Ryman Auditorium - Miscellany

Miscellany

• Ryman Auditorium has been featured in several movies, including Robert Altman's Nashville (1975) starring David Arkin, Barbara Baxley, Ned Beatty, and Karen Black; W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) starring Burt Reynolds, Jerry Reed, Ned Beatty, Don Williams, Mel Tillis, and Art Carney; Coal Miner's Daughter (1980) starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones; Clint Eastwood's Honkytonk Man (1982) ; and Sweet Dreams (1985) starring Jessica Lange and Ed Harris. Neil Young used the venue in his 2006 film Neil Young: Heart of Gold.
• The Ryman Auditorium was the venue for The Johnny Cash Show, which ran on the ABC network from 1969 to 1971.
• The Ryman Auditorium was named Pollstar Magazine's National Theatre of the Year for both 2003 and 2004, beating out such venues as New York's Radio City Music Hall and Hollywood's Gibson Universal Amphitheater. The venue also was named Theatre of the Year by Pollstar in 2010 and 2011, thereby winning the award 4 times in a ten-year span.
• Each dressing room behind the stage is dedicated to a legendary performer such as Johnny Cash and Minnie Pearl.
• When the Grand Ole Opry House opened in 1974, a circle approximately five feet in diameter was removed from the Ryman stage's original floor and inlaid into the stage floor in the new Opry House where it remains today behind the lead singer's microphone.
• The Grand Ole Opry currently returns to the Ryman Auditorium annually for a run from November through February.
• Because of the 2010 flooding of the Cumberland River that rendered the current Grand Ole Opry House temporarily unusable, the Ryman Auditorium became the primary venue for the Grand Ole Opry when it was available. This arrangement continued until the restored Opry House reopened on September 28, 2010. Because of its location away from the river, the Ryman Auditorium was unaffected by the flooding.
• A Prairie Home Companion's website dubbed the Ryman “God’s Own Listening Room” in the week leading up to a March 26, 2011 show at the venue.
• From 1968 through 1973, the Country Music Association's annual CMA Awards were in the Ryman, before moving to the new Opry in 1974.
• A fun fact about the Ryman is that during the early 1900s, the Ryman hosted two U.S. Presidents: President Teddy Roosevelt on Oct. 22, 1907 and President Taft on Nov. 9, 1911.
• Other notable, influential and historic speakers to lecture from the Ryman stage include Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy in 1913 (this was the Ryman’s first sold out event), Charlie Chaplin in 1918 and Eleanor Roosevelt in 1938.