ANNUAL CHRISTMAS PARTY

Pull-Tight Theater
Sunday, December 19 at 5:30 p.m.

Join us for a fun evening of refreshments, keepsake photos, and festivities.

• There will be a “Mystery Holiday Ornament Exchange.” If you would like to participate, bring a WRAPPED ornament to add to the gift pile.
• Masks will be required to be worn while in the theater except when eating or drinking.
• If you plan to attend, please email an RSVP to Carmela Hofstee with the number of attendees in your group.

HOLIDAY DECORATING PARTY

We will be decorating the theater on Saturday, December 18^th. If you’re interested in helping, please email Carmela Hofstee. We’d love the help to trim our theater with tons of festive holiday décor!

Enjoy these photos from Pull-Tight’s 2020 Christmas party, and come make new memories on December 19th!

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Monday Dec. 13 & Tuesday Dec. 14, 7 p.m.
Pull-Tight Theater

Directed by Cindy Davis Massey
Produced by JK Gregg

Performance dates: February 4-5, 9-12, 16-19 at 7:30 p.m.; February 6 and 13 at 2:30 p.m.

We are thrilled to announce our return to live performances with our next mainstage production at Pull-Tight. All roles are available. You may attend both nights, but reading priority will be given to new auditioners on Dec. 14.

There will be cold readings from the script. No prepared monologues. Headshots and theatre resumes are welcome but not required.

You may download the audition form below and complete it prior to auditions. Copies will be available on site as well. Use the included audition sides to prepare to read for the roles of your choice.

COVID-19 safety guidelines

The Pull-Tight Players Board of Directors requires that all cast and crew involved with our production of Crimes of the Heart must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Bring your vaccination card to auditions. A board member will check your card against your photo ID as you check in. Mobile phone photos of your vaccination card will be accepted.

Also be prepared to remain masked when not actively auditioning.

If you are cast, our director will provide any further guidelines on masking during rehearsals as needed.

Thank you for cooperating with our safety measures as we return to live MainStage shows.

Audition sides

Synopsis

The three MaGrath sisters are back together in their hometown of Hazelhurst, Mississippi for the first time in a decade. Lenny, the eldest, never left Hazelhurst. She is the caretaker of the sisters’ cantankerous Old Granddaddy. Meg, the middle sister, left home to pursue stardom as a singer in Los Angeles, but has, so far, only found happiness at the bottom of a bottle. And Babe, the youngest, has just been arrested for the murder of her abusive husband, Zackery Bottrelle. Under the scorching heat of the Mississippi sun, past resentments bubble to the surface, and each sister must come to terms with the consequences of her own “crimes of the heart.”

Character sketches

Lenora (Lenny) Magrath. (Lead) Lenny, at the age of thirty, is the oldest of the three sisters. Her sisters have forgotten her birthday, only adding to her feeling of rejection. Lenny is frustrated after years of carrying heavy burdens of responsibility. Most recently, she has been caring for Old Granddaddy, sleeping on a cot in the kitchen to be near him. Lenny loves her sisters but is also jealous of them, especially Meg, whom she feels received preferential treatment during their upbringing. Meg has also been surrounded by men all her life, while Lenny has feared rejection from the opposite sex and become withdrawn as a result. She fears continuing the one romantic relationship, with a man named Charlie Hill from Memphis.

Chick Boyle. (Featured) Chick, the sisters’ first cousin, is twenty-nine years old. She is a very demanding relative, extremely concerned about the community’s opinion of her. When news is published of Babe’s shooting of Zackery, Chick’s utmost concern is how she’s “gonna continue holding my head up high in this community.” Chick is critical of all aspects of the Magrath’s family and is always bringing up past tragedies such as the mother’s suicide. Chick is especially hard on Meg, whom she finds undisciplined and calls a “low-class tramp,” and on Babe, who “doesn’t understand how serious the situation is” after shooting Zackery. Chick seems to feel closest to Lenny, and is genuinely surprised to be ushered out of the house for her comments about Lenny’s sisters.

Doc Porter. (Featured) Doc is 30 years old and Meg’s old boyfriend. He is still known affectionately as “Doc” although his plans for a medical career stalled and eventually died after he was severely injured in Hurricane Camille. His love for Meg (and her promise to marry him) prompted him to stay behind with her while the rest of the town evacuated the storm’s path. Many people now have the perception (as Meg and Lenny discuss) that Meg “baited Doc into staying there with her.” Doc, who now has his own wife and children, nevertheless remains close to the Magrath family. Although Meg abandoned him when she left for California, Doc remains fond of her, and Meg is extremely happy to have his friendship upon her return to Mississippi.

Margaret (Meg) Magrath. (Lead) Meg is the middle sister at twenty-seven years of age. As an eleven year-old child, Meg discovered the body of their mother (and that of the family cat) following her suicide. This traumatic experience provoked Meg to test her strength by confronting morbidity wherever she could find it, including poring over medical photographs of disease-ridden victims and staring at March of Dimes posters of crippled children. At the beginning of the play Meg returns to Mississippi from California, where her singing career has stalled and where, she later tells Doc, she had a nervous breakdown and ended up in the psychiatric ward of the county hospital.

Rebecca (Babe) Botrelle. (Lead) Babe is the youngest Magrath sister at the age of 24. At the start of the play, she has shot her husband, Zackery, a powerful and wealthy lawyer. At first, the only explanation she gives for the act is the defiant statement: “I didn’t like his looks! I just didn’t like his stinking looks!” Eventually, she reveals that the shooting was the result of her anger at Zackery’s cruel treatment both of her and of Willie Jay, a fifteen year-old African American boy with whom Babe had been carrying on an affair.

Barnette Lloyd. (Supporting) Barnette Lloyd, at the age of 26, is Babe’s lawyer. An ambitious, talented attorney, Barnette views Babe’s case as a chance to exact his personal revenge on Zackery. “The major thing he did,” Barnette says, “was to ruin my father’s life.” Barnette also seems to have a strong attraction to Babe, whom he remembers distinctly from a chance meeting at a Christmas bazaar. Barnette is prevented from taking on Zackery in open court by the desire to protect Babe’s affair with Willie Jay from public exposure. He is willing to make this sacrifice for Babe, and the play ends with some hope that his efforts will be rewarded.

At its meeting on June 8, 2021, the Pull-Tight Board of Directors unanimously voted to confer the designation of Lifetime Voting Member to long-time artist members Peggy Gentry Macpherson and John Neely Davis. The honors were announced at the Pull-Tight Artist Membership Meeting on October 24, 2021.

This honor is bestowed on select artist members as acknowledgement and appreciation of their volunteerism and contributions through the decades as determined by the Board of Directors. With this title, Peggy and John will enjoy lifetime voting rights at Pull-Tight Players’ annual Artist Membership Meetings.

Peggy MacPherson was “surprised and very pleased to receive lifetime voting privileges at the membership meeting.” In her words, here is a bit of her history with Pull-Tight:

“My own personal memories involve family: Laurel and Heather as young children, and Laurel’s sons Sean and Scot being in plays from early ages. Laurel and TJ met at the theater, as did Sean and Savannah and Scot and Jordan. I claim all the credit for bringing Iain to our theater.

“I am proudest of my work with Pull-Tight’s children through the Youth Actors Guild, as well as the 17 years we performed Incident at Fort Granger for audiences in Franklin and even Washington, D.C.  Getting Mayor Jerry Sharber on board with Pull-Tight was so important, too. He and his family were in A Franklin Diary, and later Jerry was in all 12 productions of Incident at Fort Granger. Jerry definitely got us into good graces with the City of Franklin’s BOMA. Involvement with this theater has been so good for me, my children, my grandchildren, and for Iain and TJ.

“I am also happy that John Davis was honored with Lifetime Voting privileges.  John and his family were solidly involved in our theater before I arrived on the scene. I definitely credit him with getting our theater on its feet. It is fitting that his daughter Cindy will be directing our first show in 2022 as we take the stage once again after two years.

 “I am slowing down, but hopefully can continue to do whatever I can to help our theater well into its second 50 years.”

Cindy Davis Massey, daughter of John Davis, provided this recount of his past with Pull-Tight:

“John joined Pull-Tight when it was just a few years old. He acted in several shows, always with his script somewhere within arm’s reach, just in case! Some of his favorite roles included Doc in Come Back, Little Sheba and Jessie the playboy in Plaza Suite.

“He also directed several shows including Night Watch, which was performed as a dinner theatre production at the Holiday Inn; Dear Ruth, performed in the community room of the Harpeth National Bank (now First Tennessee Bank on the square); and the first of many productions of To Kill a Mockingbird in 1976, performed at Franklin Junior High School (now Freedom Intermediate.)

“John is a past president of Pull-Tight, as well as one of the earliest recipients of the Pull-Tight Player of the Year Award. He and his wife, Jayne, are responsible for creating the Pull-Tight Knot Awards, a tradition that really caught on and continues today. He thoroughly enjoyed his years working with Pull-Tight, and even made it a family affair when he encouraged both his daughters, Cindy and Melissa, to become involved.”

Let us thank these dedicated individuals for their life’s work and the impact they made to help Pull-Tight become what it has grown to be today. Congratulations, Peggy and John!

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Please enjoy these items of memorabilia, which we have available only due to Peggy’s diligence in keeping the Pull-Tight scrapbooks over all these years!

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