Alice Berry

As a creative, collaborative artist, Alice is a performer, director, writer, mentor, teaching artist, and Artistic Director. As such she has been blessed to spend twenty-five years creating new work with a gifted, caring and an imaginative group of artists. Alice earned both her MFA in Theatre with a focus in directing and her BFA in Theatre with a concentration in performance from the University of Memphis Department of Theatre & Dance.

While in school, she was highly influenced by mentor Gloria Baxter and the narrative form and co-created and performed in narrative projects including As I Lay Dying which was performed at the International Faulkner Conference and Mississippi Stories which toured for two weeks in France. After graduating, she returned as a guest performer in the world premiere of Terry Tempest William’s Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place that was performed for the Tempest family on the ten-year anniversary of their matriarch’s death and for which Alice won a Memphis Theatre Award.

In 1995 Alice co-founded Voices of the South, a professional narrative theatre company dedicated to exploring the world of literature, creating new works, producing educational and innovative theatre for young audiences, and fostering collaborations in the community.

Together with Jenny, Alice co-created and performed in Why I Live at the P.O., and The Window, which toured to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in ’96; Twenty Will Not Come Again and Listening which toured to the festival in ’97 and to the International Faulkner Conference; Humming Song, The Contest, Weeds, and Vistas many of which continue to tour into schools, living rooms and theatres across the country. In 2016 Alice and Jenny had a successful run in New York City at Theatre Row.

Voices of the South has afforded Alice many amazing adventures both on stage and off. She counts the company’s creation and performance of Place of Enchantment for Mardy Murie on the homestead porch at the foot of the Grand Tetons a highlight of their collaborative work. She and the company were privileged years later to continue honoring and sharing the Murie legacy with the creation and performance of Wild Legacy which was invited to tour throughout Alaska, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

As a teaching artist in the area schools Alice spent years engaging teachers and children of all ages in the arts on stage and in the classroom using Lincoln Center’s Aesthetic Education model. Over the last eleven years, Alice has delighted in sharing her passion for theatre and collaboration with students at the University of Memphis Department of Theatre & Dance through a varied number of courses.

Some of her favorite devised, directing, and acting projects include HEREHEIS, Wild Legacy, It’s All Greek to Me, Frindle, One Writer’s Beginnings, Old Forest Fairy Tales, The Boy Who Fell from the Sky, The Nightingale, Refuge, As I Lay Dying, Mississippi Stories, Tran-send, Place of Enchantment, River City, The Ugly Duckling, Cicada, Sid and the Magic Box

Fences, Arabian Nights, Distance and Cicada.