Jeffrey Ellis - Page 60

Darkly sensual and broodingly sexy, Paul Vasterling's balletic interpretation of Bram Stoker's legendary anti-hero Dracula (first presented in 1999 and revived in 2007) remains as potent and as stirring as ever, richly conceived and beautifully performed by the dancers of Nashville Ballet, who offer  audiences a spine-tingling seasonal adventure.

There's the definite feeling of autumn in the air that makes you want to gut a pumpkin or at least have a pumpkin spice latte, chances are you are definitely going to need a sweater in the early morning hours, and it's past the perfect time for you to pick out a Halloween costume. Luckily, theater companies are well into their new seasons and there's plenty of shows to entertain you while you take time off from berating yourself for wearing that same tricked-out Star Wars costume you wore the past fwo-and-one-half years.

Ask people involved in theater around Nashville to list some of their favorites who have moved on to seek fame and fortune in other places, one name that's likely to come up is Calvin David Malone. A graduate of Belmont University's esteemed musical theater program, the Owensboro, Kentucky, native is now on the boards in Fredericksburg, Virginia, delighting audiences with his massive talent and considerable stage presence.

Take Cate Jo, for example: A native of Birmingham, Alabama, she originally arrived on the Vanderbilt campus with an eye toward a career in academia, ultimately changing course to pursue a career as an actress. Most recently, she played the challenging role of Bianca in Tennessee Women's Theater Project's production of Lauren Gunderson's The Taming, a fanciful contemporary comedy that fairly crackled with intensity as it examined popular and political culture in the United States, viewing the trajectory of American political thought from the earliest days of the republic to the present. Earlier this year, she played Lady Nijo and Nell in Vanderbilt University Theatre's production of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls.

Sumptuously designed, beautifully staged and wonderfully sung, Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella isn't the same show you may recall from childhood hours spent in front of a television or from scores of regional theater productions since, but with a new and refreshingly timely book by Douglas Carter Beane, along with the interpolation of four 'new' songs from the R+H canon, the elaborate new production that's fresh off its first-ever Broadway run seems the ideal interpretation for the 21st century.

It is fitting, perhaps, and definitely a case of perfect timing, for actress Blair Ross: Preparing to go onstage as “Madame” – aka The Wicked Stepmother – in Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella with most of her Tennessee family on hand to share in the excitement from their vantage point in the audience. Currently in Memphis, the national touring company of the recent Broadway revival of Cinderella welcomes Ross to the cast as they look ahead to next week's eight-performance run at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

We're back! After an extended absence due to The Last Five Years (we directed it to boffo notices from our critical colleagues), The 2015 First Night Honors (which played to SRO crowds at Chaffin's Barn in September) and a sense of overwhelming malaise and ennui (we are ever so dramatic at times), BWW Nashville's Critic's Choice is back on the interwebs, offering you our insights and advice on the shows that are coming up and what you should try to find time to see - or to avoid at all costs, depending on our perspective.

Take Collin Peterson, for example: a junior vocal performance and music education major at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, has been acting in theatrical productions for a number of years, most recently starring as Tarzan in Arts Center of Cannon County's Tarzan, the Musical, directed by 2015 First Night Honoree Darryl Deason. A 2015 First Night Most Promising Actor, Collin starred opposite 2013 MPA Jenna Pryor, who played Jane.

If you were to ask me to list my five favorite musicals (or even my top ten), there is a very good chance I would not include Meredith Willson's The Music Man among my chosen favorites. But then I see another production of that particular Willson tribute to Americana that features a fast-talking salesman and a beautiful young librarian named Marian and I am suddenly reminded that I absolutely adore The Music Man and all 76 of its trombones - and I feel remiss in not listing it among the shows I love.

Led by a pair of stellar performances from Aaron Solomon and Darryl Deason, Arts Center of Cannon County's production of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men retains its crackling intensity some 61 years after it premiered on television and 58 years since the acclaimed film version starring Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb. Adapted for the stage by Sherman L. Sergel, the play's themes remain imminently relevant in the 21st century, brought to life under Terry Deason's direction.

And that, gentle readers, is just the first problem with ACT 1's season-opening production of Ira Levin's Deathtrap, a sturdy, if perhaps shopworn, theatrical thriller now onstage through October 17 at Darkhorse Theater. Directed and produced by Susan Cole, Deathtrap features a notable cast of experienced local actors who seem to be trapped in a plodding, uninteresting production of a play that's well past its projected shelf life. There's a lack of polish (whether among the actors' performances or on the surface of set pieces) and a pervasive sense of not knowing the time, place and environs in which Deathtrap takes place that is disconcerting and off-putting.

Today, our Friday Five features focuses on the pair of actors portraying the scions of the Addams Family: daughter Wednesday and son Pugsley. Read all about the actors portraying the two iconic characters – Katie Callaway and 2014 First Night Most Promising Actor Will Lasley – then ring up the box office and secure your tickets to the show which promises to be one of Towne Centre's finest…

Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts presents The Addams Family, A New Musical - the Broadway musical by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (Jersey Boys) and Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party) - October 16 through November 1.

There's a definite feeling of autumn in the air in Middle Tennessee - despite this week's warmer temperatures and plenty of sunshine - and as the calendar moves forward toward Halloween and the time of ghost stories and other sinister tales comes the opening of playwright David Alford's SPIRIT: The Authentic Bell Witch Experience, the final event of this year's Bell Witch Fall Festival in his hometown of Adams, Tennessee.

Opening tonight at The Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson is a sparkling new revival of Meredith Willson's The Music Man, directed and choreographed by Stephanie Jones-Benton, with musical direction by Ginger Newman. Featuring a roster of the Keeton Theatre's favorite stars, the show runs through October 28.

Ask people involved in theater around Nashville to list some of their favorites who have moved on to seek fame and fortune in other places, one name that almost always pops up is Deonte Warren. A graduate of Belmont University's musical theater program, he's worked throughout the country, ensuring that his name is known all accross the USA, eventually making his mark in New York City and then heading south to Orlando, Florida, where he is currently "spreading magic" and beguiling audiences at Walt Disney World's Festival of the Lion King.

Chambers Stevens is a bona fide Hollywood multi-hyphenate - actor-comedian-acting coach-author - who somehow has encapsulated all of that and more in his new one-man show It's Who You Know, premiering at Memphis' Evergreen Theatre, 1705 Poplar Avenue, October 15-18. Tickets are available online at www.ItsWhoYouKnowOnTour.com.

Chambers Stevens is a bona fide Hollywood multi-hyphenate - actor-comedian-acting coach-author - who somehow has encapsulated all of that and more in his new one-man show It's Who You Know, premiering at Memphis' Evergreen Theatre, 1705 Poplar Avenue, October 15-18. Tickets are available online at www.ItsWhoYouKnowOnTour.com.

It's all in the timing. No matter if you're delivering a joke, performing a new play or just putting something noteworthy out into the ether, the key to success is often just a matter of good timing. Case in point: the recently crowned Miss America 2016 came into the pageant as Miss Georgia - and in Lauren Gunderson's play, The Taming (now onstage at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theatre in the "first east of the Rockies" production from Tennessee Women's Theater Project), we are treated to the "art imitates life" scene in which Miss Georgia becomes Miss America.

There's a very good chance that Belmont University musical theater student Grace Williams is going through some separation anxiety this week. Along with her castmastes and the creative team, she bade farewell to Gypsy – the stunning revival of the iconic Broadway musical mounted by Franklin-based Studio Tenn – on Sunday after a run that drew unanimous acclaim from the critics and inspired audience accolades throughout the run. As a member of the show's ensemble, Grace played a variety of roles in director Matt Logan's imaginative staging of the show.