Savannah Arts Film Fest Savannah Arts Film Festival 2017

All-time Local Actress

Ashley Cooke

By

Five years ago, the founding members of Savannah Stage Company were the new kids in town. This year, they rule the roost.

This is the get-go fourth dimension Savannah Phase Company or associated members have won in the Best of Savannah awards. When the five founding members moved to the Lowcountry with pure passion, the desire to exercise something great for the customs and, every bit Best Local Manager Jayme Tinti phrases it, "zero dollars," they were ready to bring theatre to every denizen, regardless of age or financial situation. Now, their literary-based, pay-what-you-tin productions tour schools, nursing homes, and even Forsyth Park.

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Ashley Cooke

Bringing works of literature like The Call of The Wild, Romeo and Juliet, and The Scarlet Letter to life with a handful of actors playing multiple roles and piddling to no props, SSC makes all its decisions based on its cadre values: accessibility, action-driven storytelling, growth, imagination, and bravery.

"E'er since our inception, when all else fails, we expect at our mission," says Best Local Actor Wesley Pridgen. "If we are ever feeling off-rail in any way, we turn to our value and mission—that'due south what we're hither for."

Pridgen, who broke onto the acting scene as Baby Jesus ("He'due south playing it again this Christmas," Tinti teases), grew up acting in community and high school theater. Afterward earning a Bachelor of Arts in Theater at Barton College, he took an internship at the Barter Theatre, where he met Tinti.

Working at the nation's longest-running professional theatre, the talented up-and-comers gained hands-on experience that would shape the identity of Savannah Stage Company.

"I'd never directed before, but I had been working at The Castling and absorbing for five years, like a sponge," Tinti says.

Tinti made her directorial debut working on Pridgen's senior thesis, a one-man show.

"He would go to school all day and I would be like, 'How do you direct a play, Google?'" she laughs. "I was saved by the low pressure. Y'all're with your best bud with a play yous know and honey. Nosotros literally merely rehearsed in the theater at night and by ourselves, congenital the sets ourselves, the lights, everything, ourselves. That was the get-go time I was like, 'That was ridiculously difficult and fun and yeah, allow'southward exercise that once again.'"

When they were set to begin a theatre visitor of their ain, the founding members of SSC found Savannah to exist the perfect home base.

"You cannot help but autumn in dearest with a city that looks like this," Tinti says. "We saw such a value in SCAD and in the people hither who were looking to make fine art and learn."

For their first production as SSC, Pridgen wrote the music, his blood brother, Bryan, wrote the script, Liz [Whittimore] did the costumes, and Tinti directed. They were rehearsing at 8 a.m. in an old school that had a funny odor, just they were living the dream.

"It was the time of our lives," Tinti grins.

Though Tinti, a stage managing director, didn't wait to fill a directorial role, Pridgen thinks their swell foundation helped Tinti become the strong director she is today.

"I remember the largest help for Jayme was just the fact that, as a stage director working at the Barter, she literally sat backside the table for five years with some of the best directors that I've ever met in my entire life," says Pridgen.

"There's never been a director like Jayme," adds Best Actress Ashley Cook. "She'll say something, and something clicks in me. There'due south simply so many layers to her directing, and it's then rewarding."

Cook, who studied theater in college and taught information technology afterwards on, discovered Savannah Phase Visitor in 2016.

"I remember going on the [SSC] website because I needed to find a couple of auditions," she says. "I went on there and was similar, 'Boy, I actually similar this mission and values.'"

"I got to the audience and Jayme said, 'Nosotros work really hard, there is nobody behind the scenes.' And I've never worked so hard or had to be and then brave."

Tinti remembers the moment perfectly.

"Nosotros all knew about this one," she smiles, nodding to Cook. "I saw someone who was inside, peeking through the curtains. I just wanted to rip those curtains apart! That's what happened!"

SSC's fifth season has been a welcome challenge for its members. The first production, January's It's Large: The Improv Musical was a true exam of bravery and exhibited the troupe'south creativity.

"I wrote all the music we used," Pridgen explains. "I basically wrote like, 26 vamps in 26 different genres of music. That was really fun, getting to transition from taking the music chapeau off and putting my improv player hat on and just getting to have fun with all this stuff. It was definitely one of the hardest things nosotros've ever done as a company."

For Cook, The Phone call of the Wild encouraged her ain artistic growth.

"Information technology really pushed me in a lot ways," she says. "I have never played a male grapheme before, and so having to change how I walked and talked, that was very different for me."

Without hesitation, she lists The Wicked Witch of the West as her favorite SSC role.

The Sorcerer of Oz was a blast for Pridgen, also.

"The major of Munchkin City was probably my all-time favorite character I've ever done," he declares. "It was literally a dream of mine, and it came truthful. That character lives in the globe for like, a infinitesimal and a one-half, and so yous never meet him over again. You merely have that minute and a one-half to brand this person come to life, to a caste."

Above all, SSC'due south members are most inspired by their audiences.

"Watching people'due south imagination activate is something I could go on watching for the rest of my life," Tinti says. "That our work has that possibility, to have a 60-yr-old woman use her imagination, that's what I'm proud of: the potential of what we're doing and what nosotros tin do. You sentinel people watch plays, and they're not engaged. I feel it, I run into it happen. So to exist able to engage someone one hundred pct of the time—that assures me that we're on the right path. It's all about those moments."

"I've never experienced then many people who have come up into a performance and said, 'I have never been to a play,'" adds Melt. "Later the prove they say, 'This is great! I tin can't wait to come up see more.' Over again, going forth with our values of accessibility and being approachable to people who idea theatre wasn't something they would e'er be interested in or fit into."

With their first-fourth dimension Best of Savannah wins, Cook, Pridgen, and Tinti are excited to give Savannah all they've got. Look for Working: A Musical in July, followed past Savannah Playwright'south Series in September and It's A Wonderful Life: A Radio Play during the holidays.

"Going into this twelvemonth, I couldn't help simply really believe in us and really believe we had done stuff to warrant something like this," Tinti says. "We're non taking information technology lightly. At present, our work begins. Now we live upwardly to it." —Anna Chandler

Runner-up: Angelique Hunt

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Source: https://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/best-local-actress/BestOf?oid=4808030