Jeffrey Ellis - Page 25

Some 90 captivating minutes of creative, imaginative movement, Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project features the superb dancers of Nashville Ballet at their finest, bringing to life history in such a way that left their audiences rapt, riveted to the smallest of moments and the largest of themes as they are conveyed onstage to a stunning, stirring musical score.

Mary McCallum directs her latest play - Chasing Jeremy - for a February 16-24 run at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater.

The selection of The Threepenny Opera to inaugurate Street's 2018 season is one of the year's most eagerly anticipated theatrical events in Music City - thanks in part to the fact that it may well be the first home-grown staging of Brecht and Weill's parody of operetta that, in turn, skewers capitalistic society while touting socialist, even Troskyite, values in the guise of a rather farcical music hall diversion. Does it succeed? The answer is 'yes,' perhaps even an emphatic 'YES!' although one must pay close attention to the lyrics for the punch of the political set amidst a story that, on the surface, seems somewhat apolitical in tone, style and nature.

Neal Simon's Barefoot in the Park - described as "the perfect romantic comedy for the Valentine's season" - will open the newly created Warren Arts theater space at 605 Red Road in McMinnville, running February 22-March 4.

Voice students of critically acclaimed soprano Katherine Sandoval Taylor will be presented in a theatrical showcase on Saturday, February 10, at Murfreesboro's Washington Theatre at Patterson Park.

What perfect timing! Kudos to Nashville Children's Theatre executive artistic director Ernie Nolan and education director Alicia Lark Fuss (who does double duty as director of the play) for their impeccable midwinter choice of A Snowy Day as the venerable company's first show of 2018. That they had frigid temperatures and snowy conditions to herald the opening of A Snowy Day, playwright Jerome Hairston's adaptation of four stories by Caldecott winner Ezra Jack Keats, was indeed serendipitous, lending some of Mother Nature's authenticity to the show's launch.

Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, Nashville's iconic professional theater, opens its 2018 season - its 52nd! - with an entertaining, if somewhat overly long, production of Disney's Freaky Friday, the new musical with a starry musical theater pedigree.

Annie - the big-hearted Broadway musical about the comic strip heroine in search of her long-lost parents - opens Saturday, February 3, as the annual youth/volunteer production at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse.

Lipscomb University Theatre kicks off its spring semester this February with Eric Overmyer's On the Verge, running February 16-25 in Shamblin Theatre.

Four TPS fellows - chosen from a competitive application process - will work under the direction of Kenley Smith, director of the TPS program, to develop new full-length scripts to be presented in a public reading at the Darkhorse Theatre this fall. Two Associates will serve as alternates for the program and will contribute to monthly workshop sessions in the first year and will fill two TPS fellow positions in 2019. TPS will work with actors from the Nashville community for workshops and readings.

Sumptuously designed and opulently mounted, the visual aesthetic for the Lincoln Center revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I (a year-and-a-half into its national tour and now ensconced at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center for an eight-performance run through Sunday, February 4) is breathtakingly gorgeous, representative of the golden age of the Broadway musical. Add to those physical attributes the sublime performances of an ideally cast ensemble of multi-talented actors - including Laura Michelle Kelly as Anna Leonowens, Jose Llana as the King of Siam and Joan Amedilla as Lady Thiang - under the focused and imaginative direction of Bartlett Sher, whose revivals of some of the best-known masterpieces to be found in the Rodgers and Hammerstein canon have cemented his placement in the firmament occupied by the legends of musical theater, and you have a classic show rendered in such a way that audiences respond and react as if they are seeing the much-beloved and time-honored work for the very first time.

More than two dozen young actors in Tennessee were named to the Class of 2018 Most Promising Actors during festivities at Midwinter's First Night, the event produced to recognize outstanding productions and personalities of the previous year's theatrical season.

Ernie Nolan, executive artistic director of Nashville Children's Theatre, and Norma Luther, who took over ownership of Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre and spearheaded its renaissance in 2017, last night claimed top honors as "Theaterati of the Year" at Midwinter's First Night at Music Valley Event Center.

Wonderfully complex - and somehow unexpected and altogether authentic - performances from Sam Ashdown as Hamlet and Cheryl White as his mother Gertrude are enough reason to experience Nashville Shakespeare Festival's production of Hamlet (now onstage at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre through Sunday, followed by January 31-February 3 performances at Middle Tennessee State University's Tucker Theatre). But add to their stellar turns, an ensemble comprised of some of the best actors ever to set foot on a local stage, under the self-assured direction of the esteemed Denice Hicks (the company's artistic director), and it practically becomes a requirement for any theater lover within the sound of my voice.

Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter, producer and actress Lari White Cannon who made her Broadway debut in the Johnny Cash musical review Ring of Fire died early this morning in Nashville after a battle with peritoneal cancer. She was 52 years old.

Design categories, road shows, theatrical events and the 12 people whose achievements in 2017 are particularly noteworthy were revealed tonight as part two of First Night's Top Ten of 2018 - critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual review of the best in Tennessee theater was presented during a live Facebook broadcast with two of the hosts of Midwinter's First Night (Ashley Wolfe and J. Robert Lindsay) announcing the work recognized among the best of 2017.

Based on the 1988 film by John Waters, Hairspray tells the tuneful story of Tracy Turnblad, who has never been part of the 'in' crowd until winning a coveted spot on the local TV dance program, The Corny Collins Show, where she becomes a teen idol and an overnight sensation in Baltimore. Tracy quickly becomes a trendsetter and uses her popularity to help change the show's segregation policy.

Cumberland County Playhouse launches its 54th season in Crossville with a slate of productions that range from exciting new Broadway shows, noteworthy premieres and revivals of audience favorites.

With Nashville Shakespeare Festival's annual Winter Shakespeare production set to open Thursday night Denice Hicks' staging of Hamlet, starring Sam Ashdown actress Cheryl White, who plays Gertrude, found time between rehearsals to talk about the production.

First Night's Top Ten for 2018 - critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual review of the best in Tennessee theater were revealed last night during a live Facebook broadcast, with the hosts of Midwinter's First Night (Ashley Wolfe, J. Robert Lindsay, Tosha Pendergrast and Ben Pendergrast) announcing the productions and performances recognized among the best of 2017.