Jeffrey Ellis - Page 12

Avante Garage Theatre Company, the award-winning company originally based in Nashville before its founders moved to New York City, will debut its first Los Angeles production this summer at The Avery Schreiber Playhouse in the NOHO Arts District:  the world premiere of The Favorite by Joe Correll, co-artistic director, along with Avante Garage founder Michael Bouson.

Lynn Nottage's Sweat - her 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the impact of economics, immigration laws and differing political views and, in turn, their effect on interpersonal relationships - is given its second mounting in two months in Nashville theater, with the Alicia Haymer-directed production from Street Theatre Company. Now running through May 25, Sweat offers a searing indictment of the political climate in which we live and interprets in some personal detail just how we've managed to come to this very point in our nation's history.

After 15 years with the company, Rene Copeland, longtime artistic director for Nashville Repertory Theatre, is stepping down from her position with the organization, according to details included in a joint statement from the company's board of directors and Copeland, herself.

With Joseph, which opened last night at Franklin's Jamison Theater inside The Factory at Franklin, further establishes its brand: presenting exceptional musical theater with production qualities that might rival Broadway, performed by a cast (a dreamcast, if you will) made up of actors from Nashville, New York and various and sundry points in between. The show's title role is entrusted to New York-based Jesse Michels, who oozes great charm and is fairly dripping in sex appeal which ensures the audience is riveted to his performance - but it's his gorgeous baritenor and prominent stage presence that makes certain this production of Joseph is so appealing and we daresay noteworthy.

It's that time of the week, theater lovers! With the weekend set to kick off at any moment - personally, we like to consider Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. the official start of the weekend (that's directed primarily to the Dowager Countess of Grantham who quite clearly didn't understand what actually constitutes a 'weekend') - so we are back with a few suggestions of our own to help make your job easier. There are some new shows opening, others which are continuing their runs and still more which will be winding up their slate of performances this weekend!

Les Miserables School Edition - the musical adaptation for younger actors of Victor Hugo's timeless and iconic novel about the life of Jean Valjean - is next up for Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts May 17-June 2. Hugo's emotional, touching and uplifting story set to music follows an ex-convict through 19th century France as he creates a new life for himself. Directed by Denise Parton, this production features a cast of students who are 18 years old or younger.

McMinnville's Cumberland Caverns Live is gearing up for a banner slate of performances this weekend May 18 and 19, featuring acclaimed, genre-defying outfit Deer Tick, along with opening act Courtney Marie Andrews, who will be making a special stop Saturday, May 18, and Americana luminaries The Band of Heathens (with their opening act Cordovas) hitting the stage on Sunday.

Studio Tenn will close out its ninth season with Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, opening at the Jamison Theater in Franklin on Friday, May 17, and continuing through June 2. Jesse Michels takes on the title role, with Studio Tenn favorite Laura Matula as the Narrator.

Two Davidson County high school students - Lilla Galgoczy-Toler of Nashville School of the Arts and Trenton McCrary of John Overton High School - took home Outstanding Lead Actress and Actor honors at the 2019 Spotlight Awards on Saturday. The duo will travel to New York to compete nationally in The Jimmy Awards (www.JimmyAwards.com) on June 24.

Now would seem the perfect time for a Nashville revival of Christopher Hampton's Les Liasions Dangereuses - an intriguing play about powerful men subjugating women to their sexual domination, private missives between aristocrats made public in order to cause embarrassment, and any perceptibly well-meaning act of charity is undermined by far baser instincts - which is perhaps best known for the movies it has inspired: Dangerous Liaisons and Cruel Intentions.

Now onstage through Mother's Day (Sunday, May 12) in a much anticipated and gleefully subversive production from Nashville Opera, The Cradle Will Rock remains hard to define: It could be described as a work of art whose meaning, its very raison d'etre, can be bent to suit any conceivable justification. Variously, Blitzstein described his 1937 work as a 'play in music' or an 'opera for actors' and its history clearly paints it as either or even as both.

Today, we continue with our in-depth look at the Ingram New Works Project with a conversation with Nate Eppler, Nashville Rep's playwright-in-residence, whose work with the new playwrights has been an integral part of the experience since it first began. Eppler's new play, This Red Planet, will be given its world premiere production by Nashville Rep during its upcoming 2019-20 season.

It's another busy weekend in Nashville - but when is Music City not packed with events, festivals, affairs? - and we're back with our Critic's Choice recommendations to have you cut through the theatrical flotsam and jetsam and find a cultural opening that's a good fit for your harried lifestyle. Nashville Opera opens its staging of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock at Noah Liff Opera Center, Way Off Broadway Productions unveils its version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Music Valley Event Center, Street Theatre Company invites you to the see their staging of Lynn Nottage's Sweat at their new venue on Elm Hill Pike and Nashville Rep continues its celebration of 10 years of The Ingram New Works Festival at Nashville Children's Theatre.

Today, we continue with our series of interviews, The Play's the Thing, focusing on the four emerging playwrights and their new works which will premiere over the next ten days at the Ingram New Works Festival. Next up is Dean Poynor, whose play The Second Avenue Subway will have its premiere public exposure in Nashville.

Today, we continue a series of feature stories, focusing on the four emerging playwrights and their new works which will premiere over the next ten days at the Ingram New Works Festival. First up is Lindsay Joelle, whose play The Messengers will have its premiere public exposure in Nashville.

Today, we begin a series of feature stories, focusing on the four emerging playwrights and their new works which will premiere over the next ten days at the Ingram New Works Festival. First up is Riti Sachdeva, whose play Welcome to the Taj Palace (motel) will have its premiere public reading in Nashville.

Directed with grace and wit by Tennessee Women's Theater Project founder Maryanna Clarke, Sistas the Musical is now onstage through May 19 at The Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, located conveniently just off Rosa Parks Boulevard in north Nashville, a historically black enclave that has been central to the civil rights struggles of the citizens of Tennessee's capital city.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Christopher Hampton's acclaimed 1985 play based on the 1782 novel of the same name by Pierre Cholderlos de Laclos - opens as the latest offering from Nashville's Way Off Broadway Productions, running May 10-June 2 at Music Valley Event Center.

It only takes a moment to realize that composer/lyricist Jerry Herman, aided and abetted by book writer Michael Stewart (with an able assist from Thornton Wilder), knew exactly what he was doing when he created the classic Broadway musical Hello, Dolly!: put together a star vehicle for a quintessential theater diva, surround her with characters both irascible and lovable, then give them all a score that's delightfully hummable and danceable and a script that's appealingly daft, maybe even a little goofy.

That fact is proven every time we see a new staging of the Rachel Sheinkin/William Finn show, originally conceived by Rebecca Feldman. Now onstage at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts, in an immersive production directed by Rachel Jones and brought to life by a stellar cast of promising young actors, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee guarantees every audience member will be engaged by the onstage antics of its young stars and the adults in their make-believe world who are responsible for ensuring the bee - rife with intrigue and true-blue competitive spirit - comes off without a hitch.