Even the Sparrows Were Singing in Tune for the Nashville Rep’s Broadway Brunch

During the moments before the curtain rises at a performance, excitement is palpable — just as it was for the 400 guests who attended the Nashville Repertory Theatre’s Broadway Brunch at the Music City Center. As guests enjoyed mimosas and bloody marys, many jockeyed for hugs from Rep co-founder Mac Pirkle. He and fellow co-founder Martha Ingram — represented by her lovely granddaughters — were Broadway Brunch’s Ovation Award recipients in the event’s ninth year of delivering energy and music to an enthusiastic crowd.

Co-chairs Kim Hewell and Holli Harrison planned a yummy brunch. Highlights included a piping-hot cheese soufflé that appeared as the first number began — with clever lyrics reworked for Piper Jones and the Broadway Brunch performers, all favorites of Rep regulars. 

For this year’s performance, artistic director Micah-Shane Brewer sandwiched songs from musicals — classic, groundbreaking, rousing or reflective — between business items of the day. Nashville Rep executive director Drew Ogle highlighted bits of the live auction, offered a tantalizing preview of the upcoming 40th season, and presented this year’s Ovation Awards. 

This year, the Rep is celebrating 40 years of musical theater in Nashville. “Theater connects us,” Mac said. “We sit in the dark and all experience the same thing together. Through theater, we get to know each other.” Mac produced more than 65 productions during his 15-year tenure as the Rep’s executive director, and his influence and legacy have only grown more significant since.

“The ethereal nature of what we do vibrates with the audience,” he continued, “then melts away like a dream.” A table full of Rep originals reminisced, applauded and were no doubt moved by his reflections on their contributions to theater brought to vibrant life at the Rep. 

Martha’s hard work to upgrade the cultural landscape of Music City over decades, starting with the campaign to create TPAC, included plans for four resident arts companies, outgrowths of her love for the arts. Mac called her “the undisputed power behind the renaissance of the arts in Nashville.” She’s brought theater — not just to her children — but to half a million Nashville children since the Rep began. To hear Martha enunciate “theateh” in her elegant Charlestonian vernacular is to hear the culture she knew and imagined for us all.