Jeffrey Ellis - Page 128

Nashville's Blackbird Theater Company offers a second sneak-peek at its upcoming production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, featuring David Compton and Denice Hicks. Directed by Ted Swindley, this second production of Blackbird's inaugural season also features Amanda Card-McCoy, Jeff Boyet, Wes Driver, Britt Byrd and Scott Rice. Arcadia plays the Shamblin Theatre at David Lipscomb University February 25-March 12. For further information about Blackbird, visit the company website at www.blackbirdnashville.com.

If you were asked to name Nashville's Top Ten Favorite Musicals, what show would you name as number one? Perhaps surprisingly, when that question was posed to a group of Nashville theater folk, the number one-ranked show is Les Miserables (but perhaps it's not that surprising, since Victor Hugo's book was a huge hit in the American South upon its initial publication in this country), followed by A Chorus Line, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods claiming the remaining slots in the Top Five.

Spring Awakening, the eight-time Tony Award winning Broadway musical - featuring 'the most gorgeous Broadway score this decade,' according to Entertainment Weekly - comes to Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center for a four-performance run February 25-27.

Nashville's Studio Tenn theatre company concludes its inaugural season with Tennessee Williams' classic play The Glass Menagerie, running February 17-27 at Belmont University's Black Box Theatre. Williams' play is an award-winning portrayal of a disintegrating family during the depression and is the play that introduced him as one of the preeminent American playwrights of the 20th century.

Belles on Their Toes, the sequel to the classic stage comedy Cheaper by the Dozen, opens the 2011 season at Lakewood Theatre Company in Old Hickory, running February 18-March 5. Curtain time is 7:30 p.m. for Friday and Saturday performances, with 2:30 matinees slated for Sunday, February 20 and 27.

Audiences will find out what happens when a defrocked priest, a teenage tart and an ancient poet walk into a down-at-heels Mexican hotel in Tennessee Williams' classic play, The Night of the Iguana. Directed by Anne-Geri Fann, the play is the next offering in the 21st season of ACT 1, the Nashville theater company that focuses on classics, both past and contemporary - and works that will one day be considered classics.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of playwright Tennessee Williams, ACT 1 presents The Night of the Iguana March 4-19 at Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre. Directed by Anne-Geri Fann, the cast features Jack Chambers, Robyn Berg and Cinda McCain. For details, visit the company website at www.ACT1online.com.

As a dancer and choreographer, Cary Street's a pretty recognizable face in Nashville theater circles, having worked with Circle Players, Boiler Room Theatre, Towne Centre Theatre, Mansker Players, The Larry Keeton Theatre and so many more Tennessee theater companies. And that makes her an ideal choice to kick off This Dancer's Life, our newest series of interviews about the people who pursue their dreams of art and performance in Nashville.

Bob Fish directs John Mack Green, Kelly Northcutt Hayes and Nathan Leavitt in Charles Evered's Adopt A Sailor, opening Thursday, February 10, for a three-week run at Out Front on Main in Murfreesboro.

Nashville theater favorite Linda Speir takes on the role of Carrie Watts in Towne Centre Theatre's production of Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful, opening Thursday, February 10 and running through Saturday, February 26. Jim Himelrick directs the poignant drama at the Brentwood theater. In addition to Speir, whose resume includes roles with numerous Nashville area companies, Himelrick's cast includes Corey Caldwell, Bev Kassis, Beth Henderson, David Thoreson, Joe Shepherd, Bob Buchholz and Ed Warr.

The American premiere of Twyla Tharp's The Story Teller, along with two of Nashville's favorite contemporary dance pieces, are part of Nashville Ballet's Director's Choice winter repertoire program, to be performed at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's James K. Polk Theatre Febraury 11-13.

In Yankee Tavern, playwright Steven Dietz has created the perfect onstage mystery for the times in which we live, challenging us to consider our most closely held beliefs while reiterating our most pervasive fears. Now onstage in a richly compelling production directed by Tennessee Repertory Theatre's Rene Dunshee Copeland, Yankee Tavern transforms TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre into a petri dish filled with conspiracy theories and ghost stories.

Outspoken. Incisive. Biting. Irreverent. Courageous. Hilarious. Profane...those are just some of the words that describe the energetic, peripatetic, hard-working (we had to add just a few more) Joan Rivers. The comedy legend brought her superbly outrageous act to the stage of Andrew Jackson Hall of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on Friday night, February 2, delighting the packed house with her trademark wit and ribald sense of humor.

Playwright/director Ted Swindley helms a much-anticipated production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, presented by Blackbird Theater at Nashville's David Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theatre February 25-March 12. Swindley's cast includes Denice Hicks, Amanda Card-McCoy, David Compton, Jeff Boyet, Wes Driver, Britt Byrd, Scott Rice and Brad Forrister. Curtain is at 7 p.m. for all performances.

Nashville theater favorite Cori Laemmel, via The Theater Bug, has big plans for area youngsters during Spring Break 2011: Gleek Week, a Glee-inspired performing arts camp culminating in special performances. The camp, which will be held at Donelson's Larry Keeton Theatre, is set for March 14-18, with the show on Saturday, March 19.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, director Larry Tobias and music director Rollie Mains have ushered the clever little musical (with book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro and music by Jimmy Roberts) to the stage, featuring the delightful - and supremely on-target - talents of Bakari King, Tyson Laemmel, Megan Murphy Chambers and Cathy Sanborn Street. The talented quartet take audiences on a roller-coaster ride of sorts as they give us a look at the contemporary dating scene, which is apparently 'all heterosexual, all the time' - and which could be the revue's one element that dates the material to the 1990s.

Eric D. Pasto-Crosby gives such a startlingly confident portrayal of the heroic Jason in Nashville Children's Theatre's production of John Olive's adaptation of Jason and the Golden Fleece that you cannot help but be caught up in all the stage magic created by the coterie of extraordinary artisans who make NCT such a consistent - and constant - source of inspiration.

Matt Logan is a force of nature. Whether he's helming a burgeoning professional theater company as its artistic director, directing and designing a new production, creating yet another work of theatrical visual art for which he's become justifiably, well, famous - you name it, he does it and he does it well. And he does it in Nashville, which is not exactly the first place you'd think of finding someone of his talent and stature. But Nashville is his home and that's where his heart is, obviously.

Nashville favorite Tyson Laemmel stars as Robbie, 'a cheesy, but lovable New Jersey rocker' in Circle Players' upcoming production of The Wedding Singer, the upbeat romantic musical comedy that debuted on Broadway in 2006 and is based on the 1998 Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore movie. Starring opposite Laemmel is Laura Thomas Sonn as 'a hopelessly romantic waitress.'

For Sondra Morton, the owner and artistic director Act Too Players, every day has its own special set of challenges and sources of inspiration - and, quite frankly, she'd have it no other way. In fact, she thrives on the pace and excitement that is all in a day's work as she inspires and trains budding thespians in Middle Tennessee through the company's efforts.