Blanche Pope Tosh started her life in the theatre in the third grade, when she won a city-wide talent contest reciting a humorous monologue. At age nine, she played a leading role on the stage of the Memphis Little Theatre (now called Theatre Memphis). From that point forward, she was hooked on the theatre. At Memphis Central High School, Tosh was a student of the legendary speech and drama teacher Rebekah Cohen, and studied privately with Blanche Pence and Donna Fisher Brame. She won a four-year Memphis Coterie Club arts scholarship to attend the University of Memphis, majoring in speech and drama and minoring in art, all the while hoping to become a teacher. In college, she participated in almost every theatre department stage production, won numerous best acting awards, and had lead roles in Memphis Shakespeare Festival performances. She was awarded an assistantship to Kent State University, but ended up receiving her master's degree at the University of Memphis.
Tosh began teaching at White Station High School in 1962, and during her thirty-year tenure taught speech, acting, visual art, interpretation, mass media, forensics, play production, directing, and acting for the camera. She directed over one hundred plays, established the White Station High School Speech Tournament, won countless speech and theatre awards for her school and students, and created the first high school black box theatre in Memphis, affectionately known as ABC—Aunt Blanche’s Corner Theatre.
Tosh has performed in scores of plays in almost every Memphis theatre venue, received two Ostrander acting nominations, and notably, since her first production in 1947, is a seventy-seven year veteran of Theatre Memphis. She has also appeared in films, on radio, and in many commercials and voice-overs. She was a reader for the literature series Through the Golden Door, and portrayed “Mary Morgan” for the National Cotton Council. In her retirement, she was inducted into the Tennessee High School Speech and Drama League Hall of Fame and then began to focus even more on her love for storytelling. Beyond her longtime story readings at several area churches and hospitals, where she is referred to as the “story lady,” Tosh most recently created a podcast called Aunt Blanche’s Story Corner, recording well over a hundred episodes. Blanche Tosh has written and published two children's books and remains an active force in the Memphis theatre community.
Jerry Zaks began his career as an actor appearing in plays and musicals across the country. Most notably, he appeared in the original production of Greas eand the original cast of Tintypes. He recently directed his twenty-sixth Broadway show, The Music Man, starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster. His production of Mrs. Doubtfire is currently running at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre and on tour in the United States.
Zaks has received four Tony Awards for directing and has been nominated eight times. He's also received four Drama Desks, two Outer Critics Circle Awards, and an Obie. His credits include Hello, Dolly! (starring Bette Midler), A Bronx Tale (both the play and the musical), Meteor Shower, Nantucket Sleigh Ride, Shows For Days, Sister Act, The Addams Family, Guys and Dolls, Six Degrees of Separation, Lend Me a Tenor, House of Blue Leaves, The Front Page, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Smokey Joe’s Café, Anything Goes, La Cage aux Folles, Little Shop of Horrors, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Foreigner, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, and the original production of Assassins.
Zaks began his career directing the extraordinary plays of Christopher Durang including Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, Beyond Therapy, Baby with the Bathwater, and The Marriage of Bette and Boo. Hedirected the award-winning film Marvin’s Room, starring Meryl Streep andDiane Keaton, and Who Do You Love, which was featured in the Toronto Film Festival. Zaks is a founding member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City. In 1994, he received the SDC (Stage Directors and Choreographers) George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre.
Zaks graduated from Dartmouth College in 1967, received an MFA from Smith College in1969, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Dartmouth in 1999. In honor of his lifetime achievement in the American theater, Jerry Zakswas inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2013.
