Jeffrey Ellis - Page 133

The Renaissance Center in Dickson presents a unique production of Annie, Jr., a Broadway Junior version of one of the most beloved musicals of all time, running March 11-20. The Young Entertainers on Stage (Y.E.S.) production is adapted for young performers and is cast entirely with kids from first through 12th grades. The seven-time Tony Award winning musical boasts a hit score that includes 'It's A Hard Knock Life,' 'You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile,' 'Easy Street' and the song used to cheer up children of all generations, 'Tomorrow.'

Neil Sedaka's music is featured in Breaking Up is Hard to Do, now onstage through March 19 at the Gaslight Dinner Theatre at The Renaissance Center in Dickson, kicking off the theater's 2011 season with the Tennessee premiere of the musical revue.

Kandace Christian plays Margaret Mitchell - who created one of the biggest and best novels of the 20th Century with Gone With the Wind - in a one-actor play called Mrs. John Marsh, to be performed Thursday, March 17, at the public library in Franklin, Tennessee.

Johnny Peppers and Jenny Norris-Light lead the cast of Bethlehem Players' Annie, opening Friday, March 4, at Franklin's Bethlehem United Methodist Church, running through March 13. Directed by Dietz Osborne, each performance of the classic musical comedy will give audience members the chance to adopt a special dog from Happy Tales Humane.

Clint Jefferies' The Three Musketeers, a musical retelling of the classic Alexandre Dumas tale of the young D'Artagnan, who leaves home to seek for adventure and glory in Paris with the King's Musketeers, will be presented by Donelson's Larry Keeton Theatre, March 11-27.

Now onstage through March 13 at the Z. Alexander Looby Theater, in a nicely appointed production from Tennessee Women's Theater Project, Impressionism gives audiences a chance to see some fine Nashville actors in a play that is simply not up to their best efforts. Even Maryanna Clarke's focused direction and the leading performances of Holly Allen and Jeremy Childs - and a knockout supporting performance by Tamiko Robinson - are unsuccessful in making Jacobs' script more than what is: a pretentious attempt to use impressionist art to amplify the story of two characters who aren't that sympathetic and are only interesting because you have nowhere else to look.

To see Erin Spencer dance is to fall a little bit in love with her. Talented and determined, ambitious and creative...she's kind of a force of nature. One of the growing number of dancers in the Nashville area who focus on theatrical performances - she has a heady resume of performance with several theater companies here - she's gaining a much-deserved reputation as an exceptional performer with an amazing work ethic.

Feasting on the banquet that is the musical, magical prose of Tom Stoppard, the cast of Blackbird Theater Company's Arcadia delivers a pitch-perfect rendering of his intellectually stimulating play, under the fine direction of Ted Swindley. Certain to provoke thought and elicit a variety of responses, Arcadia is intricately crafted and imaginatively plotted, staged elegantly and confidently by the relatively new theater company in just its second production at David Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theatre.

In what could well be the most talked-about theatrical event of the new year, Street Theatre Company presents Chess in Concert February 24-27, featuring some of Nashville's best known stage talents and including a chorus of more than 40 voices. And it seems, in talking to some of the artists most intimately involved in the creative process that will culminate in this weekend's five performances, that it is a process they'd definitely sign-up for again - and it's clear that Nashville audiences will be talking about it for a long time after the curtain rings down Sunday night.

Spring Awakening, the eight-time Tony Award winning Broadway musical - featuring 'the most gorgeous Broadway score this decade,' according to Entertainment Weekly - comes to Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center for the last time on February 27.

Nashville's Studio Tenn theatre company concludes its inaugural season with Tennessee Williams' classic play The Glass Menagerie, closing February 27 at Belmont University's Black Box Theatre. Williams' play is an award-winning portrayal of a disintegrating family during the depression and is the play that introduced him as one of the preeminent American Playwrights of the 20th century.

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, a magical tale based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, continues Actors Bridge Ensemble's 2010-11 season, running February 18-27 at Belmont University's Troutt Theater. Directed by Jessika Malone, in Ruhl's critically acclaimed play, 'Eurydice is to marry her true love, a misstep sends her to the surreal depths of the Underworld, where she has a surprising reunion and ultimately must decide whether to follow Orpheus back to the land of the living.'

After much too long, Spring Awakening - the eight-time Tony Award-winning musical about teen angst and sexual awakening in late-19th century Germany - finally made its Nashville debut Friday, February 25, settling into Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall for a five-performance run. And though the show was a long time in coming to Music City, the audience watched raptly as the fresh-faced cast of talented young actors brought the story to life with vigor and total commitment.

Make no mistake about it: Street Theatre Company's Chess in Concert is filled to overflowing with an embarrassment of riches. If for no other reason, you should see the concert (onstage through Sunday, February 27) for Laura Matula's bravura performance as Florence Vassy - the American chess champion's second who falls into a torrid affair with his Russian counterpart - which is as stunning as any star turn you will see by any woman in musical theater anywhere. (There. I've said it and I mean it with all my heart: Laura Matula has a spectacularly expressive voice and her dramatic performance in this role is richly shaded and nuanced. In short, she should be a very big star!)

Holly Allen and Jeremy Childs lead the cast of Tennessee Women's Theater Project's production of Michael Jacobs' Impressionism, opening Friday, February 25 and running for 13 performances at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater. TWTP's production marks the regional premiere of Impressionism.

Spring Awakening, the eight-time Tony Award winning Broadway musical - featuring 'the most gorgeous Broadway score this decade,' according to Entertainment Weekly - comes to Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center for a four-performance run February 25-27.

It seems like Molly Breen is either always onstage or backstage - whether she's acting, rehearsing, running lines, hanging out with friends - so, if you're looking for her, it's a pretty safe guess you'll find Molly inside a theater. With an enviable resume, which includes assignments with a host of theater companies, she moves effortlessly from one production to another, taking on a wide range of roles. She's equally at home onstage, in front of a camera doing film work or commercials, appearing in music videos and, generally, pursuing her dream of being an actress.

Talk to cast members of Blackbird Theater Company's production of Arcadia and you get the idea that all this hard work we've heard so much about may actually be a whole lot of fun. And ask them why audiences should come see the show, which opens Friday night, February 25, at David Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theatre, and the answers you get may not be what you expect either.

For audience members wondering how the memorable, albeit short, tale can possibly be translated to musical theater, NCT producing artistic director Scot Copeland has some succinct pre-curtain advice: 'Just wait and see.' You'll be so glad you did. Its brevity notwithstanding, the story is winsomely engaging, using the text of Brown's book as a springboard to take younger audiences deeper into a wonderland of imaginative, inspirational fun - and there are some quietly expressed lessons conveyed in the process.

In what could well be the most talked-about theatrical event of the new year, Street Theatre Company presents Chess in Concert February 24-27, featuring some of Nashville's best known stage talents and including a chorus of more than 40 voices. And it seems, in talking to some of the artists most intimately involved in the creative process that will culminate in this weekend's five performances, that it is a process they'd definitely sign-up for again - and it's clear that Nashville audiences will be talking about it for a long time after the curtain rings down Sunday night.