Why They Come Back
Flat Rock Playhouse audiences do not need an introduction to Nat Zegree or Courter Simmons. They already know them. They have applauded them, laughed with them and watched them command the Playhouse stage in roles that revealed just how versatile two gifted performers can be.
This summer, Nat and Courter return to Flat Rock Playhouse for a new challenge: the Playhouse’s 30th-anniversary production of Jonathan Larson’s groundbreaking musical RENT, on stage July 24 through August 15.
Their return says something important - not only about the performers - but also about the theatre they have chosen to return to. Nat and Courter have built successful professional careers that have taken them to stages across the country. Both have extensive résumés, exceptional talent, and countless opportunities to perform elsewhere.
Yet each has repeatedly chosen to bring that talent back to Flat Rock. That raises an intriguing question: What makes Flat Rock Playhouse a place such accomplished artists genuinely want to return to?
Familiar Faces, Remarkable Careers
Nat Zegree performer during Autumn at the Oprey
Nat Zegree has been part of the Flat Rock Playhouse family for more than a decade. A musician since early childhood, he is an accomplished pianist, singer, actor, composer and recording artist who has performed one-man shows and concerts throughout the country.
Flat Rock audiences have seen Nat display both his musical virtuosity and dramatic range. He electrified the stage as Jerry Lee Lewis in Million Dollar Quartet and delivered an exuberant, unforgettable performance as Mozart in Amadeus. He has also appeared in numerous Playhouse concerts and musical productions and took on the demanding role of Malcolm in the Playhouse’s Black Box presentation of Macbeth.
Nat has long described Flat Rock Playhouse as a second home. Following his first Playhouse appearance, he quickly formed a bond with the theatre, its artists and its audiences. “Flat Rock Playhouse is so singular, so individual and so special, not only from an artistic point of view, but from a personal point of view. And that's rare to find that combination of both of those things. Now in my 10th year on The Rock, it really feels like home.”
Courter Simmons has developed an equally strong impression in a much shorter period of time.
A veteran of Broadway, Off-Broadway, national tours and regional theatre, Courter made his Broadway debut in Jersey Boys. Flat Rock audiences first encountered him as Frankie Valli in the Playhouse’s acclaimed production of Jersey Boys. He returned last season as Perkins the butler in The Play That Goes Wrong, trading the soaring vocals and polished moves of Frankie Valli for precision comedy, physical chaos and perfectly timed exasperation. The two roles could hardly have been more different - and that was part of the appeal for this veteran performer.
A Theatre Worth Returning To
Courter Simmons as Frankie Valli at Flat Rock Playhouse.
Both Courter and Nat agree that Flat Rock Playhouse offers something different. Its resident staff, production facilities, costume and scene shops, artist housing, education programs and long apprenticeship tradition create an environment in which visiting artists become part of an established and unusually cohesive theatrical community.
Courter noticed that distinction immediately. “So much of the Flat Rock team is local and has a long history with the company,” he explains. “Everyone has invested a lot of their lives into what Flat Rock is. And that’s shows up in the quality of the productions here.”
Courter is also a believer in the quality of productions offered by FRP when compared to other theaters. “Everyone here is just as talented and experienced and capable as anyone you would find at the highest levels of the theatre industry.”
Indeed, when FRP announced they would be presenting RENT, Courter jumped at the chance to be part of the cast. “I have been in love with RENT since it first came out but I have never been in the show. So, when the opportunity came to be a part of this production, I absolutely jumped at it. And then to get to come back to be at Flat Rock was just the icing on the cake.”
For Nat, the attraction is similarly rooted in people and relationships. “When you are surrounded by people you love, doing what you love, it doesn’t become work anymore,” he says. “There’s something about Flat Rock - between the people who work here and the people who come to see the shows - that simply makes it one of the greatest theatres in the country
Beyond the Stage
Nat Zegree as Mark and T. Shyvonne Stewart as Joanne in RENT. (RENT Photos by Jeb Purcell)
The affection performers develop for Flat Rock Playhouse frequently extends beyond the theatre itself. For visiting artists accustomed to New York City and other major metropolitan areas, Flat Rock offers a very different rhythm. The village, nearby restaurants and shops, mountain landscape and walking trails provide artists with a place to live as well as work.
Nat particularly enjoys the sense of community at FRP. “For someone who comes from a musical family, there's nothing like being able to connect on a personal and professional level with people that you genuinely enjoy, both on stage and off.” Those connections result in exceptional productions. “I've lived in New York for 13 years now. I see shows on Broadway that don't stack up to what I've seen here at the Flat Rock Playhouse.”
For his part, Courter gives a lion’s share of the credit for FRP theatrical excellence to Lisa Bryant for assembling such talented artists to produce each show. “Oh gosh, the shows here are absolutely top-notch. And Lisa has made sure to assemble an amazing group of people here who are all just the absolute best at their jobs.”
Thirty Years of RENT
Couter Simmons in RENT
For their latest appearance, Nat and Courter are helping Flat Rock Playhouse revisit a musical that transformed American theatre. When RENT opened on Broadway in 1996, its rock score, contemporary characters and unvarnished depiction of love, poverty, creativity, addiction, illness and loss introduced audiences to voices and lives rarely placed at the center of a Broadway musical.
Inspired by Puccini’s La Bohème, the musical follows a group of young artists and outsiders struggling to create meaningful lives in New York City’s East Village. The Broadway production won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Musical and became one of the most influential theatrical works of its generation.
Three decades later, its central questions remain urgent: How do we live fully when the future is uncertain? How do communities care for those who feel unseen? What does it mean to create, to love and to belong? Producing Artistic Director Lisa K. Bryant believes those questions make the musical as relevant now as it was 30 years ago. “The bottom line is that it’s about humanity, and creating, and community, and love,” Bryant said. She also views presenting the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical as part of the Playhouse’s responsibility to broaden the theatrical experiences available to local audiences.
Courter agrees. “It’s a universal story. These are folks who are misfits, which everyone feels like that sometimes. RENT helps the audience see that their struggles are not all that different than struggles that everyone else faces.”
For those who saw RENT during its original Broadway era, the Playhouse production offers an opportunity to encounter it anew. For younger theatregoers who know its songs and reputation but have never experienced the full production, it is a chance to discover why the musical changed theatre history.
And for Flat Rock Playhouse audiences, it offers another opportunity to see two extraordinary performers have thrilled audiences in theatres throughout the country and continue choosing to return to Flat Rock. That may be one of the strongest endorsements any theatre can receive. Exceptional artists want to perform at Flat Rock Playhouse. Nat Zegree and Courter Simmons are coming back to prove it once again.
“There is something about Flat Rock that you can't get anywhere else”, says Nat. “You just can't. The Playhouse is where regional theater meets professional Broadway quality. It's incredible.”
Nat pauses for a moment and smiles as he looks out across the Playhouse campus during a break from rehearsal. “I just have to breathe in how lucky I am to find a place so special and meaningful that always draws me back.”
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RENT will be presented July 24 through August 15 at Flat Rock Playhouse. Tickets and performance information are available through the Flat Rock Playhouse box office and website.
RENT Photos by Jeb Purcell
