Jeffrey Ellis - Page 20

Hair is a great big hit on the symbolic and mostly imaginary bong that is theater in Music City - or anywhere else artists come together to share the largesse of their own indomitable spirits. The resulting production will leave you inspired, maybe even more readily equipped with the realities of life in the 21st century, which proves that no matter how much times have changed, they remain stultifyingly the same. While our prejudices and biases may have been altered by the social upheaval of the 1960s and the decades that followed, introspection reveals that we only have refocused our baser instincts on issues of equal significance.

There is a wonderful scene in act two of Aaron Posner's Stupid Fucking Bird - the first production of ACT 1's 2018-19 season - during which actors Tamara Scott and Diego Gomez, playing mother and son, launch into a years-in-the-making confrontation that gives both actors an opportunity to prove their mettle in decidedly theatrical fashion. If only for that one scene in Posner's three-act play, audiences could walk away satisfied, but thanks to Mark Cabus' inspired direction of a particularly notable cast there are far more moments to entertain and, perhaps, to challenge audiences to think about the personal cost of creating art.

A word to the wise is sufficient: Never turn your back on Rhoda Penmark. No matter how well-behaved, how polite or how sickeningly sweet she may seem, the little girl with the larcenous heart simply cannot be trusted and it is at your own peril that you decide to trust her - the fact that she is a fictional character notwithstanding.

Students participating in the annual Spotlight Awards, a celebration of musical theatre in Tennessee high schools, were special guests of Tony and Emmy award winner Kristin Chenoweth last week during sound check prior to her performances with the Nashville Symphony at Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

"Two hours of uncompromising joy" is how Evan Alexander Smith describes the critically acclaimed The Play That Goes Wrong, the West End and Broadway comedy hit which just recently embarked on its first national tour of the USA, bringing its unique amalgam of theatrical artistry, uproarious humor and full-out laughter to audiences all over the country.

Circle Players continues to celebrate of its 2018-19 season with tonight's opening of Hair, the 1969 tribal love-rock musical that made musical theater history with its premiere 50 years ago. Directed by Jason Lewis and choreographed by Tosha Pendergrast, the eagerly anticipated production features a cast of Nashville's favorite actors, with Nicholas Page as Claude.

Students participating in the annual Spotlight Awards, a celebration of musical theatre in Tennessee high schools, were special guests of Tony and Emmy award winner Kristin Chenoweth last week during sound check prior to her performances with the Nashville Symphony at Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

Director Renee Robinson brings the Frank Wildhorn musical Jekyll & Hyde - based on Robert Louis Stevenson's iconic novella - to life at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts, opening Friday, October 5 and continuing through October 21.

Following a summer spent as an intern with Studio Tenn (and appearing in the company's production of Frankenstein), Regan Holmberg finds herself in the midst of her junior year at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro and already is hard at work on her first show of the semester. In fact, she predicts fall semester 2018 is going to be as jam-packed as her summer was as Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine opens in MTSU's Dorethe Tucker Theatre tonight.

Looking into the future, you'll find a number of new productions on tap for your entertainment pleasure, thanks to the efforts of theater companies all over Middle Tennessee. Here's our calendar for October 1, 2018, to help you plot your course through the end of the year...

Theater audiences in Middle Tennessee are treated to a delicious murder mystery from the doyenne of British whodunits as Arts Center of Cannon County unveils its latest production - Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None - in a sumptuous new mounting from director Cyndie Verbeten. Opening tonight and continuing through October 13, the story focuses on a group of people brought together on a remote island where there is danger and intrigue afoot.

It's the day of the show, y'all: The Nashville premiere of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band is tonight - at The Barbershop Theatre, 4003 Indiana Avenue in The Nations - and six of the actors portraying Crowley's now-iconic characters took time from tech week to answer questions about their processes and to offer their reasons for why you should come see the show.

There's just something about Kristin Chenoweth. It's almost undefinable, perhaps even undescribable, yet as with any writer's efforts to put into words how remarkable the woman behind the image is, I'll give it my best shot, attempting to encapsulate the wonder that is Kristin Chenoweth in 2,000 words or less (but if I go over, don't judge too harshly - I'm simply stating the facts that prove the folly of my initial hypothesis).

Matt Logan, the artistic director of Studio Tenn, will leave his position with the award-winning, professional theater company, effective November 2018, to 'pursue new creative opportunities.'

For Brooke Bethel, now enrolled at Nashville's David Lipscomb University, the road to becoming an actor - or, more to the point, majoring in theatre in college - has taken a circuitous route since her childhood in northwestern Idaho.

What would have happened if the United States had voted the wrong president into office in 1936 and the country had descended into fascism? That is the question explored as The Humanity Theatre Project launches its first season with a staged reading of It Can't Happen Here (Part 1) adapted by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen from the novel by Sinclair Lewis. The production will take place Thursday, November 1 through Saturday, November 3 at 7:00 pm at The Darkhorse Theatre, 4610 Charlotte Avenue, Nashville.

Looking into the future, you'll find a number of new productions on tap for your entertainment pleasure, thanks to the efforts of theater companies all over Middle Tennessee. Here's our calendar to help you plot your course...

For plenty of fast-paced action, along with some stellar performances by a fresh-faced cast of eager young theatrical triple threats and a coterie of Nashville stage favorites, one need look no further than Disney's Newsies, the latest onstage offering from Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, the iconic Music City venue that's been entertaining audiences for more than half a century. In its way, The Barn (as it is affectionately known in these parts) and its laudable history ensure that its treatment of the popular musical theater title lend the show's historical basis more than a little gravitas in the making of a stage spectacle.

Acclaimed playwright Sarah Ruhl - who twice has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama, a Tony Award nominee and the recipient of a MacArthur 'Genius' Grant - has been named as the 2018-19 Ingram New Works Playwriting Fellow at Nashville Repertory Theatre.

Talon David, who takes on the role of Aldonza in the Actor's Pointe production - starring opposite Lane Davies as Cervantes and Samuel Whited as Sancho Panza - agreed to answer our questions and to explain why she thinks you should come see Man of La Mancha.