November Featured Actor - Mary Ruth Ralston

Mary Ruth Ralston has been with the Shakespeare Tavern since 2006 when she joined the 2006-2007 Apprentice Company (the Fruit Flies). She had just graduated with a BA in Theatre from Brenau University.

Mary Ruth starting acting in High School. She had always been raised to be very playful. Her parents were imaginative and encouraged her by playing lots of games throughout her childhood.

In college, Mary Ruth chose to portray Lillian Hellman in Cakewalk for her senior thesis project. This was her favorite role. She says that Lillian is a crazy, selfish and funny person and that playing someone so far out of her age range was very challenging. She also felt that because she was portraying a real person, she had a responsibility to get it right.

Mary Ruth is currently playing Joan of Arc in Henry VI Part 1, which is her dream role in Shakespeare. She says that she “enjoys the outlandish take on her that Shakespeare had, making her a whorish witch instead of a saint”. She finds the whole role very fun, from mocking Burgundy to all of the combat involved. She says that she believes that Joan thought that she was right and is impressed by the fact that a woman was able to command an army in medieval France. Mary Ruth obviously has a lot of respect for Joan of Arc as a historical figure as well as a character in a play.

In the future, she would love to play Viola in Twelfth Night.

Mary Ruth mostly enjoys performing in very classical work or very edgy contemporary plays.

In the future, she plans to stick with live performance. She finds having a live audience is more rewarding, especially as in film you only have to get it right once, but when you are on stage you have to get it right every time.

Mary Ruth also does stunt work, which she finds very fun.

This month, Mary Ruth is also playing Margery Jordan in Henry VI Part 2. In December she will be joining the cast of A Christmas Carol.

When asked to tell me something most people don’t know about her, she replied “I have a scar on my tongue. This is why making faces at yourself in the mirror while standing on a plastic stool is a bad idea, kids”.

Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3 will be playing throughout November. Other featured actors appearing in these plays are:

Nicholas Faircloth
Matthew Felten
Andrew Houchins
Bryan Lee
JC Long
Matthew Nitchie
Daniel Parvis
Jacob York

The Henry Counter

If you will look to your right, you will notice a new sidebar has appeared. This sidebar contains the totals for how many tickets are left for each Part of Henry VI, which runs from November 7th to November 30th.
Each Part of the play only has five performances, so be sure to grab your tickets now as they are going fast!

Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Laurie try to edit "Hamlet"

(see if we took any of their suggestions in April 2009!)

October Featured Actor - JC Long

JC Long has been at the Shakespeare Tavern since he was 17. While jointly enrolled in High School and Georgia Tech (as an Aerospace Engineering major), he auditioned for a part in Richard III. He won the role of Edward V, and performed in his first show nearly 12 years ago.
JC has been consistently performing on the Tavern stage since then, with a couple of brief pauses to go on international tours with Chattanooga Shakespeare.

JC started acting at the age of 6 with the American Theatre Company in Oklahoma. He then moved to Memphis, and after that to Atlanta. He also spent a year living in New York City.

JC is also an accomplished musician. He plays ten different instruments, his favorite being the violin. He is also a composer and much of his music can be heard in plays at the Tavern. He says that he loves music and acting equally and has strived to make a living from both over the past ten years. He finds that acting has afforded him a lot of musical opportunities.

So far his favorite role was as Hotspur and Poins in Henry IV Part 1.

JC’s dream roles are Toby in Sweeney Todd, Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, Edmund and Edgar in King Lear and Horatio or Laertes in Hamlet.

He auditions for film and television and would like to move back to New York City one day.

JC’s favorite quote is from The Winter’s Tale:

“I am a feather for each wind that blows”.

JC is currently performing in Antony and Cleopatra as Caesar. He says that “Caesar has a much straighter spine than the characters that I normally play.”

In November, you can also see him as Suffolk and other characters in Henry VI Part 1, 2 and 3.

Something you didn’t know about JC? He is a quarter Cherokee Indian and gets free medical and dental in Oklahoma.

Other featured actors performing in Antony and Cleopatra are:

Nicholas Faircloth

Matthew Felten

Andrew Houchins

Bryan Lee

Tiffany Porter

September Featured Actor - Andrew Houchins

Since the first grade, Andrew Houchins has been involved in plays. His first role ever was as Uncle Albert (who loved to laugh) in Mary Poppins. Since then, he was involved in everything he could be during middle school and high school. He received a degree in Theatre with an emphasis on Performance from UNC Greensboro. His first role as a freshman in college was playing Hamlet, a role that he would love another chance to play.

Andrew moved to Atlanta in 2003. He worked at Agnes Scott and with the Neighborhood Playhouse before becoming an Apprentice in 2005, making him a Worker Bee. He says that he used the Apprenticeship as a foot in the door.

Andrew’s favorite role thus far was as The Bastard in King John, which is currently playing in our Repertory. He says that it was nice to cut loose, and that he enjoyed “speaking truth to power” as a non-legitimate member of royalty. He also enjoyed playing a more serious role as he tends to play the clowns.

In non-Shakespeare, Andrew enjoyed playing Huck Finn in Big River, his favorite musical. To him, Big River is the “story of what it means to be human and American”.

In the future, Andrew would like to play Hamlet again, as well as the title role in Richard III and Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

His favorite quote comes from Hamlet:

There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow.
If it be now, 'tis not to come;
if it be not to come, it will be now;
if it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.

He would also like to direct more, as he considers directing last year in our education department with Kirk Harris Seaman to be a high point of recent years. He would also like to try his hand at film.

Andrew loves theatre buildings. He loves all of the little idiosyncrasies like how the temperature of a space feels different depending on the size of an audience. He would love to own a theatre building some day and also enjoys teaching.

Something you didn’t know about Andrew? He marched in Washington with Rosa Parks at an anniversary celebration. He was there with his father’s union.

Andrew is playing The Bastard in King John through the end of September, and will be playing several parts in Anthony and Cleopatra and Henry VI in October and November.

All of our previously featured actors are performing during September! Check out their interviews here.

Antony and Cleopatra photo shoot

I have a lot of fun when I get to take press photos (Jeff Watkins usually takes them). Here's a glimpse into today's photo shoot for Antony and Cleopatra...

posted by Jeanette

Bards Eye View #10 - The Fall Repertory Company

Photo by Redd

The Fall Repertory Company of August and September here at the Tavern is a large one. There are so many people, actually, that you can't really even capture all of the Headshots in one image. It is nice to see so many different people around the Tavern, though it gets confusing when you aren't sure what show is playing that night.