GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI for May 8, 2017

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Monday, May 8, and it looks to be a beautiful spring day in Nashville (so live life dramatically), prompting us to ask the musical question: Do reviews matter anymore? Local print media is giving short shrift to critical thinking and writing nowadays and it would appear that newspaper theater writing will go the way of the dodo in our collective lifetime. We can say unreservedly, reviews matter a great deal to us - we are, after all, a theater critic whose bailiwick (for 40 years, if you consider our first theater review was written for our college newspaper back in 1977) is offering considered opinions on what we've seen performed onstage. We confess that as of late, we've been feeling a bit dismayed and/or disgruntled because it seems people only appreciate an out-and-out rave review...anything less, it seems, is met with derision. Perhaps every review should be read with this notion, with which we approach every production we encounter on a professional basis: Take it for what it is worth and in the spirit in which it is intended, taking any criticism or compliments into consideration as you journey forth onto other projects and shows. In all candor, we hope to love every show we see and we have nothing but the utmost respect for the people whose creativity and imagination fuel the flights of fancy we take every time we are seated (even in very bad seats from which we have an obstructed view) in a darkened auditorium. We respect each and every one of you, so perhaps you should show each and every theater critic (whose time spent thinking, writing and considering the attributes of your particular show is fairly substantial and far more complex than that of the average theater-goer with access to social media) respect for their efforts and let their editors (grand poohbahs, powers-that-be and whoever else might be pulling the strings - or the plugs - on coverage) know you appreciate their efforts.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project's 11th Annual Women's Work Festival, after celebrating a terrific opening weekend of offerings, is back in business at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre this week, with performances on tap through May 21. Nashville Repertory Theatre's Ingram New Works Festival unveils its 2017 offerings on May 10, featuring four new plays by the members of the New Works Lab and one by Tony Award winner Christopher Durang...all readings are presented at Nashville Public Television studios and continue through May 20.

Distraction Theatre Company's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is back onstage at the Centennial Black Box Theatre on Tuesday night, the gang at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre is back in action starting Thursday in Beau Jest, ACT 1 welcomes audience to the premiere of its latest - Michael Frayn's Noises Off, directed by Bradley Moore and featuring a cast that includes Cat Arnold, J. Robert Lindsay, Brett Meyers, Christina Candilora, Phil Brady, Meggan Utech and more - opening at the Darkhorse Theater on Friday night. On Friday night, Murfreesboro Little Theatre takes you outside for their Seventh Annual Backyard Bard: King Lear. Centerstage Theatre in Lebanon presents To Kill a Mockingbird, Nashville Youth Theater Company presents Rock of Stages and Oliver Jr.

On Saturday, Lipscomb University Theatre will be welcoming ambitious young theater-types to campus for a daylong series of workshops and events that will culminate that evening in the presentation of The Spotlight Awards (aka The Nashville High School Musical Theatre Awards) at Andrew Jackson Hall at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. The two top winners - designated best actor and best actress - will be heading to New York to compete for recognition at The Jimmy Awards.

Goodnight Moon, featuring the likes of Rona Carter, Amanda Card, Bobby Wyckoff, Samuel Whited and Shawn Knight, continues at Nashville Children's Theatre through May 14. The Cast List continues at Lakewood Theatre; Audrey II keeps chowing down on unsuspecting patrons at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts in Little Shop of Horrors; [title of show] is onstage at Clarksville's Roxy Regional Theatre; and A Second Helping and Million Dollar Quartet continue to draw fans to Cumberland County Playhouse in Crossville.

In today's theatrical birthdays, we pay tribute and send out warm wishes to Mac Pirkle, 2010 First Night Honoree and founder of Southern Stages and co-founder of Tennessee Repertory Theatre (now known as Nashville Rep); our old pal Christi Dortch, vice president of programming at Tennessee Performing Arts Center, with whom we've shared so many memories over the past 20 years or so; Murfreesboro's own Kevin Compton, who we first saw onstage last year in 1776; our friend and journeyman actor Elliott Cunningham, whom we first met while he was singing, dancing and generally carrying on at Cumberland County Playhouse; Ruth Johnson, who played Mrs. Dindon in our 1999 production of La Cage Aux Folles for Circle Players at TPAC's AnDrew Johnson Theatre; and Lipscomb University theater student Jacqueline Smoak, most recently onstage in Richard II. Among theatrical luminaries with whom they share the date: playwright Beth Henley (Crimes of the Heart, The Miss Firecracker Contest, The Jacksonian), whom we consider brilliant, gifted and a damn good person to share a birthday with! Oscar Hammerstein was born in 1847 (his namesake Oscar Hammerstein II wrote the libretto for South Pacific, which starred Ezio Pinza in its Broadway debut - and it's his birthday, too).

To further celebrate today, might we suggest you sing "Comedy, Tonight!" from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum - which opened on Broadway on this date in 1962 - or any other song from the show's memorable score. And, as always, we implore you to live life dramatically and, no matter where you find yourself in this great, big beautiful world...CELEBRATE THE MAGIC OF LIVE THEATER!

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