Jeffrey Ellis - Page 36

Whether it's seeing Matt Logan as King Arthur galumphing around onstage, as if astride a horse with Garris Wimmer not far behind providing the necessary sound effects with two halves of one empty coconut shell, or watching Jake Speck, as a feckless wannabe Knight of the Round Table, crap his pants anytime he hears a threatening sound or encounters the menacing Black Knight (or anyone else who might say 'boo' to the goose who is Sir Robin), or any other manner of zany characters who find themselves right smack in the middle of the most ridiculous of situations - Monty Python's Spamalot, now in an altogether splendid production from Studio Tenn, will supply you with plenty of laughs and/or the fodder to keep you amusingly sated until the next time you need a good guffaw or two.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Monday, May 8, and it looks to be a beautiful spring day in Nashville (so live life dramatically), prompting us to ask the musical question: Do reviews matter anymore?

Pride. Greed. Envy. Sloth. Gluttony. Lust. Wrath. Collectively, they are the seven deadly sins - the cardinal sins, the antitheses of the seven virtues. Creatively, they are the inspiration for choreographer Christopher Stuart's most recent work, 7 Deadly Sins featuring music by the Nashville-based collective known as Ten Out of Tenn, and now brought to life by Nashville Ballet in a twin-bill that closes out the company's 2016-17 season on a resounding note of artistic achievement.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Friday, May 5, 2017! The sound of muffled sniffles, pats on the back and mortarboards being thrown into the air will be reverberating throughout Nashville this weekend as commencement ceremonies get under way at Belmont University, Tennessee State University, David Lipscomb University and Trevecca Nazarene University and thousands of newly minted graduates will begin to live life dramatically! Next week, we get to do it all over again as Vanderbilt University unleashes their grads upon society, so keep your eyes peeled for celebrating coeds and their hopeful/mournful parents!

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to Thursday, May 4, 2017 - can you believe it's already this far along in the year - and that it's another #TheatreThursday? Today, we're posing the musical question: Are all our artistic efforts worth it during these oh-so-trying times? The answer, most certainly, is a resounding "YES!" You see, gentle readers, it's during times like these that the spirit of creativity, the expression of our collective imagination and the ability to transform and to transport become even more vital to the continued existence of humankind. We implore you to continue to live life dramatically!

As Tony Award nominations were being revealed on Tuesday to honor productions and performances during the 2016-17 season, organizers of The 2017 Spotlight Awards - honoring the best in high school musical theater throughout Middle Tennessee -  were tallying scores and assembling all the names of nominees for the awards presentation to be held Saturday, May 13, at Andrew Johnson Hall at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Wednesday, May 3, the day of THE BIG PAYBACK, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee's annual initiative to help local non-profits add to their coffers during a 24-hour online fundraising/giving event that has arts organizations coming up with new and clever ways to get their supporters to take part: We urge you to show your support throughout the day for your favorite arts non-profits and to help keep the lights on, the curtains up and your friends gainfully employed.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI for May 2, 2017 - we hope you're ready for the Tony Awards nominations being announced this morning at 7:30 a.m. God's time (which is also Nashville's time, aka daylight saving time) and pondering the musical question: What the hell goes into picking a season's worth of shows for local theatre companies? Sure, we presume it has something to do with selling tickets, enlightening their audiences and testing their artistic limits, but we sometimes fear it's for reason for too pedestrian for us to consider and far too plebeian for our tender psyches to even ponder…

If it's Tuesday, then that means a return to one of our most popular features in the BroadwayWorld: the takeover of our @BWW_Nashville Twitter account by yet another luminary from our community. Today (which according to experts is @BWW_Nashville Twitter Held Hostage Day 9), Nashville Ballet's Julia Eisen, the Chapel Hill, North Carolina native who has been an integral part of the company's success since 2010, has our password and a license to thrill and delight.

Good Morning, Theaterati! It's May Day: May 1, 2017, and we're asking the musical question…What if you have five members from two casts of Million Dollar Quartet together backstage after a performance of the show, might it more accurately be known as $1.25 Million Dollar Quartet?

Join the lovely and talented - and completely off-her-rocker, but in a completely entertaining and intriguing way - Sara Kistner as she takes you backstage, onstage, offstage and beyond with the cast and crew of The Larry Keeton Theatre's Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Effin' Will? today as part of her Takeover of @BWW_Nashville Twitter. As we understand it, there's a dream ballet sequence that cannot be missed!

Michael Frayn's classic farce Noises Off debuts at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater May 12, running through May 27, in a production helmed by Bradley Moore for ACT 1's 2016-17 season.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project returns to Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater starting Friday, May 5, with the Eleventh Annual Women's Work Festival of performing and visual arts created by women.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! This morning (which according to our watch is Friday, April 28) we come to you to pose this musical question: What have they done to poor Heather Morris on Dancing With the Stars? Seriously, what did they do? We don't watch that show but have picked up some rumblings on the mean streets of Music City that intrigue is afoot among the over-teased and body-glittered cast of the ABC Monday night juggernaut - please fill us in, theaterati. Inquiring minds want to know.

The Takeover of @BWW_Nashville's Twitter account continues unabated. Today, Matthew Hayes Hunter, the 2012 First Night Most Promising Actor who tonight takes to the stage of Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts to play Seymour Krelbourn, the geeky shopboy who brings the monstrous Audrey II to life in the musical Little Shop of Horrors, wrests control from Lipscomb University's Hunter Martin who kept things moving on Thursday in anticipation of LU's Senior Theatre Showcase on Saturday.

Street Theatre Company continues its 2017 season with its production of Andrew Lippa's John and Jen - the sentimental and evocative tale of two siblings - starring Ryan Lynch and Jordan Scott in the eponymous roles, under the direction of Brett Myers.

Directed by Bryce McDonald and featuring a cast that includes Ross Griffin (as Jerry Lee Lewis), Daniel W. Black (Carl Perkins), Edward LaCardo (Elvis Presley) and Steven Horst (Johnny Cash) as the titular quartet, Million Dollar Quartet is sure to set box office records in Crossville where you are likely to find the very best musical theater this side of Broadway.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! And welcome to April 27 - aka #TheatreThursday - during which we ask the musical question: With 13 shows in the 2016-17 Broadway Season, which shows will be forgotten come Tony Award-nomination day (which is next week, if memory serves) and sink under the weight of all the swell competition? Think about it, people! What are your favorites for Tony glory this year? We'll be sure to send you an invitation to our Tony Party!

Before you know it, all of these talented college and high school seniors are going to be graduating and heading off to lord-knows-where! We're feeling a bit sentimental, truth be told, but until such time comes, we're going to continue our end-of-the-academic revelry and tomorrow, Lipscomb University Theater senior Hunter Martin will take over our Twitter account!

Among such people is Jason Glick, a charming and talented man who came to town back in the 1990s, made a name for himself on a variety of local stages - Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, Nashville Shakespeare Festival and Circle Players readily come to mind - and then decided to leave town, enroll in law school and who now, in the circuitous way that creative people wend their way through life, he's happily married, the dad to two boys and pursuing his art in Portland, Oregon.