The Webb Experience
Train Like A Professional, Excel After Webb
Our program offers a disciplined excellence in education, performance skill, individual growth, and presentational skill no matter if a student begins at a beginning or advanced level. It inspires students to seek masters in their chosen area of performance or technical expertise.
Our graduates have gone on to perform successfully in professional productions, television, film, performed in University productions, received scholarships, become teachers, designers, local representatives, and represent Webb on our alumni board.
Grow your skills under the direction of a professional actor
Ruth Cordell serves as Webb's Theatre Director. A recognized actress with 45+ years of experience in television, film and theatre. Cordell works closely with Webb students as a Director of Theatre Production, Introduction to the Theatre, Speech teacher, and International Thespian Society Troupe Director. Under her direction, Webb students have been invited and accepted to perform in the American High School Theatre Festival at the internationally acclaimed "The Fringe Festival" in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2011 (The Rivals) and again in 2024, bringing home The Storyweaver Award 2024.
A member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA. Cordell has a professional background in acting and directing, classical dance, corporeal mime, and ballroom and is an avid equestrian.
Our Theatre Program and Performance Spaces
With two full productions a year, rehearsals three to five days a week, classes in beginning and advanced levels of acting and theatre, one-act productions, and trips to see plays in Nashville, The Webb School is the perfect place to study theatre. Under the guidance of a director and the helpful and skillful maintenance department that share expertise, students run every part of the major productions.
The Black Box Studio
What is a simple, flexible, has four black walls and ceiling, a flat floor, typically minimalistic, usually square, saves costs, creates intimacy, has a rich history and global presence, accommodating several styles of staging (thrust, arena, round, triangular), and is a great training ground for performance?
The Black Box Studio, and The Webb School has one.
Follin Chapel Stage
What is a proscenium (pro scene) or picture frame, flat to the audience type theatre, usually equipped with a grand drape, teasers, legs, and travelers, a cyclorama, has mostly wood surfaces, advanced tech, sound and lights for creating magic, a counterweight fly system, a scene shop, a green room, dressing rooms, and loading docks? Our Follin Chapel Stage does a very nice interpretation of a Production Theatre.
The World Is Your Stage
Webb’s theatre program offers an opportunity for our performing students to travel abroad to perform and compete in the largest performing arts festival in the world, participate in workshops led by master performers and technicians, make friends from all over the world, and earn three hours of college credit.
The Webb Company Players have participated in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - the world’s largest and most prestigious performing arts festival - in Edinburgh, Scotland in both 2011 and 2024. Webb was one of 48 schools selected among hundreds of applicants.
In 2024, Webb students performed an original piece: THE BARD AND THE RIVERBOAT with Mark Twain and William Shakespeare as unparalleled masters of language, wit, and drama in the American High School Theatre Festival at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe returning with The Storyweaving Award. Their words were brought to life celebrating genius, illuminating artistic fervor, affirming timeless significance and a shared love of language and storytelling.
