Nashville Theater Reviews Page 3

Review: Presented in the Perfect Setting, Studio Tenn's SMOKE ON THE MOUNTAIN Will Revive Your Spirit
by Jeffrey Ellis - March 29, 2023

It was in Fall 1995 that I first was introduced to the gospel singing Sanders Family of “up near Siler City, North Carolina,” in a production of Smoke on the Mountain at Nashville's venerable Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. In 2023, the family returns again, as if by magic or perhaps accompanied by f...

BWW Review: Street Theater Company's ORDINARY DAYS Ushers In New Barbershop Theatre Residency in Extraordinary Ways
by Jeffrey Ellis - March 27, 2023

Street Theatre Company makes its long awaited and eagerly anticipated debut as a resident company at Nashville’s Barbershop Theatre with its thoroughly entertaining production of Ordinary Days, the sung-through 2008-2009 work with music and lyrics by Adam Gwon....

Review: BUMT's Sparkling and Sophisticated THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND Is Gone Too Soon
by Jeffrey Ellis - February 22, 2023

Sometimes, even imperceptibly and when you least expect it, you may find yourself in search of something that helps to take you away from the rigors of the real world, to transport you to a long-dreamed-of land of fantasy which exists in your heart of hearts. Perhaps that journey is spurred on by a ...

Review: The Queens of SIX The Musical Enchant Their Nashville Audience On Opening Night
by Jeffrey Ellis - February 22, 2023

Make no mistake about it: SIX, the Tony Award-winning musical about six women historically tethered to one another by a common – but not “a commoner” – ex-husband, is raucously funny one moment, remarkably heartfelt the next, with plenty of history punctuating the moments in between. SIX, the high-s...

Review: Nostalgic and Warm MARVELOUS WONDERETTES May Be the Cure For What Ails You
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 16, 2022

There’s really nothing better for what ails you – particularly on a cold, wet and dreary Sunday afternoon – than a stroll down memory lane, thanks to a tuneful trip to the 1950s and ‘60s with The Marvelous Wonderettes, a nostalgic and enormously entertaining musical revue by Roger Bean....

Review: HADESTOWN 'Mesmerizes and Captivates' During Weeklong Stand at Nashville's TPAC
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 02, 2022

Mesmerizing and captivating are just two of the words that might best describe Hadestown, the Tony Award-winning best musical of the truncated 2019-20 Broadway season, which is now commanding ovations of rapturous applause from adoring fans at Nashville’s Tennessee Performing Arts Center during an e...

Review: Lauren Shouse's Sublime Direction of THE CAKE Provides Much Food for Thought
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 28, 2022

Lauren Shouse’s directorial resume is quite the impressive one and over the years she’s helmed productions for Nashville Repertory Theatre that have been justifiably acclaimed both by audiences and critics alike. But despite the notoriety that seems to always accompany a “Lauren Shouse-directed prod...

Review: Belmont University Musical Theatre's Inspiring and Astonishing SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 09, 2022

Since his death in 2021, Stephen Sondheim and his canon of work have justifiably been on the hearts and minds of theater people from around the world, with revivals, retrospectives and remembrances filling the calendars of an amazing range of companies paying homage to the master of contemporary mus...

Review: Watershed Public Theatre's 'Nostalgic and Sentimental' LITTLE WOMEN THE MUSICAL
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 08, 2022

With a stellar cast under the direction of Cammy Harris, Watershed Public Theatre’s version of Little Women The Musical ends its two-weekend run at Columbia State Community College’s Cherry Theatre on Sunday, October 9, with an endearing production that proves once more the timelessness of Alcott’s ...

Review: Studio Tenn Collaborates with TPAC for 2022-23 Season Opener of AIDA IN CONCERT at Polk Theatre
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 01, 2022

Studio Tenn – the Franklin-based professional theater company – launches its 2022-23 season in collaboration with Tennessee Performing Arts Center for a concert staging of Elton John and Tim Rice’s Aida, playing for just two nights at TPAC’s James K. Polk Theatre September 30 and October 1. Under th...

Review: Roxy Regional Theatre's 2022 Revival of INTO THE WOODS May Mark Another Turning Point For The Company
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 30, 2022

In 2010, the Clarksville-based Roxy Regional Theatre staged a production of Stephen Sondheim and James LaPine’s “exquisitely off-kilter and melodiously rapturous musical Into the Woods” which remains firmly ensconced in my memory for its many attributes, not the least of which were the actors (Sarah...

Review: PRETTY WOMAN THE MUSICAL Plays Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center Through Sunday, 10/02
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 28, 2022

Pretty Woman The Musical – the latest offering in the 2022-23 Broadway at TPAC Series – is one of those shows that almost defies explanation and proves even more difficult to review. (Case in point: I’ve rewritten that sentence 758 times in the past 22 hours and it’s still not “singing,” is it?) Pre...

Review: Nashville Story Garden's U.S. Premiere of Lucy Kirkwood's THE WELKIN Will Have Audiences Talking
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 24, 2022

Nothing engages the theaterati in Nashville and the surrounding provinces as the production of an eagerly anticipated new play no one’s done before in these parts, but about which we’ve read glowing reviews. The very promise of something new to energize the cultural zeitgeist – particularly under th...

Review: Nashville Repertory Theatre's 38th Season Opens With RENT At TPAC'S Polk Theatre Through 9/25
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 21, 2022

Thanks to the rousing performances of director Micah-Shane Brewer’s talented company who have brought the show to vivid life for Nashville audiences, Rent provides a noteworthy opening to the company’s 38th season. Performed with commitment and sharp focus by a cast of young performers, this revival...

Review: World Premiere of New DIARY OF ANNE FRANK Adaptation at Nashville Children's Theatre
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 21, 2022

Wendy Kesselman’s new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank – which is based upon the acclaimed 1955 play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and is an update of her 1997 script which has been widely produced since – is given a superb world premiere production by Nashville Children’s Theatre, whi...

Review: Roxy Regional Theatre's THE COLOR PURPLE is 'Emphatically, Beautifully, Electrifyingly Sung'
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 15, 2022

The production of The Color Purple, now onstage at the Roxy, is without doubt the most emphatically, beautifully and electrifyingly sung musical I’ve seen at the historic theatre on the corner of First and Franklin in downtown Clarksville over the past three decades. Directed with confidence by Broa...

Review: HARPER LEE'S TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Opens at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 10, 2022

But beloved as it may be, why in the ever-loving hell has it taken so long for To Kill A Mockingbird to become a theatrical play that is actually worthy of its literary heritage? Sure, there’s been a 1990 (?!) version by Christopher Sergel that’s made it way through every high school auditorium, com...

Review: Cynthia Harris' THE CALLING IS IN THE BODY Is A Universal Tale of Love and Inspiration
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 10, 2022

In much the same way that a piece of evocative music can suddenly whisk you away to another time and place, there are moments in Cynthia Harris’ beautifully written The Calling Is In The Body that can take one just as swiftly to the Nashville of the early 1990s. Almost imperceptibly, Harris’ heartfe...

Review: After Covid and the Insurrection, HAMILTON Resonates More Deeply in its TPAC Return
by Jeffrey Ellis - July 29, 2022

When Lin-Manuel Miranda’s epic masterpiece Hamilton was last in residence at Nashville’s Tennessee Performing Arts Center – where it is now ensconced for an as equally anticipated, if briefer, two-week run through August 7 – the world was a far different place than that in which we live today. Yet s...

Review: Matt Logan Directs 'Stunning, Powerful, Deeply Moving' THE HIDING PLACE in Nashville Premiere
by Jeffrey Ellis - July 10, 2022

Stunning. Powerful. Deeply moving. The words come rather easily in an attempt to adequately describe the awe-inspiring performances to be found in director Matt Logan’s beautifully crafted production of A.S. Peterson’s The Hiding Place. Now onstage in its Nashville premiere at the Soli Deo Center (w...

Review: Bucket List Productions' 'Eerily Prescient' ASSASSINS: THE MUSICAL Opens at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater
by Jeffrey Ellis - July 09, 2022

In theater, as in life, it’s all in the timing: Bucket List Productions’ Assassins: The Musical opened its Nashville run at Darkhorse Theater on Friday, July 8, the same day that former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe died by an assassin’s gun. As news of Abe’s assassination reverberated througho...

Review: Nashville Children's Theatre's THE SPONGEBOB MUSICAL is Summer Escapism at its Best
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 29, 2022

Leave it to Ernie Nolan and his creative gang at Nashville Children’s Theatre to take audiences on a much-appreciated holiday under the sea with their riotous, rollicking and altogether joyful production of The Spongebob Musical – featuring some of Nashville’s most beloved stage performers – now ons...

Review: Impressively Original THAT WOMAN Presents Stunning Portraits of Women Involved With JFK
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 19, 2022

First conceived prior to the global Covid 19 pandemic and nurtured through those dark and challenging times by Gimlin and Breen, the two halves of THAT WOMAN have finally debuted at Nashville’s Darkhorse Theatre this week and will continue there and at The East Room in East Nashville through June 29...

Review: Oh, Brother! MAY WE ALL: A New Country Musical Cast and Characters Deserve a Better Book


by Jeffrey Ellis - June 18, 2022

A jukebox musical featuring songs from a plethora of country music artists, May We All has all the charm of a pedal-tavern powered by a dozen drunk “woo-woo” girls debauching themselves all the way down Broadway, while displaying all the emotional complexity and dramatic intensity of a rejected scri...

BWW Review: RODGERS + HAMMERSTEIN'S CINDERELLA Captivates and Enthralls in Exquisite CCP Imagining
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 12, 2022

The story of Cinderella and her Prince is as aspirational and as inspirational as any to be found in the history of musical theater and we are once again delighted to tell you, gentle readers, that the current iteration of Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella now onstage at Crossville’s Cumberland Cou...