Jeffrey Ellis - Page 37

With tech week taking up virtually every moment of their lives this week, the talented foursome - and their equally impressive co-director - found time to answer our Friday 5 (+1) questions to offer some insight into what makes them tick, what the creative process is like for each of them and to explain why you should come see their show.

While everyone up in Crossville, it seems, is getting ready for Friday night's opening of Million Dollar Quartet at Cumberland County Playhouse, we were able to convince Molly Dobbs, who plays Dyanne (that's Elvis' main squeeze in the show), to give us an insider's look at what goes on to make the big night as big as it could very possibly be!

The power of theater to transport and to transform is felt most acutely - experienced most vividly - in Simon Stephens' play Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, based upon the novel of the same name by Mark Haddon, now onstage at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall through Sunday. The winner of multiple Tony Awards from its Broadway run and numerous Olivier Awards for its London production, it is one of the most involving, most intricately crafted and thoroughly immersive theater experiences one could hope to have - and it is quite unlike anything you've ever seen before.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! We hope you are feeling hale and hearty this morning as we pose the musical question: Do you have tickets to see The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (running at TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall through Sunday)? If not, make every effort to get downtown to see the show. It's truly remarkable and you will be moved more than you could possibly imagine. So there! Get to it!

John and Jen - Andrew Lippa's musical about the relationship of two siblings by those names - opens this weekend as Street Theatre Company follows up its successful production of Lucky Stiff with a collaboration featuring interns from the Nashville Repertory Theatre Professional Intern Program.

Look up the term "multi-hyphenate" in the dictionary and right beside it you will see a photograph of young Ryan Bowie (go ahead, look it up, we've got all the time in the world for you to question our veracity), the actor-director-artistic director-arts administrator-all-around-good-guy, who through no fault of our own has seized control of @BWW_Nashville's Twitter account.

Meanwhile, you can cast your eyes toward today's photogenic cover models, the lovely and talented Cooper and his human, Nashville actress/designer Ashley Wolfe - both of them are pretty swell, in our estimation (even deserving of a Tony Award), and while we worry about them taking selfies while driving and while catching up on the theatrical news every morning, we are assured they were at a full stop when this photo was snapped. In fact, according to the human member of the duo she hadn't yet turned her key to the on position.

Five new plays - including one by Christopher Durang - will be unveiled in Music City next month, as Nashville Repertory Theatre today announces the lineup for the 2017 Ingram New Works Festival taking place in Nashville May 10 -20.

Cumberland County Playhouse will present Million Dollar Quartet, the Tony Award-winning musical that electrified Broadway, on the Mainstage in Crossville, running April 28-June 9.

Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts presents Little Shop of Horrors on its mainstage, April 28 through May 21. Renee Robinson directs a cast that includes Matthew Hayes Hunter as Seymour Krelbourn, Lindsay Pfeiffer as Audrey and Howard Snyder as Mr. Mushnik, owner of the eponymous "little shop."

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! We wish you a wonderful start to your work week while posing the musical question: Are you as water-logged as we are? The rains in Tennessee over the weekend are, according to the Weather Channel, on their way out of the area and sunshine is just around the corner…just in time, we say! There's a lot of theater coming up this week and we've got shows to see and people to watch! Greetings to today's cover model Jordan Tudor Haggard who may or may not be enjoying a butterscotch sundae to kick off her day while she catches up on today's news of a theatrical bent.

Playwright Tori Keenan-Zelt takes over BWW­_Nashville's Twitter account today as she goes on a Playwright's Adventure in Music City, including the first rehearsal for Actors' Bridge's upcoming workshop production of her new play Seph, she mingles with the playwrights taking part in the Ingram New Works Project at Nashville Repertory Theatre and she sees the Actors Bridge/Belmont University Theatre collaboration on Jessica Dickey's The Amish Project.

The calendar is fast approaching commencement season all over the country and seniors in high school theater programs are preparing for their final shows on their familiar stomping grounds - like Nashville's Franklin Road Academy senior Micah Frizzell. As he prepares to open tonight in director/educator Ross Bolen's musical update of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing (he plays Don John), he's already looking ahead to next fall when he enrolls at Syracuse University as part of their group of 24 incoming freshmen for the BFA Musical Theater program.

A big GOOD MORNING shout-out to today's eye-poppingly gorgeous cover models - the beautiful and talented Tosha Pendergrast and her equally dreamy husband Benjamin Pendergrast, who start off their morning by catching up on the latest theatrical dish while listening to the score of Legally Blonde, Tosha's next choreographic assignment for Pull-Tight Players before she heads off to teach dance, among other things, at Christ Presbyterian Academy.

Those wacky denizens of Lowake, Texas - members of the Turnover clan - return to the stage tonight in search of their daddy's last will and testament in The Larry Keeton Theatre's production of Del Shore's chicken-fried comedy Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will? Running through May 6, the raucous, downhome comedy features a cast of Nashville favorites including Tonya Pewitt, Memory Strong-Smith, Natalie Royal Herb, Jonathan Hunter, Benny Jones, Linda Speir, Drew Dunlop and Natalie Lewis.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's a glorious new day - #TheatreThursday, in fact - there's a bright golden haze on the meadow and today we're posing this question: What's your favorite stage comedy? And why does it tickle your funny bone (and we don't mean that in a dirty way, so get your freakin' minds outta the gutter!)? Greetings to our two cover models: the always entertaining and intriguing Daron Bruce and Jennifer Richmond, all dressed up in their Easter finery to get their daily dose of theater chatter!

Broadway star Analisa Leaming returns to her hometown of Murfreesboro next Monday night for a concert at First United Methodist Church to benefit the Ethos Youth Ensembles, a non-profit youth music education organization based in Rutherford County.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! And a gracious good morning to Kate Adams Kramer, our very first Theaterati cover girl! Today we are pondering the theatrical question of 'Kevin Spacey...Tony Awards host...what the hell?' Perhaps you might opine about that bit of news and share your impressions with us: we promise not to tell a soul!

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to my new daily whatever-the-hell you want to call it in which we consider the musical question: 'What's happening this week?'

During the 2017-18 season reveal gala at TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall last week, Nicole Van Giesen, a member of the show's original Broadway cast, was on hand to perform 'Telephone Wire' from the score by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron. The response to the announcement that Fun Home will play Nashville October 10-15 was enthusiastic - some might even have called it 'thunderous' - and the audience filled with theater lovers rewarded Van Giesen with warm, generous applause.