By Carmen Brown
Photos by Lisa Cheek
Lexi Bresnan recalls how upset she was when she first had to take a theater class at Homewood High School.
“The elective I wanted to take, photography, was all filled up, so I was just randomly put into a theater class,” she says. “I cried about it.”
Now, she looks back on that moment as a “happy accident.”
“In the class, Jason Kennah, the theater director, told me I could either take a test or do a short play,” she says. “I chose the play, and I was given the lead role. I think he did that on purpose because he knew I would like it.”
The play, which is titled, “A Simple Task,” is a comedy about a new employee, Empie, who is asked to get a box of inventory for her boss, but she keeps getting blocked by different characters. Her boss also keeps changing identities, causing Empie to question her career path.
Unlike her character, however, Lexi became more certain about her own.
“It was so much fun,” she says. “After that, I knew I wanted to keep going.”
And, keep going she has. Lexi’s career has taken her all over the country, but now she is back in her hometown, teaching and sharing her love of theater with children as the director of youth programs at Homewood Theatre, where she created and directs the all-new education department.
Returning to Homewood wasn’t her original plan. After graduating from Homewood High School in 2018, Lexi went on to major in theater performance at Belmont University. During college, she interned as a teaching artist for Nashville Children’s Theatre.
“I toured around and performed at different schools,” Lexi says. “That was the light of my life, and people were telling me I was doing what I was meant to do.”
In the middle of touring in January 2020, however, Lexi received terrible news. Her father, longtime Homewood Fire Chief John Bresnan, had passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack.
“He died at his desk at city hall,” Lexi says. “He was very dedicated. He died doing what he loved.”
Lexi says that she was very close with her father, whom she rode with on Homewood’s first-ever firetruck every year during the city’s Christmas parade.
“Neither of my parents are theatrical, but they were so supportive,” she says. “After seeing me in a show, he would say, ‘I have no idea what that was, but you did a great job.’”
Lexi was supportive of her father’s career as well, having looked up to him since she was a child. It was around this time, during her junior year of college, that she started getting interested in the administrative side of theater.
“I always admired his leadership skills and how children looked up to him, and I wanted to be like that, but I have no experience in firefighting,” she says with a laugh. “This is when I started doing more directing, producing and teaching.”
After graduating with her BFA from Belmont in 2022, Lexi became a teaching artist at the ZACH Theatre in Austin, Texas, where she also worked as a traveling actor for Creative Action. This was when she started to miss home.
“I missed them shutting down the streets for the Christmas parades,” Lexi says. “I missed the community support. I felt like a baby fish in a big pond. I had all these thoughts and ideas that I knew would not come to fruition there.”
Lexi says another factor in her decision was that in March 2023, she became an aunt for the first time to her niece, Alice.
“My brother, Kyle, lives in our old house, and Alice’s room is the same room I had growing up,” she says. “Besides my mom, I didn’t really have any prominent female figures in my life. I wanted to be in my niece’s life.”
With some encouragement from her best friend, Hannah, Lexi reached out to theaters in Birmingham, Mobile and Atlanta to inquire about teaching theater to children.
“I sent Kyle Bass [the director] a random email, and before long, we were on a Zoom call, and we decided this partnership would work,” she says.
Lexi moved back to Homewood in May 2023 and began teaching at the Homewood Theatre in August, collaborating with theater students from Samford University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“The number of children enrolling grew remarkably fast,” she says. “We had 14 in fall, 36 for “The Little Mermaid” and 45 in creative drama classes.”
Lexi teaches private classes as well voice and acting, which have also been successful.
“Right now, I have four-to-five students a week for voice lessons, and three or four for acting lessons a week,” she says.
Lexi also says she has put out flyers and created Facebook and Instagram pages for the Homewood Theatre’s new children’s theater opportunities. Word of mouth has also contributed to the growth of the program.
“It doesn’t stress me out,” Lexi says with a grin. “I love planning and putting things together.”
Lexi says she encourages parents, who think that their children are “too shy” or reluctant to take theater, as she once was, to consider all of the opportunities the theater has to offer.
“The theater is a really amazing place, where everyone can fit in,” she says. “It opens up a whole new world for kids, who want to be creative but don’t want to be in the spotlight.”
The Homewood Theatre is thrilled to partner with We Love Homewood Day 2024 to present “The Little Mermaid Jr.” on May 3, 2024, in Homewood Central Park.
For more information on shows or enrollment, visit homewoodtheatre.com or call 205-873-1816. For voice or acting lessons, contact Lexi at lexi@homewoodtheatre.com.
