GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI for April 20, 2017

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's a glorious new day - #TheatreThursday, in fact - there's a bright golden haze on the meadow and today we're posing this question: What's your favorite stage comedy? And why does it tickle your funny bone (and we don't mean that in a dirty way, so get your freakin' minds outta the gutter!)? Greetings to our two cover models: the always entertaining and intriguing Daron Bruce and Jennifer Richmond, all dressed up in their Easter finery to get their daily dose of theater chatter!

We'll bet you're also asking yourself how many deviled eggs and how many pounds of macaroni salad has Joy Tilley Perryman made since The Nerd opened at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre... "I have made a total of 184 deviled eggs for The Nerd and 20 pounds of macaroni salad [editor's note: as opposed to five pounds of dry pasta, don't you know]," she reports. "Also, this marks the tenth week this year that I have boiled a pound of pasta a week for Brett Cantrell not to eat onstage." Mamma Mia, that's a lot of pasta! Since it's Thursday, that means a lot of shows are firing back up for a weekend filled with performances and, in addition to the aforementioned The Nerd, that includes Richard II (Nashville Shakespeare Festival and Lipscomb University Theatre), The Amish Project (Actors Bridge and Belmont University Theatre), Crazy All These Years (Woodland Entertainment), Disney's Aladdin Jr. (Renaissance Players), First Date (at Tennessee Tech), Spring Awakening (at University of Memphis, with Cody Rutledge), Mozart's The Magic Flute at Vanderbilt - and that list doesn't include shows opening like The Larry Keeton Theatre's Daddy's Dyin' Who's Got the Will?, Encore Theatre's The Last of the Red Hot Lovers, the musical version of Much Ado About Nothing at Franklin Road Academy, and a very special Dreamgirls in Concert, from the Memphis Black Arts Alliance at The Guest House at Graceland, featuring Lar'juanette Williams, to whom we are sort of partial. Also on our radar: the luminous Ingrid Rekedal makes her debut as Hamlet in a new production at Trevecca Nazarene University.

Hello, Dolly! opens on Broadway tonight; among its stars is Murfreesboro's own Analisa Leaming, who will be featured in a hometown concert next Monday night. Reviews were rhapsodic for the opening night of The Little Foxes from Manhattan Theater Club; Nashville's own David Alford plays Mr. Marshall, the visitor from Chicago, while a whole bunch of Yankees play the unrepentant Giddens/Hubbard clan of Alabama.

Today in history, after a theatrical fashion, we call your attention to the Broadway openings of the Matthew Broderick-led revival of Night Must Fall (1999), Green Day's American Idiot (2010) that were revived in stellar productions from Circle Players and the Roxy Regional Theatre; Sister Act (2011, starring the remarkable Patina Miller) that's been a hit for Circle Players and Arts Center of Cannon County and promises to do more of the same at Chaffin's Barn later this summer; and Violet (2014) that is one of Street Theatre Company's most beloved hits to date.

And may we remind you, it's #TheatreThursday (use that hashtag on social media and help us make that a thing!) and no matter where you may find yourself in this great big world: CELEBRATE THE MAGIC OF LIVE THEATRE!