GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI for May 5, 2017

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Friday, May 5, 2017! The sound of muffled sniffles, pats on the back and mortarboards being thrown into the air will be reverberating throughout Nashville this weekend as commencement ceremonies get under way at Belmont University, Tennessee State University, David Lipscomb University and Trevecca Nazarene University and thousands of newly minted graduates will begin to live life dramatically! Next week, we get to do it all over again as Vanderbilt University unleashes their grads upon society, so keep your eyes peeled for celebrating coeds and their hopeful/mournful parents!

And explains the perfect synchronicity of today's group of spectacular cover models: the fresh-faced and ridiculously talented Class of 2017 from Belmont University Musical Theatre - we fully expect them to be collecting Tony Award nominations at this time of year in the future, something with which they can commemorate their time in Nashville and all those mornings spent catching up with the latest theatrical news and gossip, via our handy-dandy little compendium of such trivia. At any rate, we send out hearty congratulations to all the grads as they embark on what will be enormously promising futures!

Which reminds me: CONGRATULATIONS to all the nominees and their schools included in the 2017 Spotlight Awards - The Nashville High School Musical Theatre Awards - the winners of which will be named on Saturday, May 13, in a gala ceremony at TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall that will culminate a day filled with workshops and the like at Lipscomb University!

Today, we are asking the musical question: "Kayla fall down, go boom!" Could anyone possibly be so graceful and so adroit as Nashville Ballet's Kayla Rowser? We seriously doubt it: Last night, during curtain call for the final dress rehearsal of 7 Deadly Sins (choreographed by the remarkable Chris Stuart, one of the company's best known dancers who we suspect will be even better known during his choreographic career), Kayla slipped in water that had pooled onstage (it rains in Jackson Hall! Oh, my!) and completed the most elegant fall in stage history, never one did her gaze or her electrifyingly gorgeous smile waver (okay, her eyes did seem to get bigger when she landed)...she's a star, I tell you, a star! Eat your heart out, Misty Copeland, we suspect even you couldn't have given a better performance! Be on the lookout for our review of 7 Deadly Sins and Paul Vasterling's updated take on Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring.

Tonight, Distraction Theatre Company opens its production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged at the Centennial Black Box Theatre and today cast and crew members will be taking the reins of @BWW_Nashville's Twitter account to give us all a sneak peek of what goes into their opening day and subsequent performance! Yesterday, those darn Hackmans - Joanna Hackman and Daniel Hackman - kept us all entertained and informed with their Twitter Takeover that allowed us a bird's eye view of a two-show day at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre's Beau Jest! And this, gentle readers, will conclude our fortnight (that means two weeks) of Twitter Takeovers, during which we have all been supremely entertained and sometimes left wondering "what the hell were they thinking?" Oh, we'll still let creative types take over our Twitter account from time to time and we'll certainly keep you updated when those things will be happening! In conclusion, we send out our most grateful thanks to Tori Keenan-Zelt, Katie Bays, Ryan Bowie, Molly Dobbs, Hunter Martin, Matthew Hayes Hunter, Sara Kistner, Brett Myers, JorDan Scott, Ryan Lynch, Julia Eiser, Patrick Kramer, Joanna Hackman, Daniel Hackman and the Distraction Theatre bunch of crazies!

Meanwhile, back at the Looby (that's the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre on Rosa Parks Boulevard - two names of civil rights icons who should always inspire you to be better individuals - Tennessee Women's Theater Project, under the direction of Maryanna Clarke and Chris Clarke (2013 First Night Honorees) opens the curtains on their 11th Annual Women's Work Festival, featuring a plethora of plays and other theatrical works certain to engage and enlighten! It runs for two weeks, so you have plenty of options at your hands to support TWTP and the scores of artists who, over the years, have contributed so graciously and so fiercely to keeping theater alive, thriving, evolving and surviving!

On this weekend's slate of shows: Studio Tenn's Spamalot continues to play at The Factory in Franklin (hope to see you there tonight!); Daddy's Dyin'...Who's Got the Will? wraps up its three-week run at the Keeton Theatre; Beau Jest continues at Chaffin's Barn; Another Helping and Million Dollar Quartet play at Cumberland County Playhouse; Little Shop of Horrors is onstage at Center for the Arts in Murfreesboro; [title of show] is onstage at Roxy Regional Theatre; The Cast List plays at Lakewood Theatre; and it's Shakesbeer time - aka the most wonderful time of the year - at Murfreesboro Little Theatre.

Today we send out happy birthday wishes to: the lovely and talented Gracie McGraw (My Fair Lady and Sister Act); the always amazing Nancy Hickman McNulty; 2013 First Night Honoree Jane Kelley (have I told you about her production of Shenandoah back in the day? Oy!); Murfreesboro's own E. Roy Lee; arts administrator Jackie Johnson Tidwell; and director/producer Glen Weiss (Thong Girl).

In history of a theatrical fashion today: Gwen Verdon became the definitive Lola in Damn Yankees when it opened in 1955 (although we think Rebecca Holden, who starred in our version in 1999 for Circle Players, could give Gwen a run for her money); The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, starring Vanessa Redgrave, opened in London in 1966 (who can forget Sean O'Connell's performance for ACT 1, with Jenny Wallace as one of her students?); Mark Medoff's play Prymate opened its abbreviated run on Broadway in 2004 (his daughter Jessica Medoff is now onstage in Roxy Regional Theatre's [title of show]; and Arthur Laurents, who created the librettos for both West Side Story and Gypsy to cement his theatrical legacy for the ages, died in 2011 at the age of 93.

That completes our week of wishing you a gracious "Good Morning!", but we'll be back on Monday with more of the same! Be sure to send us your pictures so you, too, can become famous cover models and remember to always heed our advice: CELEBRATE THE MAGIC OF LIVE THEATER!

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