Carmen Cusack the standby, Jemma Rix, had been given the lead role. Cusack was with the company from June 10 to July 10, 2009. She left to begin rehearsals for "South Pacific". In 2009, Cusack played Nellie Forbush in the first national tour of "South Pacific". Based on the 2008 Broadway revival, performances began September 18, 2009 in San Francisco. For this role Cusack was nominated for the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Non Resident Production. In 2012, she played the role of Miss Gardner in the Off-Broadway revival of "Carrie - The Musical", which began performances at
Edward Howe Forbush was appointed Curator of Ornithology of the Society's museum. When he was nineteen, he mounted an expedition to Florida — this would be the first of many trips he took around the United States to study birds. In 1893, Forbush was appointed Ornithologist to the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. His primary studies at this time were "economic ornithology" — that is, determining whether a given species of bird was beneficial or detrimental to agriculture. In 1908 he became the Massachusetts State Ornithologist. He was a founder of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He was also first president of the Northeastern