GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI for May 12, 2017

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Live life dramatically: It's Friday, May 12, 2017 - graduation day at Vanderbilt University - which prompts the musical question: "Does it always have to rain on that day? This day, in particular?" Truly it's a FREAKY FRIDAY tradition, if the grads are donning caps and gowns at Vandy, chances are everyone else will be carrying their umbrellas with them in Music City. Even the lovely and talented people from Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, who are wishing their hearts out, we suspect, that the showers will be held at bay until after 11 a.m. Today, Chaffin's creative crew - including artistic director Martha Wilkinson and associate artistic director Bradley Moore - will be filming what was described to us as a "flash mob" (is it 2011 already? Egads!) at the Parthenon in Centennial Park (at 10 a.m.!) to herald the announcement of their fall musical Mamma Mia!, running September 7 through October 11 (Moore directs, Wilkinson is cast as Donna, we presume). We're not defying any news embargoes or anything, in fact we gave you a clue at least three or four weeks ago in this very column about the show (which only the most clever and erudite of our gentle readers took the hint) and it's already being touted in glossy new brochures at Chez Barn. Join the gaggle (and giggle - that's what we call a group of gay men assembled for revelry) this morning if you wanna appear in the video! Martha, as Martha does, appeared very nonchalant about the news breaking before showtime, saying she knew it would be impossible to keep the scoop under wraps (loose lips sink ships and the posse can't keep its mouth shut). At any rate, this will be the Nashville premiere of a Music City-born and bred production of the ABBA jukebox musical, but it was done last summer at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse in the Tennessee premiere.

We were at the Barn last night to review Beau Jest which, we are happy to report, retains its sweet and gentle attitude - and is as funny as ever - under Martha's direction and featuring a cast that includes Layne Sasser (with whom we spent a few lovely minutes pre-curtain), Charlie Winton, Joanna Hackman, Daniel Hackman, Bradley Moore and Brett Cantrell. We also got to spend time with Brian Russell (our all-time favorite), Charles Wolfe, Adam Burnett, Donnie Hall and everyone else whose name we can't remember because we are old, damn old (what we really need is a personal assistant to write all this crap and all these names down)! But the big news...we daresay, the biggest since we announced that Norma had bought the ol' Dinner Barn from Janie and John - is the arrival of new chairs! Spiffy, black leatherette parson's chairs are now in use in about half of the theater (the other half are on order, we were assured) and along with the faux succulents and pebbles on the tabletops (and the great food on the buffet, a menu of small bites and the continued sense of fun and family) are sure signs of things on the upswing at Chaffin's Barn. If you haven't been in a while, now's clearly the time to go! We hear other updates and changes are afoot that will guarantee the venue's next 50 years of existence, including some really HUGE stuff under consideration that you just won't believe. However, we will host that information close to the vest until we can confirm it!

Look here's our review of Beau Jest, just like that, for your reading pleasure and ease of finding it: /nashville/article/BWW-Review-BEAU-JEST-is-Back-At-Chaffins-Barn-20170512

We're sending out huge First Night wishes of "break a leg!" to the cast and crew of ACT 1's Noises Off - celebrating opening night at Darkhorse Theater this very night! The cast is led by our very favorites Cat Arnold and J. Robert Lindsey (we've directed both of them and know what divas they each can be, hence they're our co-favorites today). The rest of Bradley Moore's posse (for the love of God, Bradley take a timeout!) includes Meggan Utech, Brett Myers, Christina Candilora, Phil Brady, Elizabeth Walsh, Jackson Rector and Gregory Alexander. The show runs through May 27. "Break a leg!" testimonials also are directed to the cast and crew of Murfreesboro Little Theatre's Backyard Bard: King Lear, starring Jessica May Theiss and Phil Mote, among others whose names we haven't yet committed to memory.

And Inebriated Shakespeare takes over Third Coast Comedy Club this weekend - Saturday, May 13 - for Much Ado About Nothing...the hijinks start at 11 p.m...when seven seriously silly Shakespearean actors get drunk, while trying to act their way through an abbreviated vesion of Wild Card Productions' Much Ado About Nothing. Tickets are $10.

Nashville's feeling festive for sure this week (and it's not just because the Iroquois Steeplechase is tomorrow - always a harbinger of mud to come), what with Tennessee Women's Theater Project's 11th Annual Women's Work Festival at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre and Nashville Repertory Theatre's Ingram New Works Festival at NPT Studios, featuring the works of five different playwrights (including Nate Eppler and some guy named Christopher Durang) and including the acting talents of a bevy of Nashville artists. In answer to your queries: I don't go to staged readings of new plays. If there's a possibility I will be seeing a full production of a play, I want to approach it new and fresh and without some predetermined ideas about it that I got at a reading. Going to readings is like a busman's holiday for a critic...we can't write a review (nor should we!) and we are constrained by the knowledge that it's still a work in progress and it just ain't fittin' (Mammy says so!) to see the creation before its time (or before it's fully baked, to mix metaphors). My other colleagues in the field of reviewing and criticism are free to do what they want, but that's just my considered opinion and it's a rule I've followed for lo, these many years. Remember, I was there when Thespis stepped out of the chorus line and uttered his first soliloquy.

Productions closing up shop and striking their sets this weekend include Distraction Theatre Company's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), starring J. Randall Pike, Dylan Michael Davis and Skylar Sprague, at the Centennial Black Box Theatre; the Roxy Regional Theatre's [title of show], starring Ryan Bowie, Jessica Medoff, Grant Fitzgerald and Beth Kirby; and The Cast List at Lakewood Theatre starring Myra Stephens, Hilary Elizabeth Meade and a brace of other actors.

Today in theatrical history: Stephen King's novel about a troubled teenaged girl with mommy issues - Carrie - opened at Broadway's Virginia Theatre on this date in 1988. Betty Buckley played Carrie's Bible-thumping mama, with Linzi Hateley as the blood-soaked heroine. Charlotte D'Amboise and Darlene Love were also in the cast. It only ran for five performances, but it became a huge cult classic, ultimately being revived off-Broadway in 2012 and in Nashville at Street Theatre Company, starring Belmont alum Allie B. Gorie as the angsty teen queen. Hands on a Hardbody - Doug Wright (a former Ingram New Works fellow now represented on Broadway by War Paint, starring Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole), Amanda Green and Trey Anastasio's musical based on a documentary about an endurance competition down in Texas - opened on Broadway in 2013, running just 28 performances. Keith Carradine, Hunter Foster and Keala Settle starred.

We're sending out wishes of "happy birthday" and "many happy returns of the day" to, among others: stage manager extraordinaire Cecila Lighthall; actress/dancer/singer Caitlin Schaub of Cumberland County Playhouse fame; dancer/actor Matt Stewart; and actor/producer/all-around-good guy Tyson Laemmel, who's the "dad" of Nashville's Theatre Bug. They share the day with Katharine Hepburn, Lindsay Crouse, Gabriel Byrne, Erin Dilly, Jason Biggs, Vanessa Williams and Burt Bacharach.

We're all done in for this week, but we'll be back on the job first thing Monday morning, we swear! In the meantime, always remember to CELEBRATE THE MAGIC OF LIVE THEATRE!

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