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Jeffrey Ellis - Page 2

Jeffrey Ellis

Jeffrey Ellis is a Nashville-based writer, editor and critic, who's been covering the performing arts in Tennessee for more than 35 years. In 1989, Ellis and his partner launched Dare, Tennessee's Lesbian and Gay Newsweekly which later became known as Query. Ellis is the recipient of the Tennessee Theatre Association's Distinguished Service Award for his coverage of theater in the Volunteer State and was the founding editor/publisher of Stages, the Tennessee Onstage Monthly.  He is a past fellow of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center and is the founder/executive producer of The First Night Honors - the history of which can be traced to 1989 and the first presentation of The First Night Awards - which honor outstanding theater artisans from Tennessee in recognition of their lifetime achievements and also includes The First Night Star Awards and the Most Promising Actors recognition. Midwinter's First Night honors outstanding productions and performances throughout the state. An accomplished director, Ellis helmed productions of La Cage Aux Folles, The Last Night of Ballyhoo and An American Daughter, all in their Nashville premieres, as well as award-winning productions of Damn Yankees, Company, Gypsy and The Rocky Horror Show. Ellis was recognized by The Tennessean as best director of a musical for both Company and Rocky Horror. Since 2015, Ellis has been increasingly in demand as a director by a variety of Tennessee theater companies and he has helmed productions of Picnic (Circle Players), The Last Five Years (VWA Theatricals), The Miss Firecracker Contest, Cabaret, My Fair Lady, Daddy's Dyin'...Who's Got the Will?, South Pacific, Winter Wonderettes and The Wizard of Oz (The Larry Keeton Theatre), The Little Foxes (ACT 1), The Boys in the Band (Jeffey Ellis Presents), Singin' in the Rain (Arts Center of Cannon County) and The Secret Garden (Center for the Arts, Murfreesboro) and, in 2020, the 70th anniversary season production of La Cage Aux Folles for Circle Players. Later this year, he will be directing Beautiful: The Carole King Musical for Center for the Arts.




LEARN MORE ABOUT Jeffrey Ellis

First Show:

EVITA, starring Patti LuPone

Favorite Stories:



Studio Tenn's DRIVING MISS DAISY Beautifully Captures The Spirit of Alfred Uhry's Play
Studio Tenn's DRIVING MISS DAISY Beautifully Captures The Spirit of Alfred Uhry's Play
March 11, 2024

Alfred Uhry is a Southern writer who knows our region better than most and he uses the power of his words and the artistry of his pen to create moments and scenes in plays and musicals that are as authentic as the little rivulets of condensation that snake their way down the outside of a glass of iced tea on a too-hot afternoon in March, for goodness’ sake.

Review Round-up: JAGGED LITTLE PILL, THE 39 STEPS, MRS. KRISHNAN'S PARTY and THE REVOLUTIONISTS
Review Round-up: JAGGED LITTLE PILL, THE 39 STEPS, MRS. KRISHNAN'S PARTY and THE REVOLUTIONISTS
March 11, 2024

In the aftermath of experiencing the Nashville premiere of Jagged Little Pill — the musical inspired by and featuring music from Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album of the same name, other songs written by her and including two created expressly for the production, and featuring a compelling, biting and challenging book by Diablo Cody — one cannot help but lament the show’s abbreviated three-performance run at TPAC’s Andrew Jackson Hall.

The Friday Five (+1): The Cast of Street Theatre Company's THE TRAIL TO OREGON
The Friday Five (+1): The Cast of Street Theatre Company's THE TRAIL TO OREGON
March 8, 2024

Originally written and produced by Team Starkid (of A Very Potter Musical fame), The Trail to Oregon! parodies the video game The Oregon Trail, which follows a pioneer family on their journey westward to make a new life for themselves. Described as “hilarious and ‘edu-macational’ musical comedy,” the audience chooses the characters’ names at each show and making the decision of which family member succumbs to dysentery on the way to the Pacific Northwest.

Prepare For The Uniquely 'Joyous Fun' of MRS. KRISHNAN'S PARTY
Prepare For The Uniquely 'Joyous Fun' of MRS. KRISHNAN'S PARTY
March 6, 2024

Indian Ink Theatre Company’s Justin Lewis promises that Mrs. Krishnan’s Party – which will be celebrated over four days at Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Andrew Johnson Theatre March 6-9 – will lift your spirits and help you feel connected to a community of new friends who may have been actual strangers when you first arrived for the joyous festivities.

IS Productions' Inaugural Staging of Patrick Marber's CLOSER, or Four Brits Behaving Badly
IS Productions' Inaugural Staging of Patrick Marber's CLOSER, or Four Brits Behaving Badly
February 21, 2024

Just wondering: Do people still engage in cybersex, or has it – like electronic pagers, AOL and video rental stores – gone the way of the dodo? I ask because cybersex provides a salient plot point in Patrick Marber’s 1997 play Closer, which currently is the inaugural production from Nashville’s IS Productions, the more serious, yet less drunken theater producing arm of Inebriated Shakespeare, the entity that’s been serving up the Bard along with a cocktail or two, for the past few years in various Music City (and now in Houston, Texas, if memory serves) locales.

TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL Dazzles Nashville Audiences With Tribute to 'The Queen of Rock and Roll'
TINA: THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL Dazzles Nashville Audiences With Tribute to 'The Queen of Rock and Roll'
February 16, 2024

Now onstage at Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Andrew Jackson Theatre, through Sunday, February 18, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical gives the full biographical jukebox musical treatment to one of Tennessee’s most talented exports and favorite daughters.

The Friday Five(+1):The Four Leading Players of IS Productions' CLOSER
The Friday Five(+1):The Four Leading Players of IS Productions' CLOSER
February 15, 2024

Closer stars Britt Byrd, Ross Canales, Jeremy James Carmichael and Angela Gimlin, who take on our Friday Five (+1) questions and tell us why they think you should come see their show. You know the drill: Read their answers, call and get tickets, then tell everyone you know to meet you there.

Beki Baker Infuses Lipscomb University's ADA AND THE ENGINE With Sensitivity, Wit and Understanding
Beki Baker Infuses Lipscomb University's ADA AND THE ENGINE With Sensitivity, Wit and Understanding
February 15, 2024

Meghan Wombles’ spirited portrayal of 19th century British genius Ada Byron Lovelace provides the very heart of Lipscomb University Theatre’s Ada and The Engine, currently onstage through February 18 at the Shamblin Theatre, in a beautifully conceived production directed by Beki Baker.

Francesca Noe and Nick Gehring's On-Stage Chemistry Brings The Sizzle to BONNIE & CLYDE
Francesca Noe and Nick Gehring's On-Stage Chemistry Brings The Sizzle to BONNIE & CLYDE
February 15, 2024

A musical theater version of the infamous pair’s ill-fated life together is brought to life in a highly romanticized, tuneful and fast-paced production of the Frank Wildhorn-Don Black-Ivan Menchell Broadway musical Bonnie & Clyde, which played just a month on the Main Stem, but has since enjoyed a successful run in the United Kingdom and in American regional theater. Now onstage through Sunday, February 18, at Lebanon’s Capitol Theatre and directed by Angie Dee for Audience of One Productions, Bonnie and Clyde offers audiences a rip-roarin’ good time, featuring superb performances from the company’s stable of stars.

Nashville Children's Theatre's World Premiere of THE GINGERBREAD KID Sure Smells Swell And Is Loads of Fun
Nashville Children's Theatre's World Premiere of THE GINGERBREAD KID Sure Smells Swell And Is Loads of Fun
February 9, 2024

Should you feel the sudden urge to go home and bake some gingerbread upon leaving a performance of Nashville Children’s Theatre’s world premiere production of The Gingerbread Kid, rest assured it’s not a sign that you’ve developed cannibalistic tendencies. Rather, it’s part of a clever plot by director/choreographer/librettist Abe Reybold and executive artistic director Ernie Nolan (and their gang of creative artists) to ensure you’re immersed in the sweet-smelling world of confectionery treats while enjoying the brand-new musical that presents all manner of childhood tales in “bakery-fresh” packaging.

Paula Vogel's INDECENT Is Nashville Repertory Theatre's Best Production of The Last 10 Years
Paula Vogel's INDECENT Is Nashville Repertory Theatre's Best Production of The Last 10 Years
February 5, 2024

It is a chilling reminder of the hardships of life, the capricious nature of humankind and the cruelty to which people are still subjected today. And that, quite frankly, is why you should make it a point to see Nashville Repertory Theatre’s stunning production of Indecent, which is at once warmly amusing, heartbreakingly authentic and horrifically prescient more than a century after many of the events depicted took place.

Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY May Have Been Created Expressly For Nashville Audiences
Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY May Have Been Created Expressly For Nashville Audiences
February 2, 2024

Perhaps without knowing it, McPherson, the show’s creative collective and everyone involved with bringing Girl From The North Country to the stage have created the perfect musical for Nashville’s discerning theater audiences, people who know a thing or two about appreciating music, art and live performance. Only when you begin to leave the theater, perhaps awestruck by what you have just experienced, will you realize the gravity of what you have just seen.

GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY's Jennifer Blood On 'A Show Like No Other You've Ever Seen'
GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY's Jennifer Blood On 'A Show Like No Other You've Ever Seen'
January 30, 2024

Calling Girl From The North Country a 'jukebox musical' is not only a misnomer, but it completely misses the point of Irish playwright/director Conor McPherson’s acclaimed Broadway musical that features a score by Bob Dylan, according to actress Jennifer Blood, who plays Elizabeth Laine in the national touring company that begins its weeklong stand at Nashville’s Tennessee Performing Arts Center tonight.

Broadway at TPAC Opens 2024 Live Theater in Nashville With 'Startling, Stunning, Sexy' FUNNY GIRL
Broadway at TPAC Opens 2024 Live Theater in Nashville With 'Startling, Stunning, Sexy' FUNNY GIRL
January 3, 2024

What a way to open a brand-new year of live theater in Nashville: in Funny Girl, audiences may have found exactly what they were longing for as Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s touring presentation provides a portentous kick-off to 2024. In fact, we can’t recall a standing ovation more gratifyingly sincere and genuine in the 35+ years we’ve been reviewing shows at TPAC than the one with which the company was rewarded on opening night in Andrew Jackson Hall. It was appreciative and effusive – downright enthusiastic and straight from the heart – the thunderous and sustained reaction to two-and-a-half hours of gloriously exhilarating musical theatre straight out of the golden age.

Audience of One Productions' ANASTASIA Takes Audiences On a Journey to the Past
Audience of One Productions' ANASTASIA Takes Audiences On a Journey to the Past
December 5, 2023

Audience of One Productions’ stunning Anastasia, now onstage through December 10, is the perfect gateway: Beautifully directed with professionalism and a cinematic flair by Angie Dee, the romantic and historical musical is strikingly performed, emphatically sung and lyrically danced.

Nashville Repertory Theatre's Beautifully Conceived Gift of A CHRISTMAS CAROL Radiates Warmth
Nashville Repertory Theatre's Beautifully Conceived Gift of A CHRISTMAS CAROL Radiates Warmth
December 4, 2023

Nashville Repertory Theatre, in their tradition of celebrating this festive time of year, draws upon the sense of family that pervades our theater community by presenting a sumptuously appointed production of a new adaptation of Charles Dickens’ venerable Christmas tale – A Christmas Carol – written and directed with heartfelt emotion to match the demands of the season by Micah-Shane Brewer.

Geoff Sobelle's FOOD Defies Description, But Still We Make an Attempt
Geoff Sobelle's FOOD Defies Description, But Still We Make an Attempt
December 3, 2023

Now onstage at Oz Arts Nashville in a ten-performance run through Sunday, December 10, FOOD both defies description and demands it: if, for example, you are like me and found yourself so caught up in the sheer spectacle and drama of Sobelle’s stunning performance on opening night only to be unable to really talk about it for at least half an hour after...

Geoff Sobelle Is Not a Foodie, No Matter How Good His FOOD Might Be
Geoff Sobelle Is Not a Foodie, No Matter How Good His FOOD Might Be
November 30, 2023

Although Geoff Sobelle’s life currently focuses on food – or, more aptly, FOOD – he admits that he’s never considered himself a “foodie.” In fact, he’s never really used the term. “I have two toddlers at home,” he says. “So, we don’t go out to restaurants very much at all, and that seems a big part of being a foodie. With toddlers, my life has changed.”

COLLEGIATE THEATRICS: Logan Purcell of Middle Tennessee State University
COLLEGIATE THEATRICS: Logan Purcell of Middle Tennessee State University
November 29, 2023

We continue to celebrate the return of Collegiate Theatrics with an interview featuring one of our favorites from the theatre department at Middle Tennessee State University in nearby Murfreesboro: Logan Purcell, a native of Gallatin, Tennessee, who will be graduating in 2025. We know Logan from his onstage appearances in MTSU’s productions of Fun Home, Cabaret and Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella in which his talents were on prominent display.

A Nashville Theater Tribute: GIVING THANKS FOR DENICE, Part 3
A Nashville Theater Tribute: GIVING THANKS FOR DENICE, Part 3
November 22, 2023

Denice Hicks is a national treasure who's been hiding out in plain sight in Nashville, Tennessee, for more than a quarter century. One of the most sought-after actors and directors in town, she has appeared on virtually every stage and her exquisite talents have been enjoyed by audiences and fellow theatre-types since her first Music City appearance as a cast member at the now-defunct Opryland USA theme park.



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