GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI for April 24, 2017

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! We wish you a wonderful start to your work week while posing the musical question: Are you as water-logged as we are? The rains in Tennessee over the weekend are, according to the Weather Channel, on their way out of the area and sunshine is just around the corner...just in time, we say! There's a lot of theater coming up this week and we've got shows to see and people to watch! Greetings to today's cover model Jordan Tudor Haggard who may or may not be enjoying a butterscotch sundae to kick off her day while she catches up on today's news of a theatrical bent.

Beau Jest, directed by Martha Wilkinson, opens at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre this Thursday, starring Layne Sasser, Charlie Winton, Bradley Moore, Brett Cantrell, Joanna Hackman and Daniel Hackman. Meanwhile, Audrey II - that flesh-easting plant of monstrous proportions - takes up residence at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts, featuring a cast that includes Matthew Hayes Hunter, Lindsay Pfeiffer, Howard Snyder, Alexius Frost, Santayana Harris, and Savannah Gannon, under the direction of Renee Robinson. Million Dollar Quartet opens at Cumberland County Playhouse in Crossville, while [title of show] bows at Clarksville's Roxy Regional Theatre.

Analisa Leaming, from the ensemble of Hello, Dolly!, comes home to Murfreesboro tonight (less than a week since that show's opening on the Main Stem) to headline a fundraising concert at First United Methodist Church for the Ethos Youth Ensemble.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opened on Broadway last night, featuring the talents of two Studio Tenn veterans: Ben Crawford (the sexy and scene-stealing Che in last fall's acclaimed revival of Evita) and Jared Bradshaw (who starred in the company's Guys and Dolls a few seasons back).

Taking over @BWW_Nashville in the Twitterverse today is the versatile and multi-talented Katie Bays, the Belmont University Musical Theatre senior who, with her classmates, takes on the Big Apple today in their annual BUMT Senior Showcase performance. Katie takes you behind the curtain, as it were, to show you all the hijinks this group of tremendously gifted young performers get into today in anticipation of their one special moment. Watch out New York! And you should keep your eyes peeled throughout the week, as other people hold our Twitter hostage in the coming days, including the Roxy Regional Theatre's Ryan Bowie, co-director and co-star of [title of show], on Tuesday; cast members of Cumberland County Playhouse's Million Dollar Quartet commandeer it on Wednesday; Lipscomb University senior Hunter Martin takes over on Thursday in anticipation of Saturday's Senior Showcase; on Friday, Matthew Hayes Hunter takes the reins to show you opening night prep for Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts' Little Shop of Horrors; and on Saturday, Sara Kistner, assistant stage manager of The Larry Keeton Theatre's Daddy's Dyin'...Who's Got the Will? takes you backstage for all the intrigue of that chicken-fried production!

In theatrical birthdays today, we celebrate: Lucy Turner (Street Theatre Company's The Bad Seed) turns 16; Alexius Frost, opening in CFTA's Little Shop of Horrors this weekend; Playhouse on the Square actor Nathan McHenry is 24; Daniel Killman, founder of Tennessee Opera Theatre; musician Brad Albin; dancer Jennifer Drake; and actor David R. Bayer. In theater history: Kander and Ebb's Steel Pier opened on this date in 1997; while Cry-Baby, the second musical based on a John Waters film, debuted in 2008; Nice Work if You Can Get It, starring Kelli O'Hara and Matthew Broderick and featuring a score by George and Ira Gershwin, opened in 2012; and Sara Bareilles' Waitress, starring Jessie Mueller, opened in 2016. Happy birthday to Barbra Streisand and Shirley MacLaine.

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