Jeffrey Ellis - Page 52

Just in time for wedding season, Jones, Hope and Wooten's Dearly Beloved debuts onstage in neighboring Franklin, via a new Bethlehem Players' production directed by Brett Myers and running April 1-9 at Bethlehem United Methodist Church, 2419 Bethlehem Loop Road, in Franklin's Grassland Area.

Whew! We need a vacation already, so you can only imagine how Cody, the guy with the enormous heart and brilliant imagination must feel! So, here's some quick and sage advice for you: Buy yourself some Cody Rutledge stock and watch its value increase, even as his reputation as both an actor and as a scenic designer continues to grow.

Mix together fable, biblical stories, music and a cast filled with talented local performers, and the result is Circle Players' production of Children of Eden, running March 18-April 3, at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater. This epic musical by the award-winning creators of Wicked (Stephen Schwartz) and Les Miserables (John Caird) continues Circle's 66th season, as the oldest community theater organization in Middle Tennessee.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Nashville audiences this weekend are treated to a unique opportunity insofar as In The Heights is concerned: two stunning and startling, yet somehow altogether different, productions of Miranda's first masterpiece (you young people who are caught up in the specter of Hamilton have this earlier work to thank for your newfound enthusiasm for musical theater) to be inspired by - two shows that are almost alarmingly good and amazingly performed. Daron Bruce and Lisa Forbis' cadre of young performers at Nashville's Hume Fogg Academic High School will deliver their rendition of In The Heights for only one more performance (tonight, on Nashville's Broadway, is the last of three shows), while Street Theatre Company's founding artistic director Cathy Street bids farewell to her adopted hometown of ten years with her beautifully directed staging at Bailey Middle School, which opened last night for the first of three weekends of performances.

Nashville audiences this weekend find themselves with two concurrently running opportunities to bask in the warm glow of Miranda's heartfelt creation as Hume-Fogg Academic High School's Theatre presents In The Heights for a three-performance run (which premiered last night - on Broadway, naturally, Nashville's Broadway) and Street Theatre Company, which tonight opens its 11th season with its mounting of the show that will run for the next three weekends.

As the reputation of Nashville Ballet has grown over the years, so too have the company's dancers' resumes and notoriety. Case in point: NB principal Kayla Rowser has graced magazine covers, been the subject of numerous media reports and stories, and she has become, without question, one of the best-known proponents of dance in a city where music has long reigned supreme.

Brooke Muriel Ferguson is the latest wunderkind from the Lipscomb University Department of Theatre to make her directorial debut at Towne Centre Theatre, helming the production of the murder mystery Murder's in the Heir that opens tonight in Brentwood.

Today, three of the folks most closely associated with the production - director Moore is joined by cast members Sarah Shepherd and Maggie Pitt - fall under our Friday 5 spotlight, allowing us to get to know more about what makes them tick and why each of them believe audiences should flock to Darkhorse Theatre to see their racy rendition of Aristophanes' Lysistrata.

Today, we introduce you to four cast members from In The Heights - Lipscomb University's Bekah Purifoy, Belmont University's Chris D. Lee and Arik Vega, and one of the newest members of the Nashville theater community, Ashley Wolfe. Purifoy is a 2015 First Night Most Promising Actor, while Lee and Vega are members of the 2016 Class. Wolfe electrified the audience with her performance at Midwinter's First Night in January.

Theater-goers from our neck o' the woods have been quite spoiled already this year - and 2016 is barely three months old - and the hits, as they are wont to say, just keep on coming. In fact, there's so much great theater going on in the Nashville area right now, that you may be having a difficult time choosing among the bounteous offerings local companies are providing you.

Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts invites supporters to "boogie on down" to dance the night away at their Bash Fever! gala - the seventh annual event will be held Saturday, March 19 - as those gathered continue their revelry this year set to a disco theme.

2015 First Night Honoree Darryl Deason directs Memphis: The Musical, the next offering at Woodbury's Arts Center of Cannon County, starring Melinda Paul and Michael Adcock as Felicia Farrell and Huey Calhoun. Memphis: The Musical runs March 11-26, featuring choreography by Regina Wilkerson Ward, with music direction by Robert Hiers.

The Quest for Cupcake: A One Woman Show, the latest stage incarnation of writer-musician-actor-performer Kevin Thornton, a presentation that he describes as a "new comedy show in drag" will be performed at Nashville's Bongo After Hours Theatre on Thursday, March 31. Curtain's at 8 p.m. for the acclaimed performer's newest onstage effort.

Somewhere Between - Cidny Williams' "one wo/man show" opens at Nashville's Bongo After Hours Theatre on March 18. Produced by Ken Bernstein, the Grammy-nominated musician's autobiographical show lifts the veil on love, death and gender through storytelling and song.

Directors and producers throughout Middle Tennessee are seeking actors for upcoming productions of God of Carnage (at Nashville's 4th Story Theatre) and Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapine Agile (directed by Jonah Jackson for Towne Centre Theatre) and Metro Parks and the Music City Theatre Collective team up for a series of special classes, including an audition workshop, for this spring. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse: go follow your dream!

Ashley Eskew – a native of Irvine, California, who did her undergraduate work at Northwestern University, where she earned a BS in Theater, with a certificate in Music Theater – is one such member of the rather rarefied group of aspiring actors earning advanced degrees from USC this year.

Among offerings this month are Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare, a short comic play directed by Kristin Parsons. It involves an accountant named George Spelvin, who is mistaken for an actor's understudy and forced to perform in a play for which he doesn't know any of the lines. Patrick Kramer stars as George, with Bethany Champion as Meg, Tammy Sutherland as Sarah, Jenni Cadaret as Ellen and Douglas Goodman as Henry.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

In September, 2010, Scot Copeland - who joined Nashville Children's Theatre as producing artistic director in 1985 - did an interview ahead of his induction among the very first Class of First Night Honorees and we are happy to share some 'Scot stories,' straight from the horse's mouth as it were, as part of our continued remembrance of the vital role he has filled in our theater community for more than 30 years and in honor of his abiding friendship and astounding imaginative leadership of our creative community.