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Jeffrey Ellis - Page 30

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:



FRIDAY 5 (+1): THE FANTASTICKS' Leach, Beckett and Hargis
FRIDAY 5 (+1): THE FANTASTICKS' Leach, Beckett and Hargis
August 11, 2017

Stars Jacqueline Leach, Lucas Beckett and Jeremy Hargis took time from their packed schedules to tell us more about themselves, as well as to offer some reasons why audiences should come see their show. Read all about it in the latest Friday 5 (+1) and make your reservations quickly - the show is bound to sell out!

FRIDAY 5 (+1) on Thursday: WINTER'S TALE's Cash, Meinerding & Tustin
FRIDAY 5 (+1) on Thursday: WINTER'S TALE's Cash, Meinerding & Tustin
August 10, 2017

One of Music City's longest running summer theater traditions continues tonight with the debut of 2017's Shakespeare in the Park, Nashville Shakespeare Festival's annual gift to a generation of theater audiences. This year's edition of Shakespeare in the Park will feature two of the Bard's best known works - The Winter's Tale, which opens tonight, and Antony & Cleopatra, which opens next Thursday night at the Centennial Park Band Shell.

Critic's Choice: What's Playing in Tennessee? Nashville Theater Calendar for August 9
Critic's Choice: What's Playing in Tennessee? Nashville Theater Calendar for August 9
August 9, 2017

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

BWW Review: SMOKE ON THE MOUNTAIN's Sentimental Journey at Chaffin's Barn
BWW Review: SMOKE ON THE MOUNTAIN's Sentimental Journey at Chaffin's Barn
August 8, 2017

Theater's power to transform and transport is astonishing and the capability of artists to create a sense of time and place, with words and music and theatrical wizardry to lend a tangible feeling to the experience can leave you breathless. Who'd have ever thought that such thrilling artistry, the very magic of make believe, could be so vividly expressed, so awesomely felt in two hours spent in a backwoods Southern church on a Saturday night in 1938? But that's exactly what happens in Smoke on the Mountain, Connie Ray and Alan Bailey's evocative, down-home musical that lovingly takes its audiences back home again in ways not even Thomas Wolfe may ever have imagined.

BWW Review: Roxy Regional's STEEL MAGNOLIAS Takes You Back Home
BWW Review: Roxy Regional's STEEL MAGNOLIAS Takes You Back Home
August 8, 2017

Nothing seems to spark so much debate among the theaterati than the announcement of an upcoming production of a show considered overdone, old-fashioned or somehow hackneyed and quasi-provincial. Take for example, Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias - the somewhat nostalgic and Southern-fried seriocomic tale of six women who gather every Saturday morning in a Louisiana beauty shop to have their bouffants teased, their shags trimmed, popular recipes swapped and the lives of their neighbors vivisected in the relative sanctity of a women-only establishment - that has been a part of contemporary literature since its 1987 premiere at off-Broadway's WPA Theatre 'up north' in New York.

2017 Shakespeare in the Park Opens Thursday With THE WINTER'S TALE
2017 Shakespeare in the Park Opens Thursday With THE WINTER'S TALE
August 8, 2017

Nashville Shakespeare Festival presents its latest version of The Winter's Tale, directed by NSF artistic associate and apprentice company director Santiago Sosa, the 2017 season opening production of Shakespeare in the Park this Thursday, August 10, at Centennial Park's band shell.

Circle Players Kicks off 2017-18 Season With BRING IT ON
Circle Players Kicks off 2017-18 Season With BRING IT ON
August 8, 2017

Circle Players kicks off its 2017-2018 season in high-flying style with the Nashville premiere of Bring It On The Musical, promising to take audiences to a colorful place filled with the complexities of high school friendship, jealousy, betrayal and forgiveness.

THE SECRET GARDEN Set to Open at Towne Centre Theatre Friday
THE SECRET GARDEN Set to Open at Towne Centre Theatre Friday
August 8, 2017

The musical theater version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden opens this Friday night at Brentwood's Towne Centre Theatre in a new production directed by First Night Star Award winner Tim Larson. The Secret Garden features a book by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon.

Upcoming Auditions in the Nashville Area (8/4/17)
Upcoming Auditions in the Nashville Area (8/4/17)
August 4, 2017

Looking for a challenging role or to embark upon a new onstage adventure? Here is the latest audition information to come to the BroadwayWorld Nashville newsdesk.

The FRINGE-y 5: NATE EPPLER's Adventures in FRINGEland
The FRINGE-y 5: NATE EPPLER's Adventures in FRINGEland
August 4, 2017

The most wonderful time of the year is quickly drawing to a close: 2017 Sideshow Fringe Festival opened last week only runs through this Sunday, August 6, but until then you have a jam-packed calendar of creative, imaginative and adventurous theater to inspire you and to enlighten you - perhaps even enough to keep you satisfied until the 2018 rendition rolls around.

Critic's Choice: What's Playing in Tennessee? Nashville Theater Calendar for August 3, 2017
Critic's Choice: What's Playing in Tennessee? Nashville Theater Calendar for August 3, 2017
August 3, 2017

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

The FRINGE-y 5: MATTHEW MARCUM's Existential Take on The Fringe
The FRINGE-y 5: MATTHEW MARCUM's Existential Take on The Fringe
August 3, 2017

Today, our FRINGE-y 5 spotlight focuses on internationally recognized performance artist, producer and educator Matthew Marcum, whose work combines text, sound, movement, and optics to create contemporary theatre productions, live art events, conceptual installations and educational workshops. Marcum holds a dual MFA in Theatre Performance Making from The University of Chichester in the U.K. and the California Institute of Integral Studies as well as an MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College Chicago.

Thank You, Places...Production Stage Manager LIZ FLETCHER
Thank You, Places...Production Stage Manager LIZ FLETCHER
August 2, 2017

What's a stage manager? What do they do? What's their job? Seriously. Perhaps no job in the theater is as hard to define as that of a production stage manager and it's that blend of mystery, fear and total dependence that makes actors, directors, crew members, producers - you name it! - hold a really great stage manager in total awe and to revile someone who is (how do you say it, without offending anyone?) less than stellar in their position?

The FRINGE-y 5: DIEGO GOMEZ On Being Led to The Fringe
The FRINGE-y 5: DIEGO GOMEZ On Being Led to The Fringe
August 2, 2017

It's the most wonderful time of the year for Nashville's theater community: 2017 Sideshow Fringe Festival opened last Thursday night with #ThrowbackThursdayLive! and a weekend jam-packed with offering for the most adventurous of theater-goers and as the action gears back up for another full calendar of events week, we pick back up with more FRINGE-y 5 interviews. Today, our spotlight focuses on Diego Gomez, an actor/writer/musician who is an integral part of 2017 Sidewhow Fringe Festival as writer of The Backpack, an original script performed last weekend, and as an actor in this week's Marian, Or (The True Story of Robin Hood).

The FRINGE-y 5: F. LYNNE BACHLEDA's Life in the Fringe Lane
The FRINGE-y 5: F. LYNNE BACHLEDA's Life in the Fringe Lane
July 29, 2017

It's the most wonderful time of the year for Nashville's theater community: 2017 Sideshow Fringe opened on Thursday night and is now in full-swing, with a myriad of offerings in store for theater-goers this weekend at venues all across town. There's enough art - both entertaining and intriguing - to satisfy the most discerning of audiences, inspiring them in the process. Among the upcoming events is F. Lynne Bachleda's Stories From the Back Seat - a collection of monologues gathered by Bachleda during her tenure as a driver for a ride-sharing platform, an experience that provided her with a wealth of material.

The FRINGE-y 5: ERIC BUTLER'S Excellent Adventures on the Fringe
The FRINGE-y 5: ERIC BUTLER'S Excellent Adventures on the Fringe
July 28, 2017

It's the most wonderful time of the year for Nashville's theater community: 2017 Sideshow Fringe Festival opened last with #ThrowbackThursdayLive! and continues for two weeks in venues all over town, offering all manner of entertaining and intriguing art to satisfy even the most discerning theater-goer. Among the upcoming events is Eric Butler's The Intoxicated Travels of the Reverend Piano Man, featuring an all-star cast accompanied by live music from WT Davidson and Kevin Madill, on August 4 at 8:30 p.m. at the Darkhorse Theater.

The FRINGE-y 5: BRITT BYRD On Why She Loves Life On The Fringe
The FRINGE-y 5: BRITT BYRD On Why She Loves Life On The Fringe
July 27, 2017

It's the most wonderful time of the year for Nashville's theater community: 2017 Sideshow Fringe Festival opens tonight with #ThrowbackThursdayLive! from 7:30 to 11 p.m. at the Actors' Bridge Studio at Darkhorse Theater. Britt Byrd, winner of Nashville Scene's Best Actress Award, makes her directorial debut with the patriarchy-smashing and gender-bending Marian Or, (The True Tale of Robin Hood), adding to her already illustrious resume of acting accomplishments. She's played everyone from Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show to the bumbling, buxom Brooke in Noises Off and would-be beauty queen Carnelle Scott in The Miss Firecracker Contest.

Upcoming Theater Auditions in the Nashville Area 7/27/17
Upcoming Theater Auditions in the Nashville Area 7/27/17
July 27, 2017

Looking for a challenging role or to embark upon a new onstage adventure? Here is the latest audition information to come to the BroadwayWorld Nashville newsdesk.

Critic's Choice: What's Playing in Tennessee? Nashville Theater Calendar for July 27, 2017
Critic's Choice: What's Playing in Tennessee? Nashville Theater Calendar for July 27, 2017
July 27, 2017

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

BWW Review: Woven Theatre's Exquisite and Enlightening SILENT SKY
BWW Review: Woven Theatre's Exquisite and Enlightening SILENT SKY
July 24, 2017

Nashville audiences have become rather familiar with the work of Lauren Gunderson, the most produced living American playwright of the 2016-17 season, primarily due to works presented by Tennessee Women's Theater Project. Now, thanks to an impressive production of her Silent Sky, by Woven Theatre Company - as part of their inaugural Women Pioneer Series - we are introduced to another of her quintessentially intriguing and compelling women: Henrietta Leavitt, an American pioneer...



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