Critic's Choice: The Shows You Just Can't Miss

There's so much great theater going on in the Nashville area right now, that you may be having a difficult time choosing among the bounteous offerings local companies are providing you. We're delighted to herald the return of BWW Nashville's Critics Choice with today's feature, offering up a compendium of what's available, what we recommend you see, and - in the cases of show's we've seen already - snippets of our reviews to help you make up your mind!

In fact, there's so much good theater to be found on area stages, that it's almost like choosing from the groaning board of Southern delicacies offered up at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, where the Martha Wilkinson-directed Funny Valentines, which runs through March 12, is currently onstage, starring Barn favorites Brett Cantrell, Jenny Norris-Light, Jeremy Maxwell and Lydia Bushfield - and newcomer Audrey Johnson! In Funny Valentines, which opened February 11, children's book author Andy Robbins has been an unhappy bachelor since his divorce eight months before from his former collaborator, Ellen. On one incredible day, Ellen re-enters his life eight months pregnant; his agent arrives with a TV contract that needs both Andy's and Ellen's approval, a beautiful lawyer appears to wrap up the TV deal and seduce Andy, and Ellen's mother makes an unexpected appearance. Completely rattled, Andy lies and introduces the lawyer as his agent's fiancée while he tries to get Ellen to sign a contract she opposes. By the final curtain, Andy has grown up just enough to straighten out the mess and win back his wife. This romantic comedy is just the show to continue Chaffin's Barn's 50th Season.

The conversations continue fast and furious long after the curtain rings down on Nashville Repertory Theatre's world premiere production of Nate Eppler's Good Monsters, the controversial and timely play by Music City's favorite resident playwright. Good Monsters ends its critically acclaimed run this weekend (it bids farewell on Saturday night) and you're advised to head down to TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre before the show is gone into the theatrical ether. Seriously, if you miss it, you'll be very sorry...

Here's what we wrote after seeing the show on its opening night: "Make no mistake: Nate Eppler is far too good a playwright to remain Nashville theater's best-kept secret for much longer. If you need further proof of his brilliance (a word I don't use to describe people very often), even after witnessing it first-hand in his earlier plays - like the noirish Rear Widow, the imaginative Larries or the compelling Long Way Down - then get yourself as quickly as humanly possible down to the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Johnson Theatre and allow yourself to be immersed in his latest work of stage wizardry: the challenging, enlightening and provocative Good Monsters.

"Good Monsters - in its world premiere production from Nashville Repertory Theatre, deftly directed with precision and with her trademark sensitivity by Rene D. Copeland - is as good a drama as you are likely to find anywhere on any stage in the world. Eppler's script fairly crackles with a fierceness too often missing from much of contemporary theater and there is an intensity to the two-hours of dramatic proceedings that will be hard to shrug off long after you bear witness to it.

"To put it succinctly, Nashville Rep's production is theater at its finest: Copeland's six-member cast is extraordinary in their approach to the material, and the creative team provides a setting and backdrop - and more impressively, an ambience - that allows Eppler's play to be elevated beyond its scriptbound parameters to prove itself with the magnitude of all the meanings contained therein. In short, it's a stunning theatrical adventure that fires on all cylinders, drawing audiences into its dystopic story that somehow is accessible and thoroughly believable."

Find out what Good Monsters has everyone talking about: Don't miss this show!

Nashville Rep's cast for Good Monsters includes Megan Murphy Chambers (Josie), Alexandra Huff (Zero), Nathaniel McIntyre (Frank), R. Alex Murray (Dumptruck), Carey Van Driest (Darlene), and Garris Wimmer (Zell).

Down in Smyrna, Springhouse Theatre Company's production of Jane Austin's Emma ends its run on Sunday, featuring Corinne Bupp in the timeless and iconic heroine. If you love Jane Austen's novels, or if you just love to laugh, enjoy life and appreciate love, you're likely to be enchanted by this staging of Paula K. Parker's adaptation of one of Austen's most enduring - and we daresay delightful - works. The talented supporting cast includes 2016 First Night Most Promising Actor Cate Eunyoung Jo.

Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts' audience-acclaimed production of Dreamgirls - directed by 2013 First Night Most Promising Actor Matthew Hayes Hunter, with musical direction by Emily Dennis (who just scored a callback for the upcoming national tour of Rent) and choreography by Tosha Pendergrast - wraps up its three-week, virtually sold-out run this weekend after Sunday's matinee. The show has proven to be so popular with ticket-buyers that a special Saturday matinee has been added. Dreamgirls tells the story of an up-and-coming 1960s girl singing group, and the triumphs and tribulations that come with fame and fortune. With music by Academy Award nominee Henry Krieger and book and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award winner Tom Eyen, it features the unforgettable hits: "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," "One Night Only" and "Listen." This Tony and Academy Award winning musical sparkles like never before! This production features a cast of 23 area performers, several of whom are making their CFTA debuts. Starring as "The Dreams" are Ra'Shaun Simon as Deena Jones, Robbyn "Vyrgo" Daniel as Effie Melody White, and Brianna Booker as Lorrell Robinson. Also featured are Bentley Caldwell as Curtis Taylor Jr., Gerold Oliver as James "Thunder" Early, Gillión Welsh as C.C. White, Brittany Easley as Michelle Morris, and Marlon Woods as Marty.

2014 First Night Honoree Ginger Newman stars in the role that Andrew Lloyd Webber might have written for her if he'd had the pleasure of meeting her, as she takes on the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, which enters its second weekend of performances at Donelson's The Larry Keeton Theatre. "I'm ready for my close-up." Unforgettable words from an iconic movie turned into a celebrated musical in its Middle Tennessee premiere at The Keeton. In addition to Newman, director Clay Hillwig's cast includes Justin Boyd as Joe Gillis, Tonya Pewitt as Betty, and Randall Cooper as Max. Based on the 1952 Billy Wilder film, the musical is set in Hollywood, 1949. Faded star of the silent screen, Norma Desmond, lives in a fantasy world of the past in her decaying mansion on Sunset Boulevard. Down-on-his-luck screenwriter, handsome, Joe Gillis, has a chance encounter with Norma; during which she speaks to him of her next big comeback project. Broke and desperate for opportunity, he accepts an off to edit her 'masterpiece' in exchange for room and board. Joe soon finds himself living a luxurious life-style lavished with expensive gifts from Norma. Aging Norma falls in love with young Joe, and he soon discovers himself caught between her claustrophobic and reclusive fantasy world and the outside world with his love, beautiful Betty Schaefer. One fatal night Joe attempts to break free of Norma to be with Betty. Devastated and in a fit of shock and rage, Norma shoots Joe as he struggles to leave. Descending into madness Norma, the once Goddess of the Silent Films, is led away by authorities from her home on Sunset Boulevard. Webber's musical features the memorable tunes "As If We Never Said Goodbye," "With One Look" and the title tune.

Franklin's Studio Tenn revives its 2011 award-winning production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie - starring the inimitable 2013 First Night Honoree Nan Gurley as Amanda Wingfield, the fading Southern belle desperate to find a suitor for her withdrawn and shy daughter Laura (played by Ellie Sikes) and to convince her dreamy son Tom (new dad Eric Pasto-Crosby returns in the role) to find a more earthbound way of life. Belmont University theater professor Brent Maddox completes the four-person ensemble in the role of the Gentleman Caller in this production, redesigned and reimagined by director Matt Logan and produced by Jake Speck. Performances continue through Sunday in Jamison Hall at The Factory at Franklin.

We were transfixed by the 2011 production at Belmont's Black Box Theatre: "Eric Pasto-Crosby's elegant delivery of Tom Wingfield's curtain speech - beautifully staged by director Matt Logan to feature a tableau of nostalgic domesticity, dreams deferred and haunting references to the past - is a completely and compellingly emotional moment that brings Tennessee Williams' beautiful prose to its zenith in The Glass Menagerie.

"In a production brought to life by a talented quartet of seasoned players, Studio Tenn's The Glass Menagerie is the perfect tribute to the Southern Gothic playwright, mere weeks before the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth in Columbus, Mississippi, on March 26, 1911. Bringing Williams' archetypal and semi-autobiographical play to the stage with style and wit, Studio Tenn rings down the curtain on its inaugural season, scoring yet another artistic hit in the process, following its hugely successful productions of Hello, Dolly! and A Christmas Carol.

"As expected, Logan's skilled eye creates the perfect world in which the damaged and world-weary Wingfields play out their dysfunctional family drama, Williams' expertly crafted dialogue maneuvering audiences through a minefield of recrimination and regret, with faint glimmers of hope to buoy us on the journey. Set in St. Louis near the turn of the last century, The Glass Menagerie examines the realities of a life lived in a dreamlike state, casting an unyielding eye on the down-at-heels Wingfield family as each of its members struggles to find his or her footing in a changing society in which gracious living is in mournfully short supply."

We are told that this season's revival features a stunning new design aesthetic and that the performances of the four actors have only deepened, growing richer with time and intimacy.

Critical adulation continues as Blackbird Theater Company and Lipscomb Department of Theatre present their co-production of Arthur Miller's searing indictment of McCarthyism - at a time that the political climate practically demands a revival - in the scintillating revival of The Crucible, which continues through Sunday at the Shamblin Theatre. First produced in 1953, at a time when America was convulsed by a new epidemic of witch hunting, The Crucible explores the threshold between individual guilt and mass hysteria, personal spite and collective evil. It is a play that is not only relentlessly suspenseful and vastly moving but one that compels viewers to fathom their hearts and consciences in ways that only the greatest theater ever can. 2013 First Night Star Award winner Beki Baker directs. The twenty-four member cast also features Ross Bolen (John Proctor), Shannon Hoppe (Elizabeth Proctor), Sean Martin (Reverend Hale), Lipscomb University sophomore Emily Meinerding (Abigail Williams), and Brian Webb Russell (Deputy Governor Danforth), who portrayed Salieri in Blackbird's 2013 production of Amadeus.

In our rave review of The Crucible, we wrote: "Baker's cinematic approach to The Crucible draws the audience into the highly theatrical drama despite its portentous nature and the overwhelmingly oppressive ideas highlighted by Miller's exquisitely written script that is somehow less didactic and heavy-handed than it could be. With a visually arresting set design by Andy Bleiler and with David Hardy's beautiful lighting design, the physical trappings of The Crucible add to the suspenseful nature of the production, while Hannah Schmidt's costume design help to create a very real sense of who these characters are and what their roles in Salem society may have been. Further, the sound design - which features percussive drumming to create an ambient sense of ennui and an otherworldly, perhaps supernatural, undercurrent, designed by Baker and Blackbird's artistic director Wes Driver (who plays the smarmy and snarky Reverend Parris) - creates an auditory sense of intrigue and dread that helps Miller's words to land horrifyingly on target.

"Yet what really sets this production of The Crucible (which is rarely produced locally, despite claims by certain cohorts that they've seen countless productions over the years) apart from others is Baker's ability to cast the show with an ensemble of local actors who breathe vivid life into these characters without one iota of stagey theatricality. Baker's ensemble of actors do not merely take on the mantle of the fictional, but rather they easily "become" characters with a genuine sense of authenticity. They deliver Miller's prose, written in such a way to convey how he presumed people would have spoken in the 17th century, with a heretofore unheard of sense of the time and place in which the story unfolds. But there remains a sense of contemporary conversation that makes the story accessible and easily discernable."

Tennessee Women's Theater Project continues its ninth season of provocative and compelling professional theater with its laudable production of Lauren Gunderson's Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight, running through March 6 at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theatre. Evelyn O'Neal Brush stars in the title role of Gunderson's play, which is based on the real life story of Emilie du Châtelet, a scientific genius of 18th century France. Women of her era were considered too simple-minded to understand mathematics or physics, but Emilie produced work ranging from a groundbreaking paper on the nature of fire (the first by a woman ever published by the Paris Academy), to a celebrated and still-used translation and commentary on Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica. She was married to a nobleman of the court of Louis XV, and took a series of lovers, including the writer and philosopher Voltaire. In the play, Emilie is returned from the afterlife to recount and defend her life. With an ensemble of four actors, she replays her interactions with family, colleagues and lovers, and examines her unanswered questions about science and philosophy, life and love. 2012 First Night Honoree - and TWTP artistic director - Maryanna Clarke directs an ensemble that includes Obadiah Ewing-Roush, Britt Byrd, Evan Taylor Williams and 2015 First Night Honoree Kaul Bluestone.

We were mesmerized by the play during its opening weekend, writing: "Evelyn O'Neal Brush's bravura performance is reason enough to see Tennessee Women's Theater Project's production of Emilie: La Marquise du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight, but clearly it's Lauren Gunderson's play itself that should sell tickets. Emilie (as we will refer to the play from here on out - at least to the conclusion of this review) is an engaging treatise on the life and times of the mathematician, physicist, writer and critic, whose supreme intellect and prodigious literary output during the Age of the Enlightenment made her both notorious and admired at a time when women were thought of primarily as chattel.

"Directed by TWTP artistic director Maryanna Clarke, Emilie is a spirited and imaginative journey (there's time travel, which guarantees glorious interplay of time and space, with anachronisms galore!) through the life of du Chatelet, whose friends and admirers included some of the leading figures of the Enlightenment - and although she was involved with a number of notable male figures of the time, Gunderson focuses primarily upon her relationship with Voltaire, the witty and urbane, yet monstrously egotistical historian, philosopher, playwright and wit. Gunderson writes her characters with a literary flair that is underscored by her genuine understanding of them - both as people and as historic figures - that ensure they captivate within the strictures of the play she has written for them."

It runs for two more weekends, through March 6. You won't want to miss the opportunity to get to know Emilie.

Belmont University Department of Theatre and Dance, at the Troutt Theatre, continues its run of Lynn Nottage's Las Meninas, running through February 27. Jaclynn Jutting directs a play that is guaranteed to "grab the attention of any audience member, of any background." Nottage's play follows the life of Marie-Therese, Queen of France, and her journey to discovering her self-worth. The Queen, played by sophomore theatre performance major Abby Evens, will be corseted up in traditional 1664 garb. Marie-Therese possesses the sassiness of a Spaniard, but the poise of a Frenchwoman (most of the time.) Senior theatre performance major Craig Fairbanks plays King Louis, Marie-Therese's husband in a role that also fulfills the senior capstone requirement for his BFA Theatre Performance degree.

How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes is the thought-provoking title of Vanderbilt University Theatre's latest production, running through February 28 at Neely Auditorium on the VU campus. In an effort to focus attention on the overwhelming need to eradicate poverty in this lifetime, VUT presents How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes through Sunday, February 28. "In How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes, we take $1000 from the box office ticket sales and over the course of the show the audience decides how to spend that money to best fight poverty in and around Nashville," according to a press release. "There are scenes. There's music. There's dance. There's community conversation. You'll get to hear multiple perspectives from experts on poverty issues, and at the end of the show, the audience decides where the money goes. It's 90 minutes of theatre unlike any you've ever experienced."

The latest creative effort from Sue Fabisch - whose Motherhood the Musical delighted Nashville audiences last season - will be given a staged reading this weekend at Gordon Jewish Community Center of Nashville: Me & My SMother is an autobiographical comedic love story between the author and her overbearing Jewish mother. As daughter Sarah vents about her mother Ruth, the two actresses reenact their most hilarious moments together. From sharing a hotel room in Melbourne, Australia, to being snowed-in in New Jersey without luggage, this dynamically dysfunctional duo attempt to resolve their issues. Through laughter, tears and an unusual delivery at the end, audiences will get farklempt as mother and daughter learn to love each other again. Fabisch plays herself, with Kim Thornton Nygren directing and playing her mom! What could possibly be more dysFUNctional?

Nashville Children's Theatre, one of the nation's best known and most beloved theaters for younger audiences, pays tribute to an American heroine in Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, running through March 13. The time is December 1, 1955 and the setting is Montgomery, Alabama, when Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refuses to surrender her seat on a public bus to a white man. Her arrest proved to be a tipping point in American history, inspiring Montgomery's African-American citizens to organize in non-violent protest under the leadership of a new young pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association staged a 13-month boycott of Montgomery's public transit system that resulted in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down segregation on public buses as unconstitutional. Director Scot Copeland's starry cast includes Rashad Rayford, Tamiko Robinson Steele, Lauren Frances Jones, Denice Hicks, Bobby Wyckoff, Latrisha Talley and James Rudolph.

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