Gary Hoff News

There's the definite feeling of autumn in the air that makes you want to gut a pumpkin or at least have a pumpkin spice latte, chances are you are definitely going to need a sweater in the early morning hours, and it's past the perfect time for you to pick out a Halloween costume. Luckily, theater companies are well into their new seasons and there's plenty of shows to entertain you while you take time off from berating yourself for wearing that same tricked-out Star Wars costume you wore the past fwo-and-one-half years.

We're back! After an extended absence due to The Last Five Years (we directed it to boffo notices from our critical colleagues), The 2015 First Night Honors (which played to SRO crowds at Chaffin's Barn in September) and a sense of overwhelming malaise and ennui (we are ever so dramatic at times), BWW Nashville's Critic's Choice is back on the interwebs, offering you our insights and advice on the shows that are coming up and what you should try to find time to see - or to avoid at all costs, depending on our perspective.

The New York Philharmonic will present Rachmaninoff: A Philharmonic Festival, November 10-28, 2015, featuring 24-year-old Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov performing three of the composer's piano concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini over the course of three consecutive all-Rachmaninoff programs, each led by a different conductor: Cristian Macelaru (in his Philharmonic debut), Neeme Jarvi, and Ludovic Morlot.

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to present its production of the Tony Award-winning comedy ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, running tonight, October 8, through October 31, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (The Wallis -- Tania Camargo, Managing Director; Patricia Wolff, Interim Artistic Director; James D'Asaro, Interim Producing Director) announce Artistic Advisors and programming for the 2015-2016 Season, opening October 1-3 with Twyla Tharp: a 50th Anniversary Celebration, a program of new work by Ms. Tharp, co-commissioned by The Wallis (in partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Joyce Theatre, Ravina Festival Association & Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University and Texas International Theatrical Arts Society).

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to present its production of the Tony Award-winning comedy ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, running October 8-31, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to present its production of the Tony Award-winning comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, running October 8-31, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

Nashville Repertory Theatre opens its 2015-16 season with the Pultizer Prize-nominated contemporary play Rapture, Blister, Burn, running tonight, September 3, and playing through September 19, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

Nashville Repertory Theatre opens its 2015-16 season with the Pultizer Prize-nominated contemporary play Rapture, Blister, Burn, running September 3-19, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

Nashville Repertory Theatre opens its 2015-16 season with the Pultizer Prize-nominated contemporary play Rapture, Blister, Burn, running September 3-19, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

The remarkable young Taiwanese-American pianist Weiyin Chen concludes her three-part concert series at SubCulture with a solo recital of piano sonatas by Bartok and Schubert and a world premiere by distinguished American composer Marc Neikrug.

The remarkable young Taiwanese-American pianist Weiyin Chen concludes her three-part concert series at SubCulture with a solo recital of piano sonatas by Bartok and Schubert and a world premiere by distinguished American composer Marc Neikrug.

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (The Wallis -- Tania Camargo, Managing Director; Patricia Wolff, Interim Artistic Director; James D'Asaro, Interim Producing Director) announce Artistic Advisors and programming for the 2015-2016 Season, opening October 1-3 with Twyla Tharp: a 50th Anniversary Celebration, a program of new work by Ms. Tharp, co-commissioned by The Wallis (in partnership with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The Joyce Theatre, Ravina Festival Association & Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University and Texas International Theatrical Arts Society).

Now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre as the season-ending production from Nashville Repertory Theatre, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike has a lot to say and, for the most part, it does so with vigor and bite. Durang's play somehow remains an artful blending of hilarity and gloom that succeeds on many levels, credit for which is due both writer and director, in this case Nashville's own imaginative visionary aka Nate Eppler.

Props master Evelyn Pearson is a wealth of information and insight into the set design, story, and props of the shows that Nashville Repertory Theatre produces. In the midst of tech week and opening weekend, she was kind enough to take some time to answer questions regarding the newest production, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, written by Christopher Durang.

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to present its newest production Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, the delightfully hilarious Tony Award-winning comedy. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike runs tonight, April 9-25, 2015 at Andrew Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Hitting perhaps too close to home for some and harkening back to memories best left unrecalled, while challenging audiences to examine their own lives, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman remains an emotional, visceral theatrical masterpiece. Now, through March 28, it is vividly recaptured, like so much lightening in a bottle, in a deeply affecting production from Nashville Rep, directed with finesse by Rene D. Copeland and acted by an all-star cast of Nashville performers who together create a stunningly specific place in time that somehow is timeless and universal.

Nashville Repertory Theatre will present its newest production Death of a Salesman, the classic, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. Death of a Salesman runs tonight, March 12-28, 2015 at Andrew Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to present its newest production Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, the delightfully hilarious Tony Award-winning comedy. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike runs April 9-25, 2015 at Andrew Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

PITTSBURGH - It's going to get hot in Heinz Hall during the BNY Mellon Grand Classics: Stravinsky's Firebird this weekend, March 6-8.