GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI for April 27, 2017

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! And welcome to April 27 - aka #TheatreThursday - during which we ask the musical question: With 13 shows in the 2016-17 Broadway Season, which shows will be forgotten come Tony Award-nomination day (which is next week, if memory serves) and sink under the weight of all the swell competition? Think about it, people! What are your favorites for Tony glory this year? We'll be sure to send you an invitation to our Tony Party!

Who's our handsome, charming and obviously hard-working cover model today? It's none other than the handsome, charming and hardest-working-man-in-show-business Scott Seidl, who claims that any Starbucks with a patio provides him with the perfect working environment - only made more swell by his day cuppa theater news and gossip provided him by our very own morning column. At least, that's what we think he said: his message was garbled, his writing was smudged - oh, hell, the dog ate his homework!

Scott will be returning to Tennessee soon for a spell to helm the workshop production of his new musical Across the Lines, on which he collaborated (every time we type that word we fully expect General DeGaulle to come shave our heads in some sorta weird past-life regression thing in Vichy France...look in up, we'll wait...) with Stephen Kummer. Auditions for the show (and we promise to have a more fully written feature story very, very soon) are coming up rather quickly, so the peripatetic Mr. Seidl provided us with this insider information: "This version of the show will feature six actors. Four of them will play multiple roles. Auditions are May 10. Gary Musick Productions is kindly letting us use their space for auditions from 4 to 8 p.m. that day. Appointments are encouraged but not required. Actors can email acrossthelinesplay@gmail.com There is also more info on the BroadwayWorld website under Jobs / Non-Equity: www.broadwayworld.com/non-equity-audition/Across-The-Lines-a-new-play-with-music-CLASS-A-Entertainment-2017-9947.

We're sending out warm wishes of "break a leg" to the cast and crew of Beau Jest, opening out at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theater tonight. Martha Wilkinson directs a cast that includes Layne Sasser, Charlie Winton, Bradley Moore, Brett Cantrell and The Hackmans, Joanna and Daniel (we see them headlining a 1950s-era sitcom in our warped view of the world writ large across TV screens). Did we leave out a cast member's name? We don't have a press release against which to cross-reference...

Taking over our Twitter feed today is "the funniest man on the David Lipscomb University campus" aka senior Hunter Martin - at least we believe that's what Rebekah Stogner told us in recommending him for greatness/notoreity and this unpaid gig, but again we could be wrong since we refuse to take notes and instead rely upon our brain to keep those things in shipshape, Bristol fashion. Go on over to the Twitterverse and find us @BWW_Nashville for all the hilarity, hijinks and merrymaking that traffic will allow. Thanks to the multi-talented Molly Dobbs for keeping us hoppin' Wednesday with her testament to talent and good direction with all the good-looking boys in Cumberland County Playhouse's upcoming Million Dollar Quartet, which is about a bunch of good ol' boys getting together in a recording studio in Memphis, running out of barbecue and creating recording industry magic that is the stuff of legend.

The rumor mill in Nashville theater has been churning away overtime the past few weeks and if we printed half the stuff we're told, you people simply would not believe us! Seriously, I'm not being my usual over-dramatic self. Rather, I'm being sincere, deeply sincere. And I need more stuff with which to blackmail the masses. Call me, write me, wrap it around a rock and throw it through a window!

Tuesday night's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time at Tennessee Performing Arts Center was truly a remarkable night of theater that was made even more special by all the grand people we happened upon from the moment we walked into the TPAC lobby, assuming we were running late (we are always running late to a show, it seems): Kaul Bluestone, Vickie Bailey, Lisa Kennedy, Tony Marks, Cara Richardson, Eric A. Patton, Nancy Hickman McNulty, RandAl Cooper, Lauren and Stephen Belk, Kathleen Young, and several other lovely people we were happy to see at the time but whose names escape us presently (it's early and we haven't even had coffee yet)!

Today's theatrical birthdays include: Leah Fincher, who just closed her production of To Kill a Mockingbird in Bells; Larissa Maestro, who was Kim in Street Theatre Company's Miss Saigon some seasons back; Belmont alum Kallen Prosterman who is now taking on the world; and First Night Honorees A. Sean O'Connell and Carol Ponder! They share their special day with Sandy Dennis, Jack Klugman, August Wilson, Alan J. Pakula, Patrick Page and Ari Graynor.

On this date in theatrical history: Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July opened off-Broadway; Debbie Alan starred in the 1986 revival of Sweet Charity (rumored to be coming back sometime with Sutton Foster in the lead); Cy Coleman's The Life opened in 1997, cementing its place in the hearts of musical theater lovers everywhere; Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart had its long-awaited Broadway debut in 2011; Beth Leavel, now starring as Julia's mom in Bandstand on Broadway that opened last night (and who starred in Call Me, Madam with our pal Jeremy Benton), opened in Baby It's You! that same year; and just last year - yep, 2016! - Jessica Lange played Mary Tyrone in the Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, leading to her Tony Award win as Best Actress in a Play.

We hope you have a great #TheatreThursday and that no matter where you are today you'll CELEBRATE THE MAGIC OF LIVE THEATRE! Remember to live life dramatically - until tomorrow!

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