Nancy Lane Wright, 82, an award-winning director and founder of the Dance-Theatre Workshop here who died Wednesday, was remembered by colleagues for her inspiration and energy.
Under her tutelage, theater students became actors on television and Broadway, and dancers joined professional companies such as the Pennsylvania Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Canadian Ballet and the Martha Graham Company.
“Nancy was an inspirational director who always took the time to give the actors that little extra to make their performance better,” said Mike Tulloss, producer of the Oak Street Playhouse, where she directed many plays and musicals. “She was always a people person and a delight to work with. Everyone at Oak Street is saddened by the loss.”
Mrs. Wright won directing awards at the Chattanooga Little Theatre (now the Chattanooga Theatre Centre) and was awarded the chair of excellence at the Chattanooga Center for Creative Arts, which honored her in 2005 with a tribute at Miller Park.
Kit Steakley, a longtime board member at the Chattanooga Theatre Centre, said she was instrumental in the theater increasing its musical offerings.
“We called on her and her students (from the Dance-Theatre Workshop),” he said. “She was quite an asset to us. Then we started doing musicals regularly, and she choreographed a lot of them.”
Mrs. Wright also received the Junior League of Chattanooga’s Community Service Award.
Abroad, she taught arts classes through Children’s International Summer Villages in France, Norway and Germany, and led master classes in dance in Brazil and China.
Even after medical problems forced Mrs. Wright to spend the final 17 years of her life in a wheelchair, she continued teaching and traveling.
Before moving to Chattanooga in 1972, she taught in the theater department at Georgia State University. Mrs. Wright held both a bachelor’s and master’s degree, having attended Northwestern University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Mississippi.
She was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Chattanooga, where a celebration of her life will be held May 15 at 2 p.m.