By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Back in their students days at BGSU, Zach Robb and Nicole Tuttle were in several productions together.
Aside from their first play, the show on which they met, they actually had few scenes together. They were in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,”for example, but she was Hermia while he was Bottom, and the two characters occupy different spheres in Shakespeare’s world. The couple joked at the time about whether they’d ever share a scene.
Fast forward to six years since their 2017 graduation, and now they are now in the running for Broadway World Cleveland Awards for their roles in the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical “Into the Woods.” The production was staged last April by the Olde Towne Hall Theatre.
In the musical the now-married couple not only share a scene, but also a share a kiss. The irony being the Baker’s Wife, played by Nicole Tuttle-Robb, is cheating in this scene on her husband with the prince, played by Zach Tuttle-Robb, who is cheating on Cinderella.
Such are the plot complications of theater and the lives of the people who create it.
Both are nominated for the same honor, Best Performer in a Musical. And during an interview last month Zach reported his wife was ahead of him in the balloting. In a tight field she’s in second place.
Other BGSU grads were involved in the Vic DiAngelo directed and Bryan Bird served as music director. Both are up for top honors in the Broadway World Cleveland competition. Lisa Hirzel played Jack’s Mother.
Nicole had worked with Olde Towne Hall before, and she knew the production team, so she suggested she and Zach audition. They both had COVID when the auditions rolled around. The director agreed to let them submit a video, and on it they performed “Any Moment,” the romantic encounter between the Baker’s Wife and the prince. Zach said he suspects the director saw the advantage in casting them because then “we don’t have to coach two people who don’t know each other how to kiss each other.”
Then weeks before opening, the company lost the venue they were named for. Typical of the resilience of community theater, the troupe was able to find a new space in time to open.
Both Nicole and Zach have settled into the theatrical scene in Northeast Ohio.
Zach works as a stage carpenter, a skill he honed in the BGSU scene shop with Daniel Mangan. “He’s been working solidly at Cleveland Playhouse and in Playhouse Square,” Nicole said.
She works for Big Brother Big Sister. “I produced and ran their theater camp at Big Brother and had a chance to create a whole curriculum and teach kids who have never done theater.”
She directs community theater and does professional voice acting, dramas and business training videos.
“I’ve done some of that,” Zach added. “It’s been a blast.”
The Cleveland theater scene, they said, reminds them their time in Northwest Ohio.
Zach arrived at BG a year earlier than Nicole, but then had to take a year off because of financial issues.
When he returned in 2013, he was a member of the Treehouse Troupe, and through that had mutual friends with Nicole.
“We had a solid group of friends,” she said. They shared the news of auditions and forthcoming shows, would to auditions together, and then shared the stage. “They were very supportive.”
Zach and Nicole got to know each other in the Lionface Productions’ staging of the dark Charlie Brown parody “Dog Sees God.”
Zach played a character named C.B. , and Nicole played his sister. They did have scenes together and got to know each other off stage. By the end of the show, they were a couple.
They acted in BGSU productions and also performed with Lionface, Beautiful Kids Independent Shakespeare Company, Black Swamp Players, and 3B Productions.
With the Players, for example, Nicole performed in “The Dixie Swim Club” and Zach was in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” and “Moon over Buffalo.”
“We were having some fun,” Zach said. “Why not enjoy all the theater life while we were there.”
They graduated in 2017 and got jobs in the Climb Theatre, a children’s troupe in a suburb of Minneapolis. After a couple years, Nicole decided she may want to teach college or go into management, so earning a master’s degree would help. She returned to Bowling Green, in part because they offered full tuition scholarships.
She ended up working in the costume shop and found she enjoyed designing costumes. A skill that has served her well.
When the pandemic came, it disrupted not just their stage work, but their plans to get married. They ended up having to delay their wedding.
Also, Nicole had been cast in 3B Productions’ “Rock of Ages.” Delayed three times, it was the longest rehearsal period she’d experienced.
Then the company announced the show would finally be staged – the weekend before their wedding. She considered bowing out. But she’s a trouper. She knew the part, so the show went on with her in the role of a strip club owner. She’s not sure now it was the best. It was a very stressful time.
The couple continue to audition for shows. She will be directing “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast,” her first full length musical as a director. Zach’s eyeing parts in the musical “Avenue Q” and “She Kills Monsters.”
They both started learning the skills they needed to succeed in theater in high school. Zach was a kid who would skip lunch to hang out in the scene shop. Nicole similarly started doing costumes in high school. The school drama program was a one-woman show, and that one woman was her mother, so Nicole found herself contributing in many ways.
The couple “got instant gratification” when both were hired for full-time jobs at Climb right out of college, Zach said.
“The theater world is always moving, so flexibility is very important,” he said. “Maybe you’re not going to land exactly what you want to do immediately.” Still working in the field in any capacity demonstrates an actor’s flexibility and makes them more desirable when shows are being cast. An actor has to take advantage of any “opportunity to work on your craft even just on small things.”
Nicole added: “You can get paid for a lot more than just Broadway. There’s a lot of ways to make a living in theater if you broaden what you’re looking for.”
