Jeffrey Ellis - Page 100

Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) will play host this summer to the world premiere of The Nutty Professor, a new musical comedy directed by the King of Comedy himself, Jerry Lewis. The Broadway at TPAC Special Event will run from July 24 to August 19 in TPAC's James K. Polk Theater. Featuring music by Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line) and a book and lyrics by three-time Tony Award winner Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), The Nutty Professor is based on the classic 1963 film in which Lewis starred and co-wrote.

Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) will play host this summer to the world premiere of The Nutty Professor, a new musical comedy directed by the King of Comedy himself, Jerry Lewis. The Broadway at TPAC Special Event will run from July 24 to August 19 in TPAC's James K. Polk Theater. Featuring music by Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line) and a book and lyrics by three-time Tony Award winner Rupert Holmes (The Mystery of Edwin Drood), The Nutty Professor is based on the classic 1963 film in which Lewis starred and co-wrote.

The Nutty Professor, the Jerry Lewis-helmed musical based on his successful film comedy, takes up residence at the James K. Polk Theatre in the Tennessee Performing Arts Center for a July 24-August 19 run, ahead of the production's anticipated November 15 opening on Broadway.

Anticipation is building for Show Hope's third annual presentation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical Cinderella, Enchanted Edition, which takes to the Schermerhorn Symphony stage on Thursday, April 12, with Jessica Grove taking over the role of Cinderella previously played by Ally Mausey and Ryan Silverman as her Prince (the role played the first two years by Anthony Fedorov).

Today, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actor/director/playwright Chambers Stevens, still known as "Steve Chambers" to many of his Nashville followers, who before moving to Los Angeles had appeared on practically every stage in Music City USA, including the magical descending stage at The Barn. Now known throughout the world for his work with aspiring actors and for the many critically acclaimed plays he has written, he gives credit where credit is due: His Barn experiences helped him achieve his dreams.

Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type opens April 3 at Nashville Children's Theatre, running through May 13, featuring an all-star cast of Rona Carter, Vanessa Callahan, Amanda Card-McCoy and Samuel Whited, under the direction of Scot Copeland.

Pizza and birthday cupcakes will be provided on a first come, first serve basis. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own picnic fare and, after the completion of the balcony scene, to stay on for free family entertainment from various local performers. In keeping with Elizabethan tradition, all dogs are welcome.

In recognition of The Barn's 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actor Brian Russell, who is one of the region's favorite actors despite the recurring rumor that he was in the cast of Our American Cousin on the night that Lincoln was shot. Today, Brian, who just concluded a critically lauded (which means I gave him a glowing review) run in Tennessee Repertory Theatre's Superior Donuts, adds the memories of her Barn experiences to the ones that we've been sharing of late to celebrate the 45th anniversary…

After director/actor Eugene Wolf received a late evening phone call from Barter Theatre's producing artistic director Richard Rose, he immediately sprang into action.

Spring Awakening,the Tony Award-winning musical by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater based upon the play by Frank Wedekind, opens at Clarksville's Roxy Regional Theatre for an April 13-May 15 run, starring Matt DuMont as Melchior and Hannah Church as Wendla.

Too Old For the Chorus (But Not Too Old To Be A Star), directed by a young whippersnapper named Martha Wilkinson (she's artistic director at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, which celebrates its 45th birthday this year, and she has a boatload of First Night Awards and enough glowing reviews to fill the fanny packs of every mall walker briskly making their way through Opry Mills) and featuring a top-notch cast of Nashville actors, is as gentle as the best stool softener and as kick-ass (when it needs to be) as a certain little blue pill favored by certain gentlemen in the age group (not me, but so I've been told).

Howe's rather fanciful memory play wears its heart on its crisp linen sleeve, offering audiences a glimpse into the life of Mabel Tidings Bigelow (played with such spirit by Allen that it's easy to fall just a little bit in love with both the actress and the beautifully written character she plays), a spirited 90-year-old former swimming champion who in her later years finds herself looking back over the multitude of events in her life that have shaped her and challenged her. As the story of Mabel's remarkable, though sometimes deceptively mundane and usual, life unfolds onstage before you, you are likely to find yourself thoroughly caught up in the minutiae of that life as the panoply of events and individuals move about-not unlike the ebb and flow of the tides that buffet the beaches of her hometown of Prides Crossing, Massachusetts, an upper crust enclave of Beverly, Mass.

Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Tina Howe (her Painting Churches was a 1984 finalist for the prize and Pride's Crossing was a Pulitzer finalist in 1997), and Mark Richard, the author of the best-selling House of Prayer No. 2, will be among the special guests at this year's Southern Literary Festival, held March 29-31 on the Lipscomb University campus in Nashville.

Little House on the Prairie, the musical by Rachel Portman, Donna DiNovelli and Rachel Sheinkin based upon the series of books by Laura Ingalls Widler, will be given a new production with a revision of the script and score, at Cumberland County Playhouse, in Crossville.

With several Tennessee theaters prepping new productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic The Sound of Music over the upcoming months, one would be well-advised to make the trip to Crossville to see director Weslie Webster's (and music director Ron Murphy's) take on the Von Trapp family musical. Webster, one of Cumberland County Playhouse's most accomplished leading ladies, takes the helm of The Sound of Music with clear-headed confidence and commitment, giving the time-honored musical the added gravitas-the dramatic heft-of historical context, which all too often is glossed over and regretfully forgotten in lesser revivals.

In recognition of The Barn's 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actress/music director/singer/songwriter/new mom Jaclyn Brown, who is one of the most accomplished multi-hyphenates to be found in Nashville, taking on a wide range of roles and responsibilities at Chaffin's Barn (she served as music director for Too Old For the Chorus (But Not Too Old To Be A Star), the show now onstage in West Nashville. Today, Jaclyn adds the memories of her Barn experiences to the ones that we've been sharing for two weeks to celebrate the 45th anniversary…

Today, the spotlight falls upon Holly Allen, who is currently playing the lead in Lipscomb University Theatre's production of Tina Howe's Pride's Crossing (running at the Shamblin Theatre through April 7).

In the play, 90-year-old Mabel Tidings Bigelow-the first woman to swim the English Channel from England to Franc -insists on celebrating her daughter and granddaughter's annual visit with a croquet party. As the game unfolds, she relives vignettes from the last 80 years, interweaving past and present to reveal the precise moment of opportunity gained and love rejected, the moment that defined her life.

In recognition of The Barn's 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actress Amanda Card McCoy, who made her Barn debut in the acclaimed comedy Boeing Boeing, which was followed closely by her performance in Nate Eppler's Modern Love. Today, Amanda shares her memories of working at The Barn to the ones that we've been sharing of late to celebrate the 45th anniversary…

Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type opens April 3 at Nashville Children's Theatre, running through May 13, featuring an all-star cast of Rona Carter, Vanessa Callahan, Amanda Card-McCoy and Samuel Whited, under the direction of Scot Copeland.