Most people don’t realize that NPT’s office near the fairgrounds is really a creative campus, housing a number of cultural organizations. In addition to Nashville Public Television, our building houses the offices of Nashville Film Festival, the Tennessee Repertory Theater and the Mid-South Offices of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Each day is filled with activity — the NPT vans might be heading out on Tennessee Crossroads or Volunteer Gardener shoots; authors sitting in the green room getting touched up to appear on A Words on with John Seigenthaler; editors busy putting the finishing touches on promo spots or original NPT productions, like the upcoming Beautiful Tennessee 2.
In studio A, the Rep might be rehearsing for a new production, as it did in the months leading up to its recent acclaimed Speed The Plow run at TPAC. Next up is Intimate Apparel March 22-April 7 at Johnson Theater in TPAC.
Each day, films pour in for Film Festival consideration and screeners stop by to pick them up for viewing. Over 1,700 films came in from all over the globe for this year’s festival, which takes place April 19-26 at Regal Green Hills. Jim Ridley at the Nashville Scene has a great sneak peek at the Festival in this week’s issue.
You could go to the break room to get coffee and run into the artistic director from the Film Festival and together discuss a great documentary you watched on NPT the night before. He might offer insight into the documentary director’s previous work, which he may have caught at one of the many film festivals he attends throughout the country each year.
It’s the kind of situation and environment that remains continually engaging and inspiring. It’s a little like being back in the campus activities building in college, with the newspaper folks sharing office space with the yearbook people, just down the hall from the drama club and the film club. Back then, we of course never spoke to anyone in the other groups, especially those yearbook people, who had to put out one thing all year long and complained the most and hogged up the computers when 75% of their job was reprinting ridiculous messages from parents who were so glad that their kids had graduated that they just had to tell the whole school that they knew “(he/she’s nickname that no one on campus knew because it was embarassing) could do it under six years!” and “we’re so proud of all you’ve accomplished (read … all the debt you’ve accumulated that we know you’re going to stick us with)!” How hard could the yearbook staff’s job be? Now, us newspaper folks, we were busy getting out those record reviews and Women’s Basketball stats on a daily basis and had no time for those whiney Yearbook people.
Thankfully, it’s not back then anymore. It’s now, and we’ve grown up. We can all get along. As long as the TN Rep folks clean the table when they’re done eating, and the Film Festival people remember to pick up that ice cube that missed their cup and is slowly melting on the break room floor, which they usually do, everything is fine.