The Orbis

Photo by Allison Oubre/Orbis Vali Forrister plays many roles in her daily life, all of which aim toward promoting social justice. [Click to enlarge]

Vali Forrister works continuously to strengthen the Nashville community. For the third year, she is directing Vanderbilt's production of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, which runs this Feb. 26 and 27 at Langford Auditorium.

In addition to this annual responsibility, Vali is the co-founder of the Actors Bridge Ensemble, a theater company devoted to social justice, and the director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center's Communication and Outreach Center. Her commitment to public service began at an age when few are very goal-oriented and socially and politically conscious.

"I grew up in a family where one of the first messages that I heard as a child was that Forristers are public servants. It was just a matter of which type of public service I went into," said Vali. "We were a politically-minded family; our conversations around the dinner table were usually about politics and justice. At an early age, I was drawn to the stage. I just had to figure out how to marry those two loves."

Vali attended the David Lipscomb Campus School beginning in the first grade. After graduate school at Lipscomb University, where she earned a Masters in Communication Studies, and language school in Guatemala, Vali returned to Lipscomb to teach freshman composition. During her semester teaching, she became involved in theater and envisioned her passion for acting leading her to New York or California.

"I always dreamed of doing something like The Group Theater in New York during the Depression, which was a community of artists that were committed to social justice and to each other. I never thought I'd have that in Nashville," said Vali.

Before she could leave Nashville, Vali met Bill Feehely, who was teaching theater at Belmont University, having recently left the New York theater scene. Like Vali, he too wanted to start a company of actors who trained and worked together on an ongoing basis rather than only coming together for individual productions. Together they started Actors Bridge Ensemble, which has trained over 500 actors to date and has a core of about 20 people who have been performing together for seven to eight years since the company's inception in 1995.

"Through the kind of plays that we do, we are committed to social justice and to asking the hard questions of our community, the provocative questions, and there's not always a big audience for those questions," said Vali. "It helps being at Vanderbilt because we're in a liberal-thinking community, situated within a larger, pretty conservative community. The juxtaposition of those two worlds is an interesting place to be."

Vali embraces the challenge and the long hours to live the life she loves in what she calls a "conservative environment."

"It's been an incredibly rich experience; I've gotten community on levels I never dreamed I'd get," said Vali. "We started this company (Actors Bridge) and within a year Becca Stevens invited us to become the theater company in residence at St. Augustine's Chapel here on campus. Then, the community expanded to include Actors Bridge and St. Augustine's."

During this time, the Magdalene program began at St. Augustine's Chapel. Magdalene is a two-year drug rehabilitation program for women who want to leave the streets. Through Magdalene, women learn job skills that will eventually lead them to economic independence. This year's proceeds from The Vagina Monologues will benefit Magdalene.

Three actors, Rachel Agee, Tracy Gershon and Claire Mullally from Actors Bridge, have joined Vali, who will perform her own personal monologue, in this year's production of The Vagina Monologues. Two new monologues have been added to raise awareness and demand an end to violence of any kind against women and girls.

Vali thrives on the theater's ability to change even the most closed-minded people.

"I'm really proud of Nashville, to see the growth of the city from the perspective of acceptance. From the last three years of doing the The Vagina Monologues, I am truly amazed," said Vali. She senses the changing atmosphere in other plays performed by Actors Bridge throughout the year, such as The Laramie Project.

"I was stunned and proud that Nashville loved that piece as much as we did," said Vali.

Next year, Actors Bridge will be performing Trojan Woman, a Greek tragedy about the horrors of war from the perspective of women.

Vali is an actor first and foremost; these days she splits her time between acting and directing. Fortunately, her job at the cancer center affords her the time to continue a career in performance art.

"I just always thought that theater had the power to change people's lives unlike anything else. I saw, even as a kid, how people could be changed by seeing themselves on stage, and saying to themselves, 'I didn't know I was like that ... a bigot, a sexist, that I was bad to my wife.' Whatever it is, theater has the unique power to reveal ourselves to ourselves. I knew that was what I had to do. In a different way, but in just as important a way, it would change the world. And I'm doing it in my own way."

Tickets for the Wednesday and Thursday performances, which both start at 7:30 p.m., are on sale at the Sarratt Box Office or by calling 322-3774.

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