Behind the scenes at Nashville’s 34th annual Shakespeare Festival

Every other Friday for This Is Nashville, I hop out of my host chair and into the passenger seat to ride shotgun with one (or two) of our fellow Middle Tennesseans. It’s time for the 34th annual Nashville Shakespeare Festival. Let’s get a behind the scenes look at rehearsal with actors Brian Russell and Tamiko Robinson Steele at Vanderbilt’s Neely Auditorium.

To bring a role to life, some actors become nearly possessed with their characters. Sounds hard enough for one character. Imagine preparing for two characters in two very different plays. That’s what Brian Russell and Tamiko Robinson Steele are up to for this year’s Shakespeare Festival.

“You have to mentally prepare to go into your day to be physically present for the duration of the rehearsal and the rehearsal period. It’s pretty difficult, but, you know, it has a nice payoff,” Tamiko says. 

Tamiko and Brian are in both of the plays featured at this summer’s Shakespeare Festival — William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and August Wilson’s Gem Of The Ocean.

“One is the wild, big, huge romantic Shakespeare romp, and the other is a solid August Wilson piece that’s just lovely to listen to, to watch, just to be around,” Brian says.

Both actors got their start in college, albeit decades apart. Brian is entering his 42nd year in the field. He and Tamiko over time have learned to take the pressures of performing in stride.

“Once you do your audition, once you do your piece, whatever it is, you can hold onto it and it can eat you up and you can ‘shoulda, coulda, woulda’ yourself to death, or you can let it go,” Tamiko says.

Audition, get booked, perform, audition again. Such is the life of the actor. Not as glamorous as some might imagine, but fame isn’t the desire of all working actors. Sometimes, an actor has to take a role that won’t get them nominated for an Emmy. Brian admits he once played the role of a character named ‘Cocky Rico’ on the Adult Swim series Tropical Cop Tales.

At the end of the day, it is all about being a professional, and the love of theater for these two actors is unmatched.

Brian sums it all up: “I’m an actor. I’m a performer. I take the words of great poets like Shakespeare or like August Wilson. I take those words, and I’m on a stage. That’s what I do.”