USN mourns beloved theatre director

by Juanita I.C. Traughber, communications director

We will celebrate the life and legacy of High School Theatre Director Catherine Coke on Saturday, March 3 in the University School of Nashville Auditorium. Visitation will begin at 10 a.m. and a memorial service at 11 a.m. Parking is available in the 19th Avenue lot.
After closing the curtain on “Shakespeare in Love,” High School Theatre Director Catherine Coke died Wednesday, Feb. 21. She courageously and relentlessly battled cancer for many months.

Our hearts are with her family and especially with her son, Cyrus Shick, and the many students and alumni whose lives she touched through theater during her years at University School of Nashville.
 
“Catherine worked tirelessly to develop, expand, and nurture a program here that would provide student actors a chance to present exemplary work on our stage. She sought out the toughest topics and the most challenging shows, with a ferocity of spirit that extended, remarkably, right up through last Saturday's closing performance of ‘Shakespeare in Love,’” said Director Vince Durnan. “She did on a recurrent basis what many would have deemed beyond the reach of school productions, extending a long history of excellence and engagement in performing arts at USN.”

In her role at USN, Catherine directed all High School theater productions, served as faculty advisor to the Student Theatre Guild, and fostered a community partnership between USN and SENSE Theatre Company. For 13 years, she and High School students used theatrical practices to facilitate socialization skills in children with autism and produced original shows. She taught Playwrights and Playwriting, Improvisation, Acting: Character Development, and Speech, Movement, and Character Acting as well as mentored students through their independent studies.

“I know she meant a great deal to many of you, as she did to me,” Cyrus wrote in a note to students. “Even though I was her only child, it never felt that way, because she was a mother to so many of her students and her actors.”

Catherine brought the controversial musical “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson” to USN, pushing students beyond the typical and lighthearted high school productions to challenge themselves as well as the audience.

“We know USN students can handle complex material, complicated scores, and high production expectations,” she said in 2011 when it brought national attention to the school. “All these demanding shows challenge the student performers, engage the student technicians, and not only entertain audiences, but also make everyone feel and think. This is what USN HS does — perform the best theatre possible.”

She again stretched her playwrights and actors in 2016 when she asked alumnus Preston Crowder ’12 to write "Flames," a one-act play that sparked a local discussion on social justice, race relations, police brutality, gentrification, and the legalization of marijuana. Catherine directed the production, made it free for the community to attend, and followed the performance with a panel discussion featuring its all African-American cast, a Metro Councilman, and the director of the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood and Community Engagement.
 
"Obviously ‘Flames’ is an extremely topical piece given what is happening in our nation,” she said. “It is necessary and important for our school to address and for the community to respond. This play is the jumping off point to discuss what divides us and what unites us in Nashville in a racial level. We cannot see a positive change without talking about those issues. Anger and frustration will be heard, but we need to make it a constructive conversation and an ongoing dialogue.”

Known as simply Catherine, she was a director for more than 30 years, with special emphasis on new works, directing more than 40 full- and 50 workshop productions as well as readings too numerous to count. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from Brown University, and her career carried her to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles. When she returned to Nashville in 2000, Catherine started Nashville Theatre Works, an organization dedicated to playwrights and playwriting which mounted 25 staged readings and three productions.

If you have any memories or photos of Catherine you would like to share, please email Communications Director Juanita I.C. Traughber or call 615-708-3419.

Catherine’s Productions at USN
“Shakespeare In Love”
"The Theory of Relativity"
“Clybourne Park”
“Urinetown”
 “Six Degrees of Separation”
“Chicago”
“The Adding Machine”
“Pippin”
“Our Town”
“Hedda Gabler”
“9 to 5”
“Noises Off”
“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”
“Rumors”
“Cabaret”
“The Place Where Dreams Go to Die”
“Locked in a Jailhouse”
“Flat Penny Blues”
“Twelve Angry Jurors”
“Funny Thing”
“Forum”
“The Lottery”
“Audience”
“The Art of Dining”
“Company”
“Cowtown”
“War at Home”
“The Diviners”
“Of Thee I Sing”
“Light Up the Sky”
“Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead”
“Comic Potential”
“The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later”
“The House Of Blue Leaves”
“I Hate Hamlet”
“The Laramie Project”
“Brighton Beach Memoirs”
“Clue! The Musical”
“The Book of Liz”
“Zombie Prom”
the annual “One-Act Play Festival,” a collection of works written by students and alumni
a concert reading of “The Fantasticks”
a staged reading of “The Women”
 
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