Jeffrey Ellis - Page 113

Eddie Mikrut is one of the leading lights of Nashville Ballet's professional company of dancers, taking on some of the most challenging roles in the dancer's repertory and consistently delivering awe-inspiring performances. Paired with some of the exceptional women in the company, Mikrut shows a superb command of his talent and his abilities, in so doing lifting (both literally and figuratively) the women to greater heights and showing off the various choreographic challenges cast upon him.

William Ellsworth's The Signal Season of Dummy Hoy, the tale of one of the first deaf baseball players to make it to the major league - and the man some people credit with the creation of baseball signals - opens at Lakewood Theatre Company in Old Hickory on August 12, running through August 27, in a production helmed by director John Carpenter.

Cumberland County Playhouse's CHICAGO is the talk of the town...you don't want to miss out on the fun so call and get your tickets now at 931-484-5000 or www.ccplayhouse.com. Enjoy this little tease and then grab your friends and come on down. Rated PG13.

That all-too-personal journey taken by two upper middle-class parents, grieving the accidental death of their four-year-old son, gives structure and form to Rabbit Hole, now onstage at Murfreesboro's Out Front on Main theater in a compellingly acted and tautly directed production staged by George W. Manus Jr. Thanks to the total commitment of Manus' five-member ensemble of actors, Rabbit Hole is brought searingly to life, leavened with enough humor to make its impact all the more heartfelt, while affording audiences an opportunity to see a deeply personal story acted out on stage that one day ultimately might have a greater impact on their collective psyche.

Teaser for Blackbird Theater's production of Magic by G.K. Chesterton. August 12-13, 19-20, 25-27. Starring Amanda Card McCoy and David Compton. Ticket information at BlackbirdNashville.com.

You might want to take note that Kathy Griffin will be making a guest appearance on Joan Rivers' Fashion Police on E! tonight (Friday, July 22), promising to be inappropriately funny and bitingly incisive while hanging out with Joan, George and either Kelly or Giuliana. Griffin reminded her audience at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall of that last night as she engaged in her trademark repartee before an audience filled with her deliriously attentive fans.

David De Silva, the man behind the creation of one of pop culture's most enduring tales of the individual's creative struggle for self-expression - known the world over as the film and stage musical, Fame - arrives in Tennessee today for the opening of Circle Players' regional premiere of Fame Forever: Talent Springs Eternal, which opens at Middle Tennessee State University's Tucker Theatre for a one-weekend run.

Don't tell the evangelical theater folks in Pigeon Forge, but Kathy Griffin's headed back to Tennessee and, this time, who knows whom she'll be telling to 'suck it'? Just a simple girl with a simple dream: the outspoken and outrageous comedy legend (surely, that will get me the exclusive and private interview I covet) brings her unique brand of comedy back to Nashville this summer for the first time since her last sold-out performance at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

For Damian Drake, one of Nashville Ballet's versatile and accomplished company members, 'a fantastic quality about dance as an art form is how it encompasses other artists to create together as a community,' exemplifying the collaborative nature of dance, whether classic or contemporary. As an integral member of the company, Drake has been featured in numerous works with the company since first joining the creative collective that has made Music City's homegrown ballet company one of the nation's artistic leaders - and one of the Nashville's best-attended performing arts groups.

Josiah Gibbs (Chris) and CJ Tucker (Ginger) discuss Steven Deitz's BECKY'S NEW CAR, directed by Vali Forrister for Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble, playing July 29 through Aug 7 at Belmont's Black Box Theater.

Tennessee Repertory Theatre will partner with the Nashville Scene for a special event to kick-off its 2011-12 season of live, professional theatre. The evening - titled Nashville Scenes - will feature staged readings of scenes from Tennessee Rep's upcoming season and heavy hors d'oeuvres and will be held Friday, August 5 from 6 to 8 p.m. at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theater (505 Deaderick Street).

With Griffin coming to Music City USA this week, you can be certain that Lisa Marie Wright will be asked to sign more autographs than normal, dodging the glare of television cameras and trying to elude the paparazzi. Luckily, she agreed to an interview with us from an undisclosed location where she whiles away her time eating bon-bons and reading movie magazines...either that, or she was at work, we forget...

Annie, the irrepressible orphan of newspaper comics-fame who has been delighting audiences onstage since the 1970s, makes her return to Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre this summer, running July 28-September 3, in a new production of Annie directed by Martha Wilkinson, with music direction by Jaclyn Brown and choreography by Bakari King.

Rhubarb Theater Company will present the premiere of Nashville playwright Valerie Hart's Rising and Falling, August 12-20, at Darkhorse Theater.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music could very well be the most-often viewed of the legendary duo's iconic works for the musical theatre, what with the seemingly endless parade of televised airings of the acclaimed 1965 film version, the frequent professional revivals of the stage show and, of course, the fondness for the piece exemplified by the multiple stagings in little theaters all over the world. The musical's lush score, its likable heroine, its vaguely historic (if largely inaccurate) retelling of a true story and all those fresh-faced youngsters singing 'Do-Re-Mi' have made The Sound of Music a favorite of musical theater fans since its 1959 debut on Broadway.

To celebrate dance as an art form and fitness activity, Nashville Ballet will participate in National Dance Day on Saturday, July 30, by offering free sample classes and choreography provided by the hit realty show So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD).

The eleventh annual Appalachian Festival of Plays and Playwrights (AFPP) will be held July 26 - August 6, at Barter Stage II during the Virginia Highlands Festival. 'Founded in 2001, the AFPP gives voice to the stories of our region, and the community is invited to take part in the development of brand new plays,' says Nicholas Piper, director of the AFPP.

Cumberland County Playhouse dance directors Eldar Valiev and Lilia Valieva will be feted with a 'farewell reception' to wish them well as they leave Clarksville to take over as artistic directors of the Festival Ballet of North Central Texas. The couple will also lead the 22-year-old professional company's training program. The reception will be held on Sunday, July 17, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the CCP Gazebo.

David Lindsay-Abaire's 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Rabbit Hole, opens at Murfreesboro's Out Front on Main on Thursday, July 14, for a limited two-week run.

Producing theater for younger audiences since 1931, Nashville Children's Theatre is the oldest children's theater in the United States, so you'd think the company had already done everything - at least once. But this summer, thanks to a new initiative of NCT's education department, students in grades 6 through 12 will perform a fully-staged production of Once Upon A Mattress July 29 and 30 as the culmination of the Emerging Actors summer drama camp.