Jeffrey Ellis - Page 59

If you need something to prod you toward making reservations to see Lipscomb University's staging of the near-legendary Into the Woods - although we find it hard to believe anyone could not want to hear that wondrous score once more - we are happy to give you that prompt: Sarah Zanotti's performance as The Baker's Wife is extraordinarily evocative and deeply moving, to be certain. But it is her lovely, expressive voice that sets her performance apart from others we've seen - and which proves that no matter how well you know a character or how impressive you have found other portrayals to be, there is still much drama and theatricality to be mined from The Baker's Wife.

Virginia Richardson, who stunned audiences at September's First Night Honors gala with her performance of "Ring of Keys" from the Tony Award-winning musical Fun Home, will play the young heroine Mary Lennox in Roxy Regional Theatre's upcoming production of The Secret Garden, running November 13-27 in Clarksville.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of Will Enos' The Flu Season, Memphis the Musical and The Wiz. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse: go follow your dream!

It's Halloween weekend and every dramatic personage and theatrical type we've ever encountered is caught up in the annual rush to find just the right costume for their holiday revelries (we confess we've never had the knack for coming up with Halloween get-ups - not since we went in drag to a party at the First Baptist Church as the age of 12…tongues were wagging, we are certain, but we lived to tell about it, so it couldn't have been that bad). In the meantime, there are all sorts of onstage happenings this weekend to keep you otherwise engaged should the difficulty of selecting your costume prove to be too much.

Today, Eric Butler (who plays Curlie) and Tony Nappo take on our Friday Five questions, to give you some insight into the two actors. Here's your chance to get to know them before seeing the show which runs for three weekends, through November 15.

Broadway veteran and Nashville's hometown girl Savannah Frazier will lead a master class on the art of auditioning at The Van Wye Vocal Studio on Tuesday, December 1, presented by VWA Theatricals.

ACT 1 will present an evening of one-act plays for two Wednesday nights in November (right smack in the middle of its eagerly anticipated run of August: Osage County) at Nashville's iconic Darkhorse Theater, 4610 Charlotte Avenue, according to ACT 1 executive director Memory Strong, who this weekend will be holding auditions for her upcoming production of Will Eno's The Flu Season.

Recent Broadway hits Mamma Mia! and The Little Mermaid - along with the 23rd year of the downhome-flavored Smoke on the Mountain - are among the highlights of the 2016 season at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse, which was announced during a Wednesday morning press conference at the Playhouse in the midst of its 50th anniversary season.

Good Monsters tells the story of Frank, a Gulf War veteran and police officer who moonlights as a security guard to make ends meet. Safira was a shoplifter. It was dark. Frank thought she had a gun. She didn't. Now Frank's the guy who shot an unarmed teenager, with ramifications for his wife, his best friend, Safira's father, and a media spin doctor looking for a story. While he waits for the grand jury, Safira haunts Frank every night and soon she begins to make terrifying demands of him.

What better way to herald Into the Woods' first night than by focusing today's Friday Five (sure, we know it's Thursday, but The Thursday Five doesn't have the same ring to it and The Thursday Thirty just sounds like too much - plus we have other things to do besides talk to actors) on three of the company members, director Scott Baker (who, apparently, can do anything - and actually does it all), actress Kari Smith (who first we reviewed in Annie at Nashville Playhouse in 1989), who is a 2015 First Night Star Award winner, and the very tall (and ridiculously talented) Scott Patrick Wilson, who plays one of the princes and is a 2015 First Night Most Promising Actor!

Caitlyn Porayko, a member of Belmont University Musical Theatre's class of 2016, has a busy holiday season ahead, to be certain - she's playing Judy Haynes in BUMT's production of White Christmas (running December 4-6) and she'll be a member of the choir backing up Broadway diva, "Nashville own" (we claimed her as one of our own in her last Nashville concert appearance at TPAC) Kristin Chenoweth, when she performs with the Nashville Symphony as Schermerhorn Symphony Center in December.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of A Very Merry Country Christmas Caper and Will Enos' The Flu Season. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse: go follow your dream!

NFL legend, Heisman Trophy winner and Nashville actor Eddie George will make his Broadway debut in January, taking on the role of Billy Flynn in the long-running Tony Award-winning musical Chicago.

Next up for Daron Bruce's students involved in theater at Hume-Fogg Academic High Schools (one of the nation's highest rated secondary schools) is a much-anticipated production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, running November 5-7 at the iconic and historic high school, located on Broadway naturally - in downtown Nashville. Taking on the challenging role of Mrs. Lovett in the school edition of Sondheim's musical is Darby Kolwyck, a talented student with an already enviable resume: She's played Rusty in Act Too's Footloose and was part of HFA's acclaimed production of Cabaret.

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.

Longtime theater collaborators Melissa Carrelli and Caroline Davis are back at work, preparing a revival of William Luce's The Belle of Amherst - the acclaimed theatrical exploration of the private life of American poet Emily Dickinson - that debuts November 6 for nine performances at Demetria Kalodimas' The Filming Station in downtown Nashville. Running through November 22, The Belle of Amherst is a joint production of Carelli's In Another Life and producer Scott Orr's Maverick Entertainment Group, in association with Kalodimas' Genuine Human.

Although it may be difficult to fathom, but Actors Bridge Ensemble - one of Nashville's edgier and most progressive theater companies from its inception - is in the midst of its 20th anniversary season with a continued focus on presenting provocative and challenging theater for local audiences under the watchful eye of producing artistic director Vali Forrister and her band of artisans. Actors Bridge was honored in 2012 with the First Night Award for Outstanding Theater Company.

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.

Tracy Letts' acclaimed play about a dysfunctional family coming to terms with one another - August: Osage County - opens at Nashville's iconic Darkhorse Theater on November 6, directed by Bradley Moore and featuring a veritable who's who of Nashville actors. August: Osage County, running through November 21, is presented by ACT 1 as its second show of the 2015-16 season.

This will probably be an emotional weekend for Savannah Frazier as the curtain comes down on Amazing Grace, the Musical, the show in which the Nashville native made her Broadway debut. Closing after its final performance at the Nederlander Theatre on Sunday, Amazing Grace gave Frazier her biggest exposure to date in New York and with its closing she heads onward - and we daresay upward - in her pursuit of musical theater dreams.