{"id":16777,"date":"2022-02-03T15:05:32","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T21:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=16777"},"modified":"2022-02-10T13:47:12","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T19:47:12","slug":"harding-alumna-takes-stage-in-little-rock-production-of-designing-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2022\/02\/03\/harding-alumna-takes-stage-in-little-rock-production-of-designing-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Harding alumna takes stage in Little Rock production of \u2018Designing Women\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo by Madison Meyer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harding alumna Abby Smith remembered sitting in the audience of shows at the Arkansas Repertory Theater in Little Rock when she was in college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ve always thought, \u2018Oh, that would be really cool to perform at that theater,\u2019\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actress took the stage at The Rep on Jan. 18 for opening night of the play \u201cDesigning Women,\u201d which was based on the \u201980s television sitcom of the same name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  The play follows the show\u2019s original group of four women who run a design firm in the South as they adapt to life in 2020, according to The Rep\u2019s website. Smith plays Haley McFee, a new character who was not in the television series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actress said she was not in the cast of \u201cDesigning Women\u201d that ran last fall in Fayetteville. However, she got a callback in November to audition for a spot in the Little Rock production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith said she typically performed in musicals, so \u201cDesigning Women\u201d was the first play she had booked in a long time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m such a musical person that I have to find energy in the show in different ways than letting dancing or singing boost me,\u201d Smith said. \u201cBut it\u2019s cool because it\u2019s a small cast, and it\u2019s mostly women, so it\u2019s really fun to sort of find that camaraderie with the women and the cast.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith visited Harding on Tuesday, Jan. 25, to speak with students in a theater forum. Theater professor Ben Jones said Smith talked about her journey after college, which included returning to her home state of Texas, attending graduate school and moving to New York City. Smith made her Broadway debut in 2017 as Mrs. Puff and as an ensemble member in \u201cSpongeBob SquarePants: the Broadway Musical.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones said Smith emphasized the importance of working hard and making sacrifices to achieve one\u2019s own version of success, whether pursuing a career on Broadway or finding joy in a job elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the things that she mentioned was loving the work that you\u2019re doing, finding a way to figure out: What is it that you love about it, and how can you do that?\u201d Jones said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freshman Mason Smith, who is related to Abby Smith through his father\u2019s side of the family, said he met the actress on a trip to New York to see \u201cSpongeBob\u201d on Broadway. The freshman said Abby Smith has given advice to help him achieve his own goal of performing on Broadway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s really helped point that drive and passion I have towards specific goals along my path to help me overcome them and get better,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Josie Holman said Abby Smith seemed like a caring and joyful person at the forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really was very thankful that she gave her time to come speak with us,\u201d Holman said. \u201cShe was a really, really neat person to talk to and was very real and honest with us and very encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Madison Meyer Harding alumna Abby Smith remembered sitting in the audience of shows at the Arkansas Repertory Theater in Little Rock when she was in college. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15203,"featured_media":16769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}