard of this show?

This sounds really fun. And see if they get excited about it. And then we'll take a group of volunteers that are in the 70 to 75 range and do the same thing, throw out some titles,  and then we kind of base spots out of that.

Here's a great story for you. I love Sweeney Todd and we wanted to produce Sweeney Todd and it had been a dream role of two of our company members and they were fantastic. And we got great love from the people who saw it. But we also got a tremendous amount of pullback because people would say I'm not coming to see a show that's going to promote demon ism,  

and it was like, it's 

called D cause it's in the title, Sweeney Todd, the demon Barber of fleet 

Lacey: [00:30:29] I didn't even

Bryce: [00:30:30] office. Yeah. I didn't either. I really didn't. And then the box office called and said, we have people wanting refunds .  But it was a great production.   My artistic director said two days ago, every show that we get the most letters on is the most critically acclaimed work that we do. The state of Tennessee has its own little version of theater awards, Sweeney Todd got named the best musical of the year and our Sweeney got named the best actor of the year from the production that received the most hate mail from that season. 

Lacey: [00:31:01] So given that, I'm guessing it's please correct me. You don't feel like you have a lot of wiggle room to introduce things that might be edgy or, that maybe things that you and I would not see as edgy become edgy, and what about pieces by playwrights and composers and, points of view.

How would something like I'm picking this out of nowhere? Not because I think it's edgy, but what, how would Once On This Island go down, 

Bryce: [00:31:25] That comes into play, we have to think about those things. And we were going to do  Once On This Island and we had gorgeous set design.

We had a great director. I'm like, it's not edgy, it's gorgeous. And it's like a perfect musical and they could not seven years ago find a sponsor for it.

And, and not for any other reason then what is that? And then we tried to tell the story of it and they were like I just don't know.

I'd like to see it, but I don't know, and we try to do it with a delicate hand, right? And again, it's all about bookending, it's all about where it is in the season. There are two slots in our season we've built  to have shorter runs so that we could get more bang for our buck or push the envelope with something.

And again, know that we have a great Christmas show that already has a huge advance that everybody, their grandmother and every child is going to come see. 

 And then if we get that audience group, I market to that audience group for the next show,  or I'll invite a couple of those people to it, preview of it.

So the word of mouth gets out of how great this is.  There are some people who want instant change in a small town like this it's not going to happen. You have to gently nudge them into holding up that mirror and saying, this is who we are, and you are bothered by this because you perhaps have acted like this in your life.

Or this is a story that you just don't want to talk about. In 2015, we did A Chorus Line for our 50th anniversary, summer production. We did it and Mary Poppins together and both glorious. We had a woman write to our local paper, to a letter, to the editor, how much it meant to her to take her grandchildren to come and see Mary Poppins on a Friday.

And then on Saturday, her and her husband come and see A Chorus Line and how powerful it was to see the same theater be able to do two different things like that. And then we had a woman write us who was very upset about A Chorus Line because of the subject matter until the car ride home, where her grandson 

Lacey: [00:33:27] You were going to say that.

Bryce: [00:33:29] And she, she called to thank us for opening a door that she didn't know needed to be. You know what I said? That's worth every nasty email we get. That one grandchild and that one grandmother, that's what it's about. And she still comes, everything we do. And she always says, hello. And she's always so excited.

And I'm like, that's.  You talked about the other major heartbreaking event in our 2020 besides COVID the death of George Floyd.  There are some people who think that a small town in the mountains of Tennessee  could be effected very little by that.

But it resonates so huge across all areas, especially when you deal with an arts organization that we all are so empathetic, there's so much empathy in artist. And the thing that I'm really proud of this company, is that in 1965, through its first 10, 15 years, the Playhouse was one of the only institutions in this region of color and brought them in. And those stories have always been important for us to tell. And this opens up even more of a light of the stories we need to tell, 

we had  a new show it's called Alabama Story. I don't know if you've heard anything about that. It's by Kenneth Jones.  It was one of the greatest things that brought me joy in 2020. And it's based loosely on a true story. And then there's a fictional part of it too, as well.

And it takes place in Montgomery, Alabama. It's right after Rosa Parks and it's all about segregation, but it's this, the true story is there's a librarian and there was a book written by this guy who illustrated Little House on the Prairie and Stuart Little

and he wrote a book called The Rabbit's Wedding and the original production of the book was black and white. So there was a white rabbit and a black rabbit for contrast, because that's more appealing to a child's eye 

And  this segregation Senator went up against this librarian who put it on the bookshelf in the Alabama public library and said, you're trying to promote integration and we won't stand for it. And she fought him to make it happen.  So it's that story, and then laid on top of that is a story about a African-American man and a white girl and it's just beautiful. And , it had been on our list for a year and a half nothing to do with the events of 2020. And we decided when all that happened, that even if we didn't do anything, we were going to do that play somehow, even if we were doing it live streaming it, or, we didn't know what we were going to do, but that was going to be the piece and we want to open that up for everybody. And we want to find more powerful stories that need to be told, not only about, that situation, but that's for us, that is a great way into it.

If we can hit the history of it and then talk about turning it into a lesson.  So we live streamed it for black history month, and we had a couple of schools who bought live streaming tickets so they could show it to their students.

Which is really powerful to me. And it created a great conversation between the playwright. We're going to do Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy is going to be one of our first shows of the summer season. Just the chance to do a Pulitzer prize.

The words just float off so beautifully, and it's such a great, strong story to tell. It's just all about for us making sure those voices are heard and just being a beacon and a light and a safe space for theater is for everybody. There is no, you don't get to be excluded in theater.

And we want to continue the legacy that our founding families did by not being afraid to bring someone into a community. And to support it. And I want to do more research and more focus groups and  make everyone feel like this is a safe space for them. And it's just, it's still tragic.

And with everything happening with the trial and, it's just not going away. And people have got to, we've got to band together, we've got to see each other and to stop putting this divide between us and, love is the most important thing we can do.  Our  big summer show is going to be Godspell this year.

And our purpose for Godspell was, what a better show about community and about love,  we need this. Everyone needs to hear something about community and to love your neighbor as yourself and, differences.

were not meant to divide us. They were meant to unite us.  I'm excited to see the things that we can go in the future. I'm excited to get more audiences in because I wish 500 people had seen Alabama story every performance and not 75, but that's why we live streamed it. And I'm going to hold on to that and use it as a teaching tool as we go forward. And my heart just breaks and  

Lacey: [00:38:19] Do you find that you're able to attract performers of different races and also employees,  

Bryce: [00:38:28] for us just to be completely honest for us, it's outside the community, but I will say proudly, we have not had any issues. Do you know what I mean? Like when we go to our massive auditions, whether it be SETC UPTA  we have been able to have diversity in the company, but I wish where we lived that the community itself was more diverse because we are truly the diversity within the community. So the majority of the diversity we bring in, we're searching for it across other States,  

Lacey: [00:39:04] I understand. Thank you. Thank you for that.

So what do you hope the future holds?

Bryce: [00:39:10] For the future, I want I don't even want to say back to normal. I want people to just come back and to put the guard down, right?

Like we see so much anxiety, so much fear is out there that I want to see. I want to see by Christmas families taking photos in front of our big lobby, Christmas tree, again, and families not being afraid that they can't, they haven't seen grandma in a year. I want to see the kids coming back to see our shows and be in our shows.

And our education department to grow back to its hundred and 25 students that it was. And I want to see people walk in those doors and walk out saying, I feel so lighthearted. I feel love. I feel the power of the arts and I see how important it is because I was denied that for a year. 

 Like support, go to an art show, go to a Craft fair. Just be a part of something, because that's how people are going to heal through this anxiety.

Like we got double landed because we as performers or we as artisans,  we needed to produce theater to deal with our own emotions because that's how we share is if  I'm part of something that's emotional or moving, or it gives me that what I call the God lump that lump you, the unexplainable lump in your throat that comes out of nowhere.

Like that moment, me creating that helps to process something. But in turn, the audience also needs that say. Boy that's me, or I know somebody like that, or that's a situation I've been in. And so when none of that was happening, everybody was suffering and the anxiety just kept growing and so I want to be part of the vehicle that helps shed that away. 

 We've done it before we can do it again. And that's what I want our future to hold.   I want to break out into the biggest flashmob possible and just run the streets, singing and dancing 

Lacey: [00:41:13] Yes. That was really beautiful   I'm very inspired by. By Cumberland County Playhouse and by you. I loved my trip to Nashville so much.

  I am a Yankee. I'm Yankee, but I loved it so much. And so now I feel like I have another place to go. I'm going to go back. I'm going to make it a big trip. I'm going to come to Cumberland County Playhouse 

and the Opry. 

Bryce: [00:41:34] Yes. 

Lacey: [00:41:35] plan. 

Yeah. Thank you so much Bryce. It was such a pleasure to talk to you today, 

Bryce: [00:41:41] Thank you so much. It has been, it's been a joy. Great to get to know you.

Lacey: [00:41:45] You too.