David Foster – Memphis Flyer

The Ostranders are usually a place where Memphis actors go to laugh together and celebrate the passing of another season. And it will be that again this year, of course. But having lost so many key players and personalities in the past year, it may also be a place where this tempest-tossed community goes for revival — and a big public cry.

Brian Eno famously contemplated the meaning of success by speculating that each of the 30,000 people who purchased a Velvet Underground record went out and started a band. That’s become a rock-and-roll cliche, but on a regional scale, similar math might be applied to George Touliatos’ relatively short-lived but enormously influential Front Street Theater. The professional venture, co-founded with actress Barbara Cason, has been described as “a merry go round in quicksand,” but it was also a launching pad for artists like Cason, Dixie Carter, George Hearn and, of course, Touliatos himself.

Beloved Memphis performers like Dorothy Blackwood, Barry Fuller and Bennett Wood also trace origin stories to Front Street. It inspired and informed the development of Playhouse on the Square. Touliaotos’ theater may only have lasted a dozen years or so, but its influence touches every corner of the contemporary Memphis theater landscape.

David Muskin

Touliatos died in Washington and hasn’t been a consistent part of the Memphis Theater family for a long time, but it’s impossible to imagine what that family might look today like without him.

Tony Anderson on the right.

Speaking of cliches, I’m pretty sure the expression “big things come in small packages,” was created to describe Anthony “Tony” Anderson who’s been one of my favorite actors for as long as I can remember. Anderson was a generous performer. He launched himself into parts with jarring force and seemed to have such a good time on stage it was impossible not to have a good time watching him, whether he was working out on a weighty classic like Master Harold… and the Boys or lending his talent to an unknown, unproven scripts written by local authors.

This year the Memphis theater community also says goodbye to icons and stars like Ann Sharp, Charles Billings, David Foster, and Greg Krosnes. We’ve lost touchstone choreographer and lifetime achievement honoree Otis Smith, and character actor David Muskin, whose performance as Solly Two-Kings in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean was a masterclass in subtlety and understatement.

Ostranders to Honor Memphis Performers Who Died During 2017-18 Season

A tribute is being planned for the August 26th award ceremony. Bring your own tissue.

Ostrander tickets are available here.

Kevin Jones is an actor’s actor. Before leaving Memphis for New York, he did a little bit of everything, from Shakespeare and Shaw to Tennessee Williams and A Tuna Christmas. He wrote and performed original works, took part in holiday shows at Theatre Memphis, and even engaged in a bit of Gross Indecency at Playhouse on the Square. This week, Jones returns to Memphis to help an old friend and perform his critically acclaimed one-man version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

The old friend in question is David Foster, another of Memphis’ most prolific and prized actors. Foster is an uncommonly versatile actor best known for standout roles in musicals like Next to Normal, Ragtime, Assassins, and his award-winning dramatic turn in the Horton Foote play Dividing the Estate. Foster’s arched-eyebrow performances as Crumpet, the inappropriate elf, in David Sedaris’ SantaLand Diaries were definitive. Only Sedaris himself does it better. On a good day. Maybe. When Foster took time away from the stage, and from his day job cutting hair, to fight a tough battle with cancer, he was determined not to let the illness define him. But Jones is hard to resist, and his proposal was a unique opportunity to help Foster help himself. Donations from this free performance all go to cover the cost of Foster’s chair rental at La Nouvelle Salon.

“I’m calling the event, ‘Put my BFF back to work,'” says Jones, describing an act of kindness that might appeal to old Scrooge both before and after his miraculous conversion. “If we can cover the chair rental, he gets to keep 100 percent of what he makes while he’s getting back on his feet.”

Jones, who often played Scrooge’s nephew Fred in Theatre Memphis’ annual Carol, is drawn to the enduring story because of its message and possibilities. His performance is lifted directly from Dickens’ own reading text, with only a few amendments.