“Knoxville Artists for Knoxville Crowds”
If you are a Knoxville artist, we want to engage with you as artists and revel with you in making art. If you're an audience member, we warmly welcome you to join us as we strive to create theatre that makes you sit up and take notice. And even if you don't care the first thing about theatre, if you live here in East Tennessee, we want to be good neighbors, support your endevors, and listen to what's important in your lives. No matter who you are, we want you in the club!
JP Schuffman
My holistic approach to stagecraft over the last twenty-five years has allowed me to explore much of what theatre has to offer both vocationally and spiritually. In that time I’ve worked on 100+ shows in Knoxville, Nashville, Dallas, and New York, serving variously as producer, director, playwright, scenic designer, technical director, combat choreographer, and occasionally actor. I still work a steady job to pay the bills and probably always will, but I love the theatre anyway, because so much of what is good about my life - and what is good about me - has come from my long relationship with it.
I’m passionate and excitable about the things I love, and I love theatre because, for me, theatre is writing and collaborating and directing and building stuff. It’s research and questions and working things out. It’s gaff tape, and costumes, and pretty pretty lights. It’s good posture, funny accents, strong choices, loud voices, coffee of all kinds, and "Thank you five." It’s fight calls and green rooms, catwalks, ghostlights, "Downstage left is still your left," and "Lets take it back to just before you die, again." It’s table work, load in, patching lights, final dress, and the three second hush before the lights go up. It’s the timbre of a well tuned voice, the economy of a perfect gesture, and the occasional bit with a dog. It’s teaching the craft: because giving someone something you love is one of the most rewarding things you can ever do. Theatre is the community, the players, the techs, the prop wizards, the crew, the seamstresses and carpenters, the audience, the students, the parents, the friends. It’s discovering, with every show, that someone is good at something they didn't even know they could do before. Ultimatly I love the theatre because anyone with a currious spirit, a little bravery, and the willingnes to put in the work can be a part of something magical.
Sara Gaddis
I've always had a passion for words and storytelling, and I've been involved in theatre since I was a little kid. I grew up in Knoxville, where I did as many community theatre shows as I could, and moved to New York straight out of high school to study at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Afterward I went to work in stage and film. In New York I wrote and developed dozens of short works, led acting workshops, performed all over town, hosted readings and storytelling events, edited scripts, and in general did anything and everything I could to challenge myself and grow as an artist. I moved to Nashville in 2011 where I co-founded Nashville Stagecraft, a theatre company dedicated to producing work by local artists and providing them a place to develop their the craft.
I believe that the body is the primary source of all acting, and my teaching focuses on the process of developing the body's abilities, so that characters can emerge clearly during the physical and vocal experimentation of rehearsal. I believe that rehearsal space is a sacred space, that the work we do there as artists is good for us as people. And I believe that producing theatre of quality means committing yourself to the process and being an avid collaborator. I believe that theatre has the ability to make us happier, more empathetic, healthier human beings, better members of our community, and all that aside, it just feels good to do.