Victoria Clark maintains a wonderfully diverse career as an award-winning actor, director, and educator. Clark began voice and piano lessons at the age of six. She was blessed with extraordinary educational opportunities, along with generous teachers and mentors throughout her early years. Clark graduated from Yale University and attended New York University’s prestigious Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program as a stage director (“Cycle 1” cohort).
The original production of Sunday in the Park with George was the beginning of Clark’s journey as a professional actor, which has led to thirteen Broadway and numerous off-Broadway plays, musicals, film, and television appearances. Highlights include The Light in the Piazza on Broadway at Lincoln Center Theater for which she was awarded the Tony Award for Leading Actress in a Musical, as well as Tony-nominated starring roles in the original casts of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, SisterAct, and Gigi.
Clark originated the title role in Kimberly Akimbo off-Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company, winning the 2022 Lucille Lortel Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and receiving nominations from the Drama League and Drama Desk. The show moved to Broadway, earning Clark her second Tony Award for Leading Actress in 2023 and a Grammy nomination.
Clark’s films, among others, include The Happening, Wanderland, Cradle Will Rock, and Archaeology of a Woman. Her television credits include The Gilded Age, Elsbeth, Homeland, The Blacklist, Pose, Little America, The Good Wife, Mercy, Law & Order, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Clark directed Dance of Death at Classic Stage Company, and the original musical Newton’s Cradle for the New York Musical Theatre Festival, winning the festival’s best director award. She directed the world premiere of The Trouble With Doug for the Fredericia Theater in Fredericia, Denmark, and most recently in March 2025, directed Love Life by Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner at New York City Center Encores!
Clark is an avid teacher and educator. She served on the faculty at Yale University and as artist-in-residence at Pace University and Duke University, and teaches at conservatories and universities worldwide, as well as in her private studio in New York City. Her solo debut recording, Fifteen Seconds of Grace, is available through PS Classics as well as there-imagining of Maury Yeston’s acclaimed song cycle December Songs, featuring Clark with full orchestra.
After a forty-three year award-winning career in education, Ron Meers retired in 2012 following a thirty-year tenure as director of bands at Riverdale High School in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Prior to his time at Riverdale, Meers was director of bands at Mt. Pleasant High School in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee. In 1978, the Mt. Pleasant Band became the first chosen by the Tennessee Bandmasters Association to perform at the Tennessee Music Education Association (TMEA) Conference held at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. Also in 1978, Meers, encouraged by Harry Williams and the Mt. Pleasant Band Boosters, spearheaded the creation of the Class A (Div 1) and later the Class AA (Div 2) State Marching Band Championships. Both events are still thriving today. Meers received his bachelor’s degree from Lipscomb University and a master’s degree plus thirty hours from Cumberland University. He has served as president of numerous statewide music organizations, including TMEA, the Middle Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association (MTSBOA), the Tennessee Bandmasters Association, and Phi Beta Mu. Meers has served in numerous adjudication roles including TMEA performing group audition chair, all-state/mid-state audition chair for the MTSBOA, and auditions chair for the Governor’s School for the Arts and Tennessee All-State Band. Throughout his long career, he has adjudicated both marching and concert band events. Meers was selected as the 2002-2003 Riverdale High School Teacher of the Year and in 2011 was inducted into the Tennessee Music Education Association’s Hall of Fame at the Nashville Opryland Hotel. The following year, the Riverdale High School band room was renamed the Ronald S. Meers Band Hall in his honor. 2019 saw Meers inducted into the Tennessee Bandmasters Hall of Fame. Following his induction, Tennessee State Senate Resolution No. 544 was adopted in his honor, sponsored by Senators White (a former student) and Reeves and Representatives Rudd, Leatherwood, and Baum. Meers retired one final time in 2020 after eight years of service as the Tennessee Music Education Association’s executive director. In 2022, he was presented with the prestigious Lowell Mason Award by the National Association for Music Education and TMEA.
The Bright School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was founded in 1913 by progressive educator Mary G. Bright and currently enrolls about 355 students from preschool to fifth grade. The school’s curriculum and activities are a blend of the hands-on and personalized learning upon which Ms. Bright built her school and innovative practices of today that nurture and challenge students. A comprehensive arts education program has been part of the curriculum since the early days of the school’s operation. A vibrant mural, exclusively crafted by the artistic hands of the Bright School students, is currently on display at the North Chattanooga Post Office, and their woodshop students have been featured recently in a national publication, Wooden Boat Magazine. Fifth graders participate in the weekly internal news broadcast, We’re the Bright School (WTBS), where they practice presentation skills and learn the mechanics of audio and visual equipment. All students participate in grade-level plays beginning in prekindergarten. Students can also hone their musical skills in the choir or handbell ensemble, and selected students are annually accepted to the Organization of American Kodály Educators National Conference Choir. The Bright School has placed a priority on professional development by giving teachers resources and time for training, fellowships, and pursuing higher education in their craft. They believe arts education is not just about creating artists. It’s about nurturing well-rounded individuals who are confident, creative, and compassionate.
Before the transition into a fine arts magnet school in 2006, Creswell went by many other names. The school is named after Isaiah T. Creswell, the inaugural African American member of the Nashville Public School board. His daughter, Carol Creswell, still visits the school for events. Creswell offers six vibrant art conservatories: band, choir, dance, piano, theatre, and visual art. Students take two arts conservatory classes the entire school year, allowing them to receive an in-depth arts education. Creswell has prioritized a move toward a fully arts-integrated school, as their academic classes incorporate art with help from the school’s arts integration specialist and community members. They host a weekly, school-wide meeting called “Artful Thinking” in which students analyze artwork and performances for a project that connects them to the community. They have hosted collaborative sessions with the Air Force Band and the Yeli Ensemble from Guinea, and their student art has been featured on WeGo benches across Nashville and in the annual Southwest Airlines Repurpose with Purpose Exhibit. Music students have performed at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center with the Nashville Symphony for Let Freedom Sing concerts, and the We Are Nashville choral festival and have collaborated with Intersection Contemporary Music Ensemble and National Museum of African American Music. Students have worked with singer/songwriter Kyshona Armstrong and artist Elisheba Mrozik, and their projects have been exhibited in the Taylor Swift Gallery at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
The Stewarts Creek Fine Arts Academy offers a conservatory-level arts education within Stewarts Creek High School, giving students a focused study in the arts while enjoying the benefits of a comprehensive, public high school. The spirit of collaboration between students and their arts teachers has become a visible and foundational part of the school culture. With kindergarten through twelfth grade students on the same campus, collaboration between the elementary, middle, and high school students provides students with not only sequential learning in the arts, but a growing love for creating and performing. Students receive top-notch instruction in traditional courses like art, theatre, and music, but they also have access to courses in songwriting, printmaking, technical theatre, guitar, and mixed media. Situated in Rutherford County, Tennessee, where the arts account for $52.4 million a year in economic activity, students regularly collaborate with Career and Technical Education classes, such as broadcasting and recording. In visual art, several students have received Scholastic Art Awards including the National Gold Medal Award. Theatre students have received multiple All-State theatre designations. A guitar student had the lyrics of one of her original songs performed at Vince Gill and Keith Urban’s “All-for-the-Hall” benefit concert in Nashville. Choral and instrumental ensembles have been honored and showcased at the Tennessee Music Educators Association conference, and many musicians have been selected for the Nashville Symphony’s Accelerando program.
