Dietz Osborne News

Directed by Nate Eppler, Here Lies Jeremy Troy stars Rebekah Durham, Andy Kanies, Jennifer Richmond, Will Sevier and Lane Wright. Eppler, in addition to acting and directing, is a playwright and teaching artist based in Nashville. His plays include Keeping Up With the Joneses, The Shorty Hawkins Play, Modern Love and Long Way Down. Eppler is the recipient of both the Tennessee Arts Commission Professional Development Support Grant and the Individual Artist Fellowship. He is playwright-in-residence for Tennessee Repertory Theatre. (more...)

Granted, most of my research can be credited to two plays by J. Dietz Osborne and Nate Eppler (known professionally as the eponymously named Osborne and Eppler, in the spirit of Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kaufman and Hart and George and Ira…Gershwin…which sorta ruins the sound of my sentence, but what can you do?), an impressive and noteworthy Nashville playwriting team, who seemingly have cornered the theatrical market on such Dixiefied ceremonies and celebrations in their comedies Southern Fried Funeral (which was debuted by Franklin’s Bethlehem Players in 2010) and Southern Fried Nuptials (now onstage at Bethlehem Methodist Church in its world premiere production). I’ll be sure to include them in the footnotes when my findings are published. (more...)

Plays and playwrights selected for this edition of the Ten Minute Playhouse are: Dropped Call by Garret Schneider, Lyla Builds a Spaceship by Darren Van Michael, Double Header by Brooke Bryant & Carolyn German, Unfortunate Introduction by James Skelley, Ecotone by Ritchie Simmons, Atheist's Surprise by Joe Giordano, Types by Sean Hills, Bobby Met His Father by Thomas Heine, ReinCarnival by Rachael Swann, World’s Finest Team-Ups! by Bob Giordano, Mr. Baxter Learns a Lesson by Laura Cockarell and Cold Fish by Nate Eppler. (more...)

Will Butler is pretty jazzed up about playing Eugene Morris Jerome in Circle Players’ upcoming production of Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs which might be due, in part, to the fact that he’s pretty certain he’s got all the lines down pat. But the real reason he’s excited is that Brighton Beach marks his return—it’s kind of a comeback for the young actor—to the Nashville stage since his “senior capstone project” at Belmont University in 2010. (more...)

Bethlehem Players will find themselves back in Mississippi this spring with the premiere of Southern Fried Nuptials, as the Frye family struggles to marry off daughter Harline in the latest comedy from Dietz Osborne and Nate Eppler, the award-winning playwrights of Southern Fried Funeral, the critically acclaimed comedy that first introduced the Magnolia State family, their friends and kinfolk. (more...)

In recognition of The Barn’s 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actress Amanda Lamb, who made her debut at The Barn in the 2005, and who handled phone duties for the company for a number of years before heading back to graduate school. Luckily, for local audiences, she’s still available to work on some shows from time-to-time and luckily, for us, she found time to offer her backstage/onstage/offstage memories of Nashville’s legendary dinner theater. (more...)

In recognition of The Barn’s 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actor Lane Wright, one of Nashville’s most easily recognizable actors, who most recently starred in The Rainmaker and right now is onstage at Nashville’s Z. Alexander Looby Theatre in The Disappearance of Janey Jones, presented by Tennessee Women’s Theater Project (which is directed by Maryanna Clarke, herself a Barn alum). (more...)

In recognition of The Barn’s 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actor Mark Delabarre, who made his debut at The Barn in the 1997 production of Sugar Babies—the Broadway musical comedy hit that actually got its start at the Clarence Brown Theatre at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. And like Nancy Allen and Dietz Osborne (the first two Barn alums to take part in our continuing series), Delabarre’s memories of working at the theater are vivid, funny and heartfelt. (more...)

Now owned by the second-generation Chaffins—John and Janie, who were recognized among Nashville’s Top Entrepreneurs of 2012 by Business Leader Magazine—The Barn has touched the lives of many, both onstage and off-, and today we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actor/director/playwright Dietz Osborne, who made his debut at The Barn in a 1998 production of Guys and Dolls—and up until recently, his was the voice you heard on the company’s voice mail system directing you which number to push when you call in to make reservations, inquire about group events or to buy a gift certificate. (more...)

Will Butler is pretty jazzed up about playing Eugene Morris Jerome in Circle Players’ upcoming production of Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs which might be due, in part, to the fact that he’s pretty certain he’s got all the lines down pat. But the real reason he’s excited is that Brighton Beach marks his return—it’s kind of a comeback for the young actor—to the Nashville stage since his “senior capstone project” at Belmont University in 2010. (more...)

Will Butler is pretty jazzed up about playing Eugene Morris Jerome in Circle Players’ upcoming production of Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs which might be due, in part, to the fact that he’s pretty certain he’s got all the lines down pat. But the real reason he’s excited is that Brighton Beach marks his return—it’s kind of a comeback for the young actor—to the Nashville stage since his “senior capstone project” at Belmont University in 2010. (more...)

Try as they might, director Martha Wilkinson and her talented ensemble of actors just can’t breathe enough life into a thin, tepid script to make it work onstage for audiences eager to be entertained. Virginia Cate and Duke Ernsberger’s Elvis Has Left The Building is pleasant enough, with a promising premise, yet it falls flat despite the best efforts of the cast and crew putting forth the new production at Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre. (more...)

What is described as "an incredible slice of Broadway" comes to Franklin for the sixth annual Broadway at Bethlehem – Divas & Desserts benefit on Saturday, February 18 with an array of talented performers including Broadwayworld.com award-winning actors Dietz Osborne and Martha Wilkinson co-hosting and featuring singers Megan Murphy Chambers, Melodie Madden Adams, Laura Matula, Kandace Williams and Maggie McNulty at the Bethlehem United Methodist Church, Performing Arts Center, 2419 Bethlehem Loop Road in Franklin, Tennessee. (more...)

Nate Eppler, the two-time First Night Award winning playwright of Southern Fried Funeral (with Dietz Osborne) and Long Way Down, will unveil his latest stage comedy with the premiere of Modern Love, running January 12-February 12 at Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre. (more...)

What is described as "an incredible slice of Broadway" comes to Franklin for the sixth annual Broadway at Bethlehem – Divas & Desserts benefit on Saturday, February 18 with an array of talented performers including Broadwayworld.com award-winning actors Dietz Osborne and Martha Wilkinson co-hosting and featuring singers Megan Murphy Chambers, Melodie Madden Adams, Laura Matula, Kandace Williams and Maggie McNulty at the Bethlehem United Methodist Church, Performing Arts Center, 2419 Bethlehem Loop Road in Franklin, Tennessee. (more...)

Eppler’s obvious affection for the genre is apparent from the play’s very first moments—Caldwell gives a high-spirited reading of his role, delivering Eppler’s tongue-twisting dialogue with high caliber self-assurance, while Gore makes the first of his hilarious appearances in the play—and he once again displays his deft hand at creating believable dialogue that’s sharply witty and wondrously clever. The ease with which his characters rattle off the repartee he has written is largely because of his gift of gab, but it also points to the sure-handed direction of the piece by Martha Wilkinson (no stranger herself to the wonderful words cobbled together by Eppler), and the performances of the five-member cast who give life to the scriptbound characters. (more...)

Nate Eppler, the two-time First Night Award winning playwright of Southern Fried Funeral (with Dietz Osborne) and Long Way Down, will unveil his latest stage comedy with the premiere of Modern Love, running January 12-February 12 at Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre. (more...)

Playwright Nate Eppler, Mas Nashville’s FIVE, the Boiler Room Theatre, Lipscomb University’s Hairspray, ACT 1’s American Buffalo and the national touring company of Memphis, the Musical were the top winners at Sunday night’s Midwinter’s First Night at Nashville’s Keeton Theatre, which also featured the presentation of the BroadwayWorld.com Nashville and Tennessee theatre awards. (more...)

Nate Eppler, the two-time First Night Award winning playwright of Southern Fried Funeral (with Dietz Osborne) and Long Way Down, will unveil his latest stage comedy with the premiere of Modern Love, running January 12-February 12 at Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre. (more...)

There's just 4 weeks left to go in voting for the 2011 Nashville Awards and here is the latest update! Have you voted yet, and helped to spread the word to support your favorites in the hopes that they will be the recipients of a 2011 BroadwayWorld Nashville Award? There is no time to waste, click on the voting link and make your opinion count! Below are the stats so far as of Tuesday November 29, 2011. (more...)