Jeffrey Ellis - Page 57

Jessika Malone directs Actors Bridge Ensemble's 20th Anniversary Season's upcoming production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, opening December 4 at the new Actors Bridge Studio at the Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue (entrance on 47th Avenue).

Tennessee Women's Theater Project presents its first-ever holiday season offering, Ginna Hoben's The Twelve Dates of Christmas, for a limited, seven-performance run at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre tonight, December 4-13. Described as a 'comic romp' and a 'side-splitting' one-woman play, The Twelve Dates of Christmas stars Nashville actress Rebekah Durham in the role of Mary.

Opening tonight, December 3  and running through December 20, The Larry Keeton Theatre presents the Middle Tennessee premiere of A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol - from the writers and composers of Disney's successful High School Musical - the long-awaited sequel to The 1940s Radio Hour, one of the most popular musical revues among regional and community theater companies.  

In a city like Nashville, where art and creativity thrives, there really is nothing more heartwarming and welcome at this time of year than the onstage theatrical traditions we have come to love, like Nashville Repertory Theatre's annual production of A Christmas Story, the stage iteration of the classic film version of writer Jean Shepherd's nostalgic memoir of his boyhood holidays in Indiana. With all the iconic imagery of that “major award” lamp shown off in the living room window, A Christmas Story is vividly reimagined onstage, capturing the film's most memorable moments in clever ways that are at once new and familiar.

Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas becomes a part of Nashville holiday tradition, as the Broadway musical version of the timeless tale is brought to life on the stage of The Grand Ole Opry House through December 27, featuring an artful blending of local talents with out-of-town performers joining them in Music City to help tell the story.

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.

Theater during the holiday season tends to be something of a mixed bag: multiple productions of A Christmas Carol, countless stagings of It's A Wonderful Life, numerous renditions of The Nutcracker and a sampling of original revues that include songs suitable for the season and heart-tugging and oftentimes cloyingly sweet reminiscences of home and hearth, all of which is designed to put you in the holiday spirit.

Justin Boyd, Britt Byrd, Katherine Morgan and Taylor Novak will team up to host 2016 Midwinter's First Night - set for Sunday night, January 10, 2016 - and to ride herd on First Night founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis for the presentation of the BWW Nashville Awards and the presentation of First Night's Top 10 of 2016.

Matt Smith and Mark Thomas star as 22 of Tuna, Texas' most illustrious citizens in A Tuna Christmas, playing at the Arts Center of Cannon County in Woodbury December 4-13. The holiday-themed sequel to Jason Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard's Greater Tuna theatrical juggernaut, A Tuna Christmas is directed by Vickie Bailey.

Once again, it's that time of year: a period of reflection and introspection that gives us all the perfect opportunity to express our gratitude for the things in our lives that have meant the most to us in 2015. We reached out to members of our theater community, to inquire about that which they are thankful for and we got some very heartfelt, considered romances that, leavened by the humor injected from some of our favorite people, gives us added insight into the psyche of the artistic and creative-minded people who make theatrical magic every day…

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.

You can be certain that during this time of year, I'm making my way to various and sundry theaters to witness the latest Christmaslike offerings from companies large and small, but after last season's A Country Christmas, Carol - playwright/actress Lydia Bushfield's uniquely fun take on the Charles Dickens classic about the coldly restrained Ebenezer Scrooge and that whiny little cuss Tiny Tim - her newest show, now onstage at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, seemed mighty promising to kick off my season with raucous laughter and bemused sentiment.

Everyone at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre is immersed in the trappings of the season, with the opening of Lydia Bushfield's newest Christmas-themed opus, the appropriately entitled Yule, Y'all! The show opened yesterday (nowadays, openings are two-show days at ye ol' Barn, with a matinee that's sure to pack in the audiences, followed by the official opening night just a few hours later) and continues through December 26.

Opening Thursday, December 3  and running through December 20, The Larry Keeton Theatre presents the Middle Tennessee premiere of A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol - from the writers and composers of Disney's successful High School Musical - the long-awaited sequel to The 1940s Radio Hour, one of the most popular musical revues among regional and community theater companies.  

Gaslight Dinner Theatre continues its 15th Anniversary Season with its 72nd show - the regional premiere of Mr. Jingle's Christmas Clause, written and created by artistic director Greg Frey, running November 19-December 19 in Dickson at Freed-Hardeman University's Renaissance Center.

Jessika Malone directs Actors Bridge Ensemble's 20th Anniversary Season's upcoming production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, opening December 4 at the new Actors Bridge Studio at the Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue (entrance on 47th Avenue).

Nashville Ballet returns this year - for the eighth consecutive year - with one of Music City's most beloved holiday traditions: Paul Vasterling's Nashville's Nutcracker, running December 5-23  at TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall. Due to popular demand, this year's production will feature a record-setting number of performances, giving audiences a grand total of 13 performances from which to choose.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project presents its first-ever holiday season offering, Ginna Hoben's The Twelve Dates of Christmas, for a limited, seven-performance run at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre December 4-13. Described as a 'comic romp' and a 'side-splitting' one-woman play, The Twelve Dates of Christmas stars Nashville actress Rebekah Durham in the role of Mary.

With the end of semester quickly approaching, even college actors are immersing themselves in study in preparation for finals - and Vanderbilt University's Nick Mecikalski is certainly no exception. But, somehow, Nick managed the time to answer our questions and to give us a glimpse into his theatrical life on the Nashville campus of Vanderbilt University, a place he's made quite the name for himself in productions as varied as Metamorphoses, Titus Andronicus, Much Ado About Nothing and Wit.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of The Larry Keeton Theatre's upcoming production of Sunset Boulevard, Pull-Tight Theatre's production of Osborne and Eppler's Southern Fried Funeral  and Robertson County Players' The Man Who Came to Dinner - and there are upcoming national auditions for the tour of Newsies, set for Nashville on December 11. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse: go follow your dream!