College Center

School's out for summer, but that doesn't mean that college theater students are lounging by the pool, waiting for their next big break. Rather, if you're someone like Rebekah Stogner, an acting/journalism major at Nashville's David Lipscomb University, chances are you're preparing for the next audition and getting ready for fall semester.

Broadway Academy of Performing, a kid's theatre camp hosted by Newman University Theatre Department, is now accepting registrations. The camp dates will be May 30th through June 6th at Newman University in Wichita, KS. Kids ages 11-20 are eligible, and campers under 11 years can be day campers.

Last fall, when we started this series - COLLEGIATE THEATRICS - we were talking to college students across the country about what lay ahead of them during the academic year and now we find ourselves at graduation time for the class of 2015, today represented by the beautiful, ethereal and brilliant Lacy Hartselle. Mere hours after her graduation from Nashville's Lipscomb University on Saturday, she reflected on our five questions to give us an intimate look into how her life was changed during her college career.

With 2015 Tony Award nominations announced today, it only seems appropriate to turn our interview focus on someone who might be a Tony nominee in the not-so-distant future. Take Lydia Granered, for example: she's an alumna of Nashville's Christ Presbyterian Academy (class of 2013), where she studied theater with Paula Flautt, and she's now in New York City, studying at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

A native of Cypress, Texas, Casey Gilbert came to Nashville to go to school at Belmont University and quickly made a name for herself on local stages. But it seemed, at least to her legions of fans in Music City, that no sooner had she arrived and made herself a home here, she was on her way back to Texas. Of course, there were all sorts of things happening that resulted in that move, not the least of which was a change in college major, family ties and more.

Shakespeare's much-loved comedy, Much Ado About Nothing features Benedick, a wisecracking confirmed bachelor, and Beatrice, his favourite sparring partner.

Now onstage through this weekend as part of Lipscomb University's theatre department's 2014-15 season, the Beki Baker-directed rendition of Friel's exquisitely written play is brought to life by an impressive cast of eight student actors who are given ample opportunity to show us exactly what they have learned in the classroom. With performances that are richly nuanced and significantly heartfelt, Baker's ensemble bring their characters to the stage, mostly free of artifice and in so doing create a memorable theatrical experience that is affecting and compelling.

Little Women, a contemporary musical featuring the timeless story of the four March sisters, will premiere this Friday at Reynolds Hall on the campus of Shepherd University, produced by Shepherd University's student-run musical theater group, Scene Stealers.

From the superb set, to the amazing puppetry of the cast, everything about AVENUE Q at UAB was top notch entertainment. I was definitely impressed with UAB and their theatre department.

At the end of a season of "origins and migrations" the Georgetown University Theater and Performance Studies Program transports audiences to late 1990's Australia, where a diverse cast of characters struggles with loss, upheaval, and interminable drought in Slow Falling Bird

CSUCI Senior Andrew Metzger is proving to be a formidable force on the Ventura County stage scene. A combination of Zero Mostel and John Belushi, Metzger commands attention from his very first words. He is simply magnificent in this role.

SOUTH PACIFIC will play at Enterprise State Community College, April 9-11, 2015.

Oftentimes, in any college town - especially one filled with schools with impressive theater programs - there are talented students who come and go, never making much of an impact on the local scene, keeping their onstage theatrics confined to campus offerings. Not so with Belmont University senior Alie B. Gorrie.

Everything about Emily Eytchison, a Brentwood native now in her senior year at Nashville's Lipscomb University, says she's an actress. Outgoing and beautiful, quirky and even somewhat introverted (which might seem surprising coming from someone who is so obviously at home in front of an audience), she seems destined to a life theatrical, one filled with wonder, imagination and new discoveries around every piece of scenery…

Wearing hot pink high heels and carrying her fluffy dog, Bruiser, brainy and beautiful Elle Woods brought a little sparkle to Ohio State's campus in Off the Lake's production of "Legally Blonde the Musical" this weekend.

There was astonishment on the faces of a packed Concert Hall at Lynn University in Boca Raton Florida, as Tommy Tune at the end of the show asked the audience to sing Happy 76th Birthday to him. The way Tune had just danced, sung, and charmed, no one including producer and Elizabeth Taylor look-a-like Jan McArt could believe the stunning nine time Tony Award winner was a senior citizen. A designated New York City Living Landmark had become a snowbird for the weekend to perform at the Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center at Lynn University. BroadwayWorld brings you photos of the event below!

One of the major purposes of collegiate musical theater programs, besides teaching acting, singing and dancing skills, is to expand student knowledge of not only traditional, but new scripts. Kent State is offering its students such an opportunity by presenting MY HEART IS THE DRUM.

This past weekend, Liberty University's Department of Theatre Arts opened its production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's World War II era musical, SOUTH PACIFIC. In the midst of two snowstorms, a transformation to the South Pacific was the perfect way to let the Lynchburg area know that spring and warm weather are on their way.

Amanda Grace Creech is one of a kind: Beautiful, talented, outspoken, irreverent - and yet another example of the wealth of talent to be found on college campuses all over the USA and someone of whom Nashville theater can rightfully boast. A native of Stone Mountain, Georgia, she's a student at Nashville's Trevecca Nazarene University and a 2014 First Night Most Promising Actor.

Jason Vest, Northern Kentucky University Professor, will play the role of Jean Valjean in the Department of Theatre and Dance's upcoming production of the smash-hit musical, LES MISERABLES, directed by Department Chair, Ken Jones. Vest, an accomplished tenor, is on faculty in the Department of Music as an Assistant Professor of Voice.

Make no mistake about it: Rachel Woods is a remarkable young woman. One of the finest young actresses to come out of Nashville theater - she's performed on such diverse stages as Nashville Shakespeare Festival and Franklin's Pull-Tight Players - she's currently spending a semester abroad at Harlaxton, the University of Evansville's British campus, having new adventures every day and adding to her magical bag of theatrical tricks that will serve her well as her career progresses.

The University of Hartford's Hartt School Dance Division presents “untempered”, the Spring Senior Dance and Music Collaboration, Friday, March 6 at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, March 7 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. in the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Theater, at the Mort and Irma Handel Performing Arts Center, 35 Westbourne Parkway, Hartford.

NYU Steinhardt Vocal Performance's student-run Players Club presents THE DROWSY CHAPERONE from February 13-15

The students of the Shepherd University Music Department will premiere an Opera Double Feature, featuring one comedic romance and one tragic romance, just in time for Valentine's Day! Opening February 13, the Opera Double Feature will included Dido and Aeneas, directed by Dr. Robert Tudor, and La Serva Padrona, directed by Dr. Bobb Robinson. Both operas are musically directed by Dr. Erik Jones. Dido and Aeneas, a tragedy, tells the story of Dido, a queen and both her love for enemy soldier, Aeneas, and her despair when he leaves her. La Serva Padrona, a comedy, features a clever maid and manservant conspiring to trick the master of the house into marrying the maid so that she can become the wealthy mistress of the house.

It will enable you to someday say that you, too, "knew them when"…like Brentwood's Blake Marshall, a graduate of Franklin High School now in the middle of his freshman year at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City