Photo: Stan BarouhJacob Shipley as John Newton with Eleanor Todd as Mary Catlett in the nationally touring production of the musical 'Amazing Grace.' The show stops Tuesday, Jan. 30, in Valdosta as part of the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts Presenter Series.

VALDOSTA — Talent, and maybe a bit of grace, has actor Jacob Shipley already playing the lead in a nationally touring musical after only graduating with a theatre degree last spring.

Shipley plays John Newton, the lead character in the tour of the Broadway show “Amazing Grace.” The musical is scheduled to play South Georgia, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 30, Mathis City Auditorium, 2300 N. Ashley St.

The show began its current national tour last week, Shipley said in a phone interview hours before performing in the show at a stop in Muncie, Ind. He graduated in May 2017 from Ithaca College in New York State.

With only a few performances under his belt, he said he is not yet tired of the tour bus and is enjoying the challenge of playing Newton.

Before being converted and composing the beloved “Amazing Grace,” Newton was a slave trader. A man who was irreverent and godless.

“For most of the show, the audience should hate him,” Shipley said of Newton. “He was a bad man most of his life. It is challenging and exciting to play a character who goes through these changes and finds redemption.

“The challenge is to get the audience to hate me during the first part of the show then turn them around to liking me by the end of it.”

The 2017-18 Presenter Series opened in November with “50 Years of Rock & Roll.” The season concludes April 23 with the Tony Award-winning musical “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.”

 

 

 

SHOWTIME

Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts Presenter Series presents the nationally touring musical “Amazing Grace.”

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 30.

Where: Mathis City Auditorium, 2300 N. Ashley St.

An optional pre-show dinner is available in the multi-purpose room at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Tickets, more information: Call the arts center, (229) 247-2787; or visit www.turnercenter.org, or 527 N. Patterson St.