Jeffrey Ellis - Page 138

Led by the exquisitely voiced Dayna Jarae Dantzler in the pivotal role of Celie, we are taken on a journey of almost 40 years in the lives of Walker's richly drawn characters, to learn the true lessons of life and love. The story is as moving as it has ever been - Walker's novel relates the story of Celie's extraordinary life eloquently and articulately - but the creators of this musical (which earned a whopping 11 Tony Award nominations, winning the top honor for LaChanze's stirring performance as Celie) have re-fashioned the story to make it more palatable for theatre-goers, delivering a version of the story that is easier to follow, while retaining all the epic scope and dramatic possibilities of the original work. Neither is it slavish in its devotion to Stephen Spielberg's fine film version; The Color Purple, 'the musical about love,' obviously tells the same story, but in a different way, offering instead a re-intepretation of Walker's artfully created story set to music and told vividly onstage.

Cinda McCain is one of the most naturally gifted actors you'll find on a stage anywhere. Thankfully, though, most of her work has been performed in Nashville and over the years the Mississippi native has assembled a resume that's full of some of the best theatrical roles for women: Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (which won her the First Night Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play); Meg in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart; Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - the list goes on and on. Most recently, however, she's found herself on soundstages, making film appearances alongside such notables as Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw in the upcoming Love Don't Let Me Down.

But three other individuals are perhaps most responsible for the overall delight that is Tennessee Rep's 25th Anniversary season production: director Rene Dunshee Copeland, whose imaginative work helps to re-invent this musical on a basis that is at once more intimate while, somehow, is on a grander scale; music director Paul Carrol Binkley, whose concept for performing the work's music gives it the ideal down-home feel that only a band of expert Nashville players can give it; and design genius Gary Hoff, who transforms Johnson's black box space into something we've never seen in that venue before - the proscenium theatre you've only seen in your mind's eye - and who, in so doing, elevates Nashville theatrical design beyond its previous limits, fashioning it into something of opulently epic proportions.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee's scathing evisceration of marriage and indictment of suburban morality - is brought to the Nashville stage once again in a superbly acted and confidently directed production from Artists Cooperative Theatre 1 (ACT 1). First staged by ACT 1 in its 1989-90 season in a critically-lauded staging directed by Peg Allen and headed by a cast that included A. Sean O'Connell, it is revived now as part of the company's 20th anniversary season, once again proving the power of Albee's exquisitely created words and plot and the frankly horrifying characters whose lives play out onstage.

It's 1939 and producer David O. Selznick (played by Derek Whittaker) finds himself under the gun: He only has seven days to fashion a shooting script for his epic film version of Margaret Mitchell's worldwide bestseller. Virtually every writer of note (including Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) has submitted a treatment of the novel only to have Selznick - whose reputation as a controlling perfectionist remains intact in this play - reject every one of them

Boiler Room Theatre alumna and American Idol Season 6 finalist Melinda Doolittle returns to Franklin for a one-night-only concert event with all proceeds going to the Boiler Room Theatre on Monday, April 12 at 7 p.m. in Liberty Hall at The Factory. Acclaimed contemporary gospel performers Point of Grace will share the stage for the fundraising concert for Williamson County's only professional theatre company.

Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. (CDT) with Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m. at Darkhorse Theatre, 4610 Charlotte Avenue in Nashville. For reservations, call (615) 726-2281, and for further informatin about ACT 1, visit the company's website at www.act1online.com.

You know you have a hit musical on your hands when audience members leave the theatre humming the songs they just heard. But you know you have a mega-hit musical onstage when those audience members are of the six-, seven-, or eight-year-old variety and they are singing the show's songs and dancing their way out the door. Well, that's exactly what Nashville Children's Theatre is experiencing with their current production of Miss Nelson Is Missing, the high-spirited adaptation of the 1977 book by Harry Allard, updated to 2010 and featuring terrific performances by six talented actors.

Circle Players presents the production Friday, March 26, through Saturday, April 10, at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre. The script closely follows Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

If Starina Johnson is a little slow in returning your phone calls this week, give her a break! This week, she finds herself in hell - of a sort - as she and her co-stars prepare for the opening night of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the third offering in ACT 1's (Artists Cooperative Theatre 1) 20th anniversary season. Opening Friday night, March 29, and continuing through Saturday, April 3, at Darkhorse Theatre, Virginia Woolf features Johnson in the role of Honey, as she shares the stage with First Night Award-winning actress Melissa Bedinger Hade as Martha, real estate wiz and local TV personality Ed Amatrudo as George and Matthew Scott Baxter as Nick.

Clearly, Osborne and Eppler are writing about the people, places and things they have known from birth (in fact, on opening night, Osborne's family members from Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee were on hand to witness the world premiere of the play, thus his pedigree is assured) and they display an impressive knowledge of what constitutes proper funeral etiquette and the peculiarly Southern way of life and death in all its 'Jesus Called...And Dewey Answered' glory.

Laura Thomas Sonn and Ciaran McCarthy lead the cast as Luisa and Matt, the star-crossed lovers in Boiler Room Theatre's production of The Fantasticks, opening Friday, March 19 and running through Saturday, April 17, at the theatre located in The Factory at Franklin, 230 Franklin Road, Building Six. Will Sevier stars as El Gallo.

The musical version of Mark Twain's classic tale sweeps audiences down the mighty Mississippi as the irrepressible Huck Finn helps his friend Jim, a slave, escape to freedom at the mouth of the Ohio River. Their adventures along the way are propelled by an award-winning score from Roger Miller, which provides a theatrical celebration of pure Americana.

Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. (CDT) with Sunday matinees at 2:30 p.m. at Darkhorse Theatre, 4610 Charlotte Avenue in Nashville. For reservations, call (615) 726-2281, and for further informatin about ACT 1, visit the company's website at www.act1online.com.

Nashville playwrights Elizabeth Hayes and Anne-Geri Fann have written Cake or Death, 'a modern-day farce that is a witty, rollicking, Hitchcockian, roller-coaster of a ride and fun to the last crumb,' and slated for its world premiere production at Encore Theatre Company in Mount Juliet. The show plays its final performance on March 14.

Secrets of a Soccer Mom is set at a soccer field on a crisp autumn day, where three women talk on the sidelines while waiting their turn to play in the annual youth soccer league mothers vs. sons game. There's a little gossip, a little strategy - should they play all out or let their sons win? - and a lot of laughs, courtesy of Kathleen Clark's dialogue.

Diamond's play tells a story of a group of black girls known to Claudia MacTreer (played by ART regular Alicia Haymer in a starring role) in the fall of 1941, 'the year the marigolds didn't bloom.' Claudia comes to believe the marigolds didn't bloom because of the life and tragic events of her best friend, Pecola Breedlove (portrayed by Demetria Granberry, in her professional acting debut). Pecola, who is subjected to mocking because of both her dark skin and a suspected incestuous relationship with her father, spends her time longing for blue eyes, which to a dark-skinned black girl coming of age in a turbulent racial era, represent beauty and self-worth.

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, the big comedy hit of last season on Broadway in a revival starring Angela Lansbury as the wacky medium Madame Arcati, comes to the stage of Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in a new production directed by J. Dietz Osborne and starring Martha Manning in the role that won Lansbury her latest Tony Award. Opening Thursday, February 11, Blithe Spirit runs at Chaffin's Barn, the city's premiere dinner theatre that was voted one of Nashville's Top 10 Tourist Destinations, through March 13.

The time is 1939 and Selznick has already begun filming Gone With the Wind, but needs a new script. There's only one writer up to the task - the legendary Ben Hecht. The only problem is that Hecht has never read the book and there's only one week to re-write the script. Selznick locks himself, Hecht and director Victor Fleming (pulled off the set of The Wizard of Oz, which he is also directing) in his office to get the job done.

Nashville's playwriting duo of Nate Eppler and J. Dietz Osborne, who scored with Filthy Rich at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre last fall, have yet another world premiere production bowing this week. The pair's Southern Fried Funeral takes the stage at Franklin's Bethlehem United Methodist Church's Performing Arts Center on Friday night, continuing through March 20.