Judy Pryor Trice will direct the gridiron show of the year

Judy Pryor Trice has been performing for audiences since the age of 2, on many stages and on various film and television sets, and has directed several productions as well.

She got her start in broadcast journalism with CBS affiliate KOTV in Tulsa, then moved to Little Rock, where she co-hosted “The Vic Ames Show” on KATV.

Over the years, he has acted in or directed countless productions, including Arkansas Repertory Theatre’s Steel Magnolias, A Little Night Music, Peter Pan, My Fair Lady, All the King’s Men, “The Club”. ” ‘Born Yesterday’, ‘Del Ray’s New Moon’ and ‘Into the Woods’ and ‘Follies’ and ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ at Argenta Contemporary Theatre. She has also performed with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, The Weekend Theatre, Murry’s Dinner Playhouse and others.

Trice even had roles in the films “Sling Blade” and “Elizabethtown” and the short film “Emerson County Shaping Dream” based on the poem written by Jo McDougal.

She has been involved with Gridiron, the biennial production that pokes fun at well-known Arkansas politicians, business leaders and lawyers, since 1978, and has played the roles of Nancy Pelosi, Gay White and others in nearly every show since, but the year this her role is different.

“This is my first time directing Gridiron,” says Trice, 80. “It’s different than directing other kinds of theater because you have a full cast of volunteers. They’re wonderful. They’re great performers. A lot of them are so talented and could do any kind of theater they want. It’s not like a professional. theater, but they do a great job, so it’s an honor to direct.”

Tickets are $75 for Gridiron’s Premiere Night, Sept. 24; those for the Sept. 25 through Sept. 28 productions are $45.

Trice can’t share details about this year’s show — per tradition, it’s written by a secret committee.

“What’s fun is that different aspects of Gridiron are given to different people and then it all comes together and it’s fun to see what other people are doing and how you integrate it and see it all come together,” she says. “We have the best music director ever, Michael Rice, who now lives in New York but is actually from Watson (Desha County). He’s a composer — he’s composed an opera and two musicals.”

She first worked with Rice in 1985 when she was cast in one of his projects, The Good Woman of Setzuan, which premiered at The Rep.

Trice says she and Rice have made the most of technology while working together on the Gridiron.

“We do so much musical arrangement on the phone,” she says. “I mean, this is a new era for me.”

Trice’s late husband, Bill, was a lawyer as well as a performer, and it was through him that she found her way onto the Gridiron set.

“It was a lawyer thing, but it also included people who worked in law offices; the lawyers’ wives, the children,” she says. “You know, people who were connected in some way.”

She and Bill met when she was a pianist at The Rep auditions for “Hello, Dolly!” Her daughter, Kathryn Pryor, was auditioning; Bill had a role as a clerk in the store.

Now Kathryn, also a lawyer, is Gridiron’s assistant director; the Trices’ son Will, a three-time Tony Award winner, is The Rep’s executive artistic director.

Kathryn and Will, like their mother, were involved in theater as children.

“I have another son, Jeff Pryor, and he’s a really nice singer, but he’s not into it at all. He just says he’s not into it,” says Trice, who made his debut as a child.

Trice’s grandfather composed several hymns and taught singing lessons, and he also started the family’s grocery store in her hometown of Bald Knob.

“He belonged to any church that hired him to lead the choir. He didn’t care what denomination it was,” she says. “But once he was kicked out of the Baptist church because they found out he was playing the fiddle at a wedding.”

Her father sang, though not professionally.

She performed with the Ten Little Maids, a group that toured the state during World War II.

“I was kind of a mascot,” she says. “I sang on the radio show then. I was kind of an unusual 2-year-old. I sang “In the Little Red Schoolhouse.” We sang “Home on the Range.” I sang “Daisy”. My family loved music. My father was a wonderful singer, but he didn’t work in the theater, I always took piano and dance lessons.

As a teenager, he traveled the country performing with Ned Novak’s Novettes.

Trice attended the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville on a music scholarship. He later earned a master’s degree in theater and taught theater at Little Rock’s Hall High School for about 18 years, performing on stages and sets in Arkansas.

Trice has been offered a role in something for the spring, but has yet to decide if she’ll take it.

“I’m not sure I should,” she says. “It’s like everyone who works and loves their career and the moment comes… it’s just a fact of life. But I had a great time.”

She’s grateful for the group she gets to work with at Gridiron — head choreographer Jana Beard, who owns the Shuffles; Jack-of-all-trades Janis Kovalescik; production coordinator Maggie Simpson; dance captain and choreographer Brian Earles; Rep staff and others, many of whom he has worked with on other projects.

“A lot of people I played with in Gridiron are no longer in it. They miss him a lot,” she says. “But thank God we have a new generation of young lawyers who like to perform and that’s great – they can go on.”

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