Jeffrey Ellis - Page 65

The company is back onstage for its summer offering of Shrek the Musical, the Jeanine Tesori-David Lindsay Abaire stage musical based upon the delightful animated film that first introduced us to the green ogre Shrek, his lady love Fiona, the unctuous Lord Farquaad and a feisty, straight-talking donkey named, curiously enough, Donkey.

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.

VWA Theatricals has found its Cathy and Jamie for the upcoming production of Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years: Delaney Amatrudo and Luke Denison. Amatrudo and Denison will lead the cast for the musical, which runs August 13-22 at Nashville's iconic Darkhorse Theater. Amatrudo currently studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and Denison is a recent graduate of Indiana University.

Twelve brand new plays by Middle Tennessee playwrights will be presented as staged readings as the newly minted Ten Minute Playground goes live in Nashville Sunday and Monday for a one-of-a-kind two-night event at Darkhorse Theater. The plays are paired with some of Nashville's finest actors and directors, all volunteering their time to present these exciting new scripts. With only an hour of rehearsal, these plays take on a life of their own in front of a live audience.

Looking for a way to beat the heat this weekend? What's better than sinking into a seat in a darkened auditorium and letting the talented actors onstage whisk you way to a whole different world from the world iin which you toil Monday through Friday? Theater companies throughout the midstate are ready to dazzle you with their latest productions and here are some of this weekend's best bets...

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to BroadwayWorld Nashville's latest installment of The Friday Five: five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find onstage throughout the Volunteer state. Today, we introduce you to four actors who will have entertain you beginning tonight in Shrek the Musical, directed by First Night Star Award winner Kate Adams for Dickson's The Renaissance Players.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of Heathers the Musical, Smoke/Spirit and The Music Man - and more! We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse!

In 1983 an abandoned movie house was saved from the wrecking ball, and on November 3, what has become the cornerstone of arts and entertainment in Clarksville-Montgomery County opened to a grand ovation.  Now in 2015, the Roxy Regional Theatre is poised to celebrate 33 years of providing an educational and artistic outlet for the Southeast, beginning with the first production of their 33rd year: Lionel Bart's Oliver!

Looking for an early summer diversion? We're happy to suggest some theatrical offerings to occupy your time, to keep you out of the heat and humidity - which seems to have really descended upon us this past week - and place you smack in the middle of a darkened auditorium that's certain to cool you down while entertaining you in high style…

There are certain things audiences have come to expect in a new production from Studio Tenn, the Franklin-based, Nashville-nurtured professional theater company headed up by Matt Logan and Jake Speck: You know it will be beautifully designed, sumptuously mounted and impeccably cast.

Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre - Nashville's venerable entertainment center, which for 49 years has been the theater home to thousands of actors, directors, technicians and artists - has announced the creative team and cast for this summer's eagerly anticipated production of All Shook Up, slated to run July 23-August 30.

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. Thus, we are happy to present a new feature: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come.

For 49 years, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre has provided a theatrical home for actors, directors, designers, stage managers and sundry other artists and techies who are striving to make a living in Nashville. In that time, the Chaffins have served up tons of roast beef and enough marinated mushrooms to fill countless swimming pools - but, more importantly, they've served up so many laughs and memorable onstage moments to keep us all in fine fettle for years to come.

It's already heating up in Nashville and it's not even summer yet! But Nashville area theater companies are hard at work to ensure that audiences have a lot to choose from in the way of live theater presented in cool, darkened theaters. Here are our suggestions for the most eagerly anticipated shows of the sultry summer season…

We pride ourselves on our bounteous Southern hospitality here in Nashville, so who's gonna explain this: On Thursday, as thousands of country music fans gathered downtown for CMA Fest and thousands more fans of every musical genre you can think of were headed southward for the Bonnaroo Music Festival - just another summer in Tennessee, mind you - a truck spilled its load all over Interstate 65-S, adding to the hot, humid atmosphere with a whole mess of fish parts. Yep, you heard it right: smelly, disgusting fish parts baking on the hot asphalt under the blazing sun.

To know Megan Murphy Chambers is to love her: Make no mistake about it, she's as beloved among Nashville's theater community as anyone you could possibly imagine. Her stage appearances are noteworthy and memorable, to be certain, but it's her offstage personality that proves how much everyone loves her. She's thoughtful and kind, funny and charming, sweet and entertaining.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of August: Osage County, Nunsense, The Last Five Years, Heathers the Musical, Smoke/Spirit and The Music Man. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse!

Now that the dust has settled after the 2015 Tony Awards, we reached out to our readers, asking them to offer their opinions and insights on this year's show, hosted by Tony winners Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming, and how this year's crop of new plays and musicals resonate with viewers in the heartland and, perhaps more importantly, why the Tonys matter outside of New York City.

Despite being a veteran of five Studio Tenn productions already, Patrick Waller - who's clearly one of Nashville theater's favorite thespians - admits being a bit terrified by taking on a new role in the company's upcoming rendition of the iconic musical The Wizard of Oz, playing the Schermerhorn Symphony Center this weekend.

It's another busy theater week in Tennessee, and in Nashville there are an extra 50,000 to 100,000 country music fans jamming up traffic and increasing wait times at local restaurants, thanks to CMA Music Fest, which natives and longtimers will remember as Fan Fair. So while you're steering clear of our version of Broadway in downtown Nashville, which will be teeming with more people than you can shake a stick at (as my mama would say),  you should instead make reservations to see some local talent onstage at some of the shows included in our Critic's Choice column today!