Jeffrey Ellis - Page 77

First Night Award-winning Boiler Room Theatre, recognized as Tennessee's Outstanding Theatre Company in 2011, will stage a full production of Les Misérables with a limited run in August, 2013. The iconic musical will be presented as a special three-performance benefit for the non-profit Boiler Room Theatre August 8-10.

It's been a busy year in Nashville theater in 2012, with audiences treated to a whole slate of theatrical offerings spanning multiple genres-from productions of time-honored classics to new and original contemporary works, from dramas to comedies, from straight plays to musicals-and giving local theater-goers more opportunities than ever before to be challenged by the onstage magic created by some of Tennessee's most talented and gifted artists.

Edna Lou Neblett Chaffin-perhaps better known to members of Nashville's theater community as "Puny"-one-half of the couple who created The Barn Dinner Theatre that ultimately became Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, died Monday, December 10, after a long illness.

GroundWorks Theatre and playwright/director Myra Stephens give a decidedly Southern accent to the holiday season as they present Daddy Went Home for Christmas from December 14-23 at Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre. Described by the playwright as "a parody of all things Southern," consider it a holiday-themed gift of love, dental issues and the death of a loved one.

Playhouse Nashville's popular Ten Minute Playhouse continues at Street Theatre tonight with staged readings six more new plays by Middle Tennessee writers including well-known Nashville playwrights from the Writer's Stage and the Tennessee Repertory Martha Ingram New Works Project.

Matt Chiorini directs Macbeth-one of the bard's best-known political tragedies-to kick off 2013 for Nashville Shakespeare Festival at Belmont University's Troutt Theater January 10-27. Eric D. Pasto-Crosby and Shannon Hoppe lead a cast of NSF veterans and newcomers in the much-anticipated production.

Nashville Children's Theatre this season-during the run of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown-has understandably selected Project Linus as its annual holiday season charity, inviting audiences to become involved in the process.

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Chairman Rocco Landesman announced recently that Nashville Ballet is one of 832 non-profit organizations nationwide-and only one of two organizations in Tennessee-to receive an NEA Art Works grant.

Playhouse Nashville's popular Ten Minute Playhouse-named one of the Top 11 Theatrical Events of 2011 by The First Night Honors-returns December 9 and 10 with a fresh slate of 12 new plays by Middle Tennessee writers. Local actors interested in participating in the staged readings at Street Theatre Company are invited to attend an open casting call and rehearsal on Saturday, December 8, at noon.

Carol Irvin, who has been a mainstay at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse for more than 20 years, is the latest recipient of The First Night Robe,presented on Saturday, November 17, prior to curtain of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Earlier in the same week, Bralyn Stokes received the robe at Rhubarb Theater's Birds in Church, and Michael Holder and Josh Waldrep claimed it at Street Theatre Company's Miss Saigon in Concert.

World-class vocalist, First Night Award-nominated actress and Crossville native Mandy Barnett returns to the stage of her hometown's Cumberland County Playhouse for a very special Christmas concert Friday night, November 23 at 8 p.m.

Dickson's Renaissance Players usher in the holiday season with an encore production of the musical extravaganza, A Christmas Carol, The Musical, running November 30 - December 18 in the Anne Deason Performance Hall at The Renaissance Center.

Roxy Regional Theatre artistic director John McDonald returns to the role of Ebenezer Scrooge as the Clarksville professional theatre debuts its 2012 production of A Christmas Carol-and celebrates the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens-on Friday, November 23, running through December 22.

April Hardcastle-Miles directs Peter Pan as Lakewood Theatre Company, chosen as 2011's BroadwayWorld.com's best community theatre, concludes its 2012 season.

Tall, blond and handsome-and looking for all the world like some sort of biblical superhero-Colin Cahill may be the ideal Joseph, given the sumptuous and fast paced production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat at Cumberland County Playhouse. Cahill charms and entertains as Jacob's favorite son, surrounded by what seems like a cast of thousands, bringing Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical to life with enough energy to power every household along the Cumberland Plateau.

Directed with sharp focus by David Shamburger and featuring the expert musical direction of Jo Lynn Burks and the terrific, dance club-infused choreography of Emily Tello Speck, BUMT's Footloose seems far removed from the silly musical theater oddity that debuted on Broadway in 1998, another example of producers seeking to capitalize on a film's success by transferring it to the stage.

There's no life-sized helicopter landing on the stage during Street Theatre Company's concert mounting of Miss Saigon, The Engineer doesn't take the stage while humping the top of a Cadillac car, nor is "The Morning of the Dragon" the flag-waving, people's army spectacle you might have come to expect from bigger, grander productions of the musical that ran on Broadway for more than 4,000 performances and played the nation's theaters and concert halls while on tour.

There are some lovely moments to be found in Birds in Church, the latest production from Nashville's Rhubarb Theatre-a refashioning of the company's first production almost ten years ago, both of which feature vignettes selected from among playwright and former priest Joe Pintauro's Metropolitan Operas. There are lovely moments, to be certain, along with some that are almost riotously funny, genuinely moving and clearly provocative.

First Night Award winning directors Mike Fernandez (Doubt, 2010) and Justin Boccitto (Hairspray, 2011) will join forces to co-direct Les Miserables as Lipscomb University Theatre's homecoming musical in early November 2013.

You would have to be some sort of modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge-mean and spiteful, unfeeling and cold-not to be totally captivated by Irving Berlin's White Christmas, the exuberant stage musical based on the classic holiday film that many hold dear and now onstage at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall through Sunday, November 18.