Jeffrey Ellis - Page 129

Dance Theatre of Tennessee presents a mid-winter series of Nashville premieres - and invites audiences to the 'hottest post-Valentine ticket in town,' according to company artistic director Christopher Mohnani - in Aspects of Love, 'a celebration of dance, music and love. Led by Mohnani, DTT presents an evening of several premieres promising 'an evening of wonderful dancing and choreography together with memorable and familiar music that will have you wanting for more.'

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre presents 'Til Beth Do Us Part, a comedy by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten - the successful trio of playwrights behind Dearly Beloved and Christmas Belles - for a February 10-March 19 run at the venerable Nashville dinner theater. Directed by Martha Wilkinson, 'Til Beth Do Us Part features Lydia Bushfield, Warren Gore, Kim Nygren, Debbie Kraski, Tammie Whited and Charlie Winton.

Before she returns to Broadway in a much-anticipated revival next year, Annie - America's best-known comic strip orphan turned musical comedy heroine - makes a stop in Franklin as the beloved musical that's 'all about her' hits the stage at Bethlehem United Methodist Church, March 4-13.

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, a magical tale based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, continues Actors Bridge Ensemble's 2010-11 season, running February 18-27 at Belmont University's Troutt Theater. Directed by Jessika Malone, in Ruhl's critically acclaimed play, 'Eurydice is to marry her true love, a misstep sends her to the surreal depths of the Underworld, where she has a surprising reunion and ultimately must decide whether to follow Orpheus back to the land of the living.'

Should Dick Wolf need any new fresh ideas for his aging Law and Order TV franchise (and recent events would indicate that he might), we would suggest he ring up Nan Gurley, Denice Hicks and Claire Syler - the scribes of Nashville Shakespeare Festival's current hit Shakespeare's Case - for an infusion of new blood and an influx of new plotlines. Of course, those plotlines might not be new, since they'd probably hew pretty closely to the Bard's classics for which the estimable Nashville troupe is best known, but you can rest assured the trio would have a novel take on stories that audiences would enthusiastically embrace.

Now onstage at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall through Sunday, Shrek the Musical could be dismissed by some as merely a theme park version of an animated film (which, I must confess, I've never seen), but if you approach it with your eyes wide open - and perhaps more importantly, your heart wide open - you're likely to see it for what is: A fast-paced, hugely entertaining homage to fairies, their tales and all the fairy dust that makes musical theater so completely transformative and exhilarating.

Corrie Miller stars as the irrepressible Annie Oakley in Boiler Room Theatre's 11th season opening production of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, running February 11 through March 12 in Franklin.

If Neil Simon were writing The Odd Couple in the 21st century, I suspect he'd write Oscar and Felix as gay men just coming out of the closet and make a lot of references about online dating, Twitter and Facebook, and the weekly poker game that is featured prominently during the onstage action would be - well, probably, it would still be a poker game (and to ensure that his characters sound hip, he would, of course, make some odd Sex and the City references, which would render it ridiculously un-hip).

Thanks to the efforts of playwright Lydia Bushfield and a talented cast of actors and musicians, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre takes audiences on a sentimental journey back to the American homefront during World War II with I'll Be Seeing You, a musical revue that features some of the best-loved tunes from that time. Wonderfully evocative, Bushfield's sweetly crafted - if somewhat overly earnest and perhaps a little mawkish - script tells the stories of three women keeping the homefires burning while their men are off to war, making the world a safer place.

Fifth Avenue of the Arts, in downtown Nashville, presents its monthly First Saturday Art Crawl on February 5, from 6 to 9 p.m., with more than 20 art venues participating, including The Arts Company, The Rymer Gallery, Tinney Contemporary, Tennessee Art League, Estel Gallery, Twist Gallery and Art at the Arcade and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.

Nashville's Circle Players opens the 2011 half of its current season with a Clay Hillwig-directed revival of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, the classic story of a working-class black family struggling to make it in Chicago after World War II. The play closes January 23 at the Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson.

Nan Gurley stars as Amanda Wingfield in Studio Tenn's upcoming production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, presented at Belmont University's Black Box Theatre Feburary 17-27. The Glass Menagerie will conclude Studio Tenn's inaugural season, which has also included critically acclaimed productions of Hello, Dolly! and A Christmas Carol. Williams' enduring classic is an award-winning portrayal of a disintegrating family during the depression of the 1930's and introduced him as one of the preeminent American playwrights of the 20th century.

A slice of Broadway comes to Franklin for the fifth annual Broadway at Bethlehem benefit on Saturday, February 12, with the talents of Tennessee Rep/Broadwayworld.com favorite Martha Wilkinson, international performers Holly Shepherd and Jennifer Richmond, as well as popular Nashville-area artists Daron Bruce, Amanda Lamb and B.J. Rowell at the Bethlehem UMC Performing Arts Center, 2419 Bethlehem Loop Road, Franklin.

Lend me a Tenor features the Keeton Theatre debuts of several actors, including Gari Lynne a former New York actress and comedienne in the role of Diana, with Patrick Goedicke as the ill-fated tenor Tito Mirelli, and Miriam Truax as Maggie. Other cast members include Larry Rhodes as Mr. Saunders, Drewann Borsos as Maria Mirelli, Eileen Lowery as Julia, Neil Bergman as Max and Saburi Johnson as the bell hop.

With the strong, focused direction of Clay Hillwig and the uniformly consistent and superb performances of an exceptional cast, Circle Players starts off 2011 with its impressively mounted revival of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. With a story that is as potent and as relevant today as it was at the time of the play's 1959 Broadway debut, A Raisin in the Sun follows the struggling but proud Younger family as they strive to make their lives better on Chicago's South Side.

Think about it: What if you were watching The King and I and when Anna and the King of Siam started to sing 'Shall We Dance' and they just stood there, it just wouldn't have much of an impact, would it? Or if all those budding chorus members in A Chorus Line just stood around and talked about dancing but never did even the most basic shuffle-ball-change...sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it? That's where choreographers come into the picture; they collaborate with the director, the music director and the cast members to create movement that elevates every musical comedy. Without them, the action remains stagebound and static. A choreographer allows your heart to soar along with the performers onstage, making musical comedy all the more compelling and transformative. These talented men and women created remarkable and memorable work in 2010 as First Night's Top Choreographers...

If theater audiences in Nashville and Middle Tennessee owe a huge debt of gratitude to the directors who helm the year's finest productions, you can only imagine how the actors lucky enough to work with those insightful, creative men and women must be! The Top Ten Directors of 2010 have resumes anyone would be proud to claim as their own and when you consider that they - year after year - excel at what they do, then you cannot help but be impressed by the breadth and depth of their abilities. Frankly, it boggles the mind. These are Nashville's best directors of 2010...

Ten versatile and talented Nashville area men took on roles in musical theater that other actors would love to play, proving once again that country music isn't the only genre that makes this Music City USA. Musical theater is alive and well in Tennessee and with the plethora of talent to be found on Volunteer State stages, actors can display their tremendous range while singing and dancing. These men comprise the list of the ten best performances by actors in musicals in 2010...

Mining the depths and heights of their own life experiences to bring to life onstage a plethora of challening and compelling characters, dramatic actresses in Nashville were at the pinnacle of their talents in 2010. Thoroughly captivating their audiences night after night, they put their tremendous talents on display with no-holds-barred performances that have raised the bar for actresses who follow in their wake in the coming seasons. And these ten women gave what we considered to be the most noteworthy performances of the 2010 season...

Nashville's divas proved their mettle and showed their immense talents in 2010 while assaying some of the most challenging and best loved roles in all of musical theater. Ranging from classic musical comedy heroines that any actress would love to play to newer, more contemporary characters, Music City's women were given the opportunity to showcase their multitude of talents on various stages while again proving they are capable of virtually anything - and everything. Here are our choices for the top ten musical performances by an actress in 2010...