Jeffrey Ellis - Page 8

Nothing can put you in the holiday spirit quite so quickly – or so successfully – as being treated to a musical presentation filled with Christmastide tunes, performed by a swell ensemble of uber-talented performers (with some comedy bits thrown in for good measure, along with a generous dollop of onstage magic)! And when it is preceded by a delicious dinner shared with a whole slew of folks seeking to capture the warmth and camaraderie of a holiday-themed spectacle…well, can it get any better?

What better way then to kick off your own seasonal schedule of happenings and events than a return – for a timely reminder about what the holiday season should be about – to Nashville Children’s Theatre for their colorful and entertaining adaptation of The Elves and the Shoemaker?

Anyone who’s been even the least bit concerned about the future of musical theater, in general, or the status of Belmont University Musical Theatre, in particular, need worry no more. The multi-talented triple threats studying on the Nashville campus, under the tutelage of program coordinator Nancy Allen and her team of top-flight educators, are proof that musical theater as we know it continues to flourish even in the darkest and most difficult of times.

Ragtime opened last night, featuring a cast of Nashville stage veterans and a sizable coterie of performers, heretofore unknown to local audiences, who are certain to become fast favorites. Taking a brief respite from their hectic schedules of rehearsals, fittings, photo calls, more rehearsals and getting to know one another, four of those newcomers – Shelby Denise Smith, Wood Van Meter, Kortney Ballenger and Steven McCoy – took the time to answer our questions to tell you why you need to score those tickets for Ragtime now if you haven’t already.

Ragtime, the Tony Award-winning musical about life in these United States during the very early years of the 20th century, is a richly drawn and evocatively told rumination on the pursuit of the American dream seen from the perspective of a diverse, multi-ethnic cast of characters. Now onstage through Sunday at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s James K. Polk Theatre, in a glittering and sumptuous revival from Nashville Repertory Theatre, Ragtime proves an ambitious choice for the company’s return to live performance after more than 18 months of darkness due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Opening Thursday night, November 11 and continuing for five performances through Sunday, November 14, Ragtime – the musical by Stephen Flaherty (music), Lynn Ahrens (lyrics) and Terrance McNally (book) which, in turn, is based upon E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 novel of the same name – promises to be a grand undertaking, which hopefully will blow away the cobwebs and the dust that’s collected in the past year-and-a-half during which the theater was dark and the company strived to remain relevant and productive amidst all the challenges that ensued.

In October 2001, Mamma Mia! opened on Broadway, just weeks after the horrific events of 9/11, and most pundits had little inkling that the show – a jukebox musical comprised of ABBA hits and the story of a young girl trying to divine the identity of her father from among three of her mother’s suitors some 21 years earlier – would go on to become the ninth longest running musical in the history of the New York theatrical enclave. But Mamma Mia! was exactly what the theater-going public needed in the aftermath of an epoch-shattering and historic event: an enormously entertaining, fast-paced show set to an eminently hummable, danceable score of songs that could whisk them away to another time and place.

Make no mistake about it, Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva is a formidable presence in any room. And when that room is a theater, her personality fills the space like no other to be found on a Nashville stage. Therefore, it should come as no surprise whatsoever that when the house opens at The Barbershop Theater for the audience to begin filing in to take their seats to see her in The Darkness and Other Black Things, she is waiting at centerstage for them to settle in for what promises to be a wild and oh-so-challenging ride.

Lizzie Borden, who maintained her innocence of the axe murders of her father and stepmother until the day she died in 1927, was very possibly the progenitor of every piece of tabloid journalism that continues to titillate readers to this very day. Who better than she then to become the protagonist in a provocative work of musical theater that lays bare all the rumors that surrounded her in life and which gives her agency over her own story almost a hundred years after her death?

Throughout its long, venerated history, Nashville Children’s Theatre has broken barriers and set the standard for excellence in theater for younger audiences and its latest production – The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical – proves no less challenging than anything that has come before it.

Lizzie is a rock opera that reimagines the story behind the infamous Lizzie Borden — the primary suspect for the brutal murder of her father and stepmother in 1892 — with a cast of four powerhouse women, a quartet of Nashville’s best-known young actors who bring the characters to life under the direction of Leslie Marberry, who makes her STC directorial debut.

I’m happy to admit that while I am indeed euphoric, I remain clear-eyed in the knowledge that this particular cultural offering is unique in its storytelling and in the characters who will live for years to come until the very last person who remembers experiencing the exhilaration of the return of live Broadway theater to Nashville speaks their names for the last time.

Coming home to the theater – even when it means returning to a role he first played more than two years ago – is a surreal experience for Joe Joseph, the thoughtful, reflective and multi-talented University of Michigan graduate now playing Haled in the national touring company of The Band’s Visit, the 2019 Tony Award-winning best musical.

The result is Outside of Here – a work that has evolved from conversations among Lee, Sternberg, Melinda Sewak and Claudia Barnett – which will premiere this Saturday, October 2, on NECAT, Nashville’s Education, Community and Arts Television Network. For 12 hours, one performer (Sternberg plays “Her”) will experience one story dozens of times with more than 30 different actors, who comprise a veritable who’s who of Nashville’s theater community.

One of the most glorious attributes of the theater is the experience of seeing a play you know quite well due to multiple productions over the years and to somehow find it fresh and invigorating, as if it is the first time all over again. Such is the case with Alfred Uhry’s seemingly ubiquitous Driving Miss Daisy, which has been presented in countless productions of varying degrees of professionalism since its 1987 debut.

Consider This Theater Company’s production of The Odd Couple (now onstage through Sunday, July 18, at Mills-Pate Arts Center in Murfreesboro) on opening night showed great promise during Act One, only to be overwhelmed by poor blocking choices and lackluster pacing in Act Two (which, in reality, is a combination of acts two and three in the original script that first bowed on Broadway in 1965).

When Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered in 1998, anyone could scarcely have known or even surmised the impact his life would have on people the world over and today, almost 23 years after the fact, his presence on this earth continues to be felt in ways both momentous and personal.

Welcoming audiences to an NCT production for the first time in 16 months – albeit outside and away from its traditional theater space in downtown Nashville and relocated to a working farm west of Nashville – Nolan and his team have crafted the best possible production to herald the company’s reemergence. Presented just in time to celebrate its 90th season, Charlotte’s Web exemplifies the best of NCT (which has a much-deserved and altogether stellar reputation the world over) with a sustained sense of creativity and unbridled imagination.

Sometimes, when life is getting you down, there is nothing more pleasing than hearing some showtunes performed by a game and capable lot of performers with the intent of nothing more controversial than lifting your spirits and entertaining you in the way they know best. And that, my friends, is exactly what’s on order in the appropriately entitled An Evening With Playhouse 615: Broadway Musical Review.

Though hard to believe it may be, Studio Tenn artistic director Patrick Cassidy and his wife Melissa Hurley Cassidy have been Tennesseans for well over a year now – he took the reins at Studio Tenn, the Franklin-based professional theater company that has gained critical acclaim and national notoriety during its existence for its unique blend of musicals and original plays – but only now, as theater re-emerges from the dark days of a pandemic-related shutdown, have we managed to get the peripatetic Mr. Cassidy to take time out from his hectic schedule to answer our questions and give BroadwayWorld readers a chance to get to know him better.