Jeffrey Ellis

Captivating, heartwarming, colorful, imaginative and down-right magical, Nashville Children’s Theatre’s world premiere production – it’s 19th in the past few years since executive artistic director Ernie Nolan’s arrival – of the theatre for young audiences version of Disney-Pixar’s Finding Nemo is just the latest theatrical hit from the venerable Nashville institution.

Led by a bravura performance from Carli Hardon, Nashville Repertory Theatre’s production of The Color Purple – the musical based on the beloved Alice Walker novel – is yet another extraordinary success from the professional company in the midst of its 39th season. Directed with complete self-assurance and confidence by Reggie Law, with evocative and energetic choreography by Joi Ware and the musical direction of Dion Treece that results in one of the most emphatically sung shows in Nashville Rep history.

Cooper’s clear and focused direction of [title of show] ensures that the action that transpires over the course of 90-plus minutes holds your attention, reminds you of people you know and delivers a pretty spot-on depiction of what real life is all about. With the able assistance of musical director Angela Tipps (the only non-student involved in the production, except for the professors who serve as mentors of the student-led creative team and production crew) and choreographer Paige Lovell (who provides the quartet of actors some fancy footwork that enlivens the proceedings), Cooper and his ideally cast quartet of actors, in this critic’s estimation, deliver the goods and then some.

With its silver anniversary year within sight, Belmont University Musical Theatre concludes its 24th season with what is perhaps its best show yet: Legally Blonde, The Musical. Featuring a remarkable cast of student performers, including most of the Class of 2024, which is arguably the most accomplished and most promising group of students assembled in the program’s quarter-century of musical theatre pedagogy and preparation, this Legally Blonde could easily hold its own against other productions of the tremendously entertaining show, whether on tour or even on Broadway.

In the world of theater, there exists a sisterhood of women who can count an appearance as an orphan (maybe even THE orphan) in a production of Annie as either their first onstage role or one of their most vivid onstage performances. But for Murfreesboro native Julia Nicole Hunter, who now stars as Grace Farrell in the national touring company of the seven-time Tony Award-winning musical coming to  Tennessee Performing Arts Center this week, her current role as Oliver Warbucks’ faithful assistant marks her first time ever in the show.

Nashville Repertory Theatre’s 40th Season will open with its staging of Waitress, the Tony Award-winning musical by Sara Bareilles and Jessie Nelson, running September 13-22 at the James K. Polk Theatre at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

The answer is none of the above, obviously – you and I are showing our age with those ridiculous suggestions – and any effort to explain The Trail to Oregon to you would contain spoilers, which people oftentimes don’t want to know, sending particularly disturbing and frankly threatening emails to critics just trying to do their jobs.

Alfred Uhry is a Southern writer who knows our region better than most and he uses the power of his words and the artistry of his pen to create moments and scenes in plays and musicals that are as authentic as the little rivulets of condensation that snake their way down the outside of a glass of iced tea on a too-hot afternoon in March, for goodness’ sake.

In the aftermath of experiencing the Nashville premiere of Jagged Little Pill — the musical inspired by and featuring music from Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album of the same name, other songs written by her and including two created expressly for the production, and featuring a compelling, biting and challenging book by Diablo Cody — one cannot help but lament the show’s abbreviated three-performance run at TPAC’s Andrew Jackson Hall.

Originally written and produced by Team Starkid (of A Very Potter Musical fame), The Trail to Oregon! parodies the video game The Oregon Trail, which follows a pioneer family on their journey westward to make a new life for themselves. Described as “hilarious and ‘edu-macational’ musical comedy,” the audience chooses the characters’ names at each show and making the decision of which family member succumbs to dysentery on the way to the Pacific Northwest.

Indian Ink Theatre Company’s Justin Lewis promises that Mrs. Krishnan’s Party – which will be celebrated over four days at Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Andrew Johnson Theatre March 6-9 – will lift your spirits and help you feel connected to a community of new friends who may have been actual strangers when you first arrived for the joyous festivities.

Just wondering: Do people still engage in cybersex, or has it – like electronic pagers, AOL and video rental stores – gone the way of the dodo? I ask because cybersex provides a salient plot point in Patrick Marber’s 1997 play Closer, which currently is the inaugural production from Nashville’s IS Productions, the more serious, yet less drunken theater producing arm of Inebriated Shakespeare, the entity that’s been serving up the Bard along with a cocktail or two, for the past few years in various Music City (and now in Houston, Texas, if memory serves) locales.

Now onstage at Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Andrew Jackson Theatre, through Sunday, February 18, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical gives the full biographical jukebox musical treatment to one of Tennessee’s most talented exports and favorite daughters.

Closer stars Britt Byrd, Ross Canales, Jeremy James Carmichael and Angela Gimlin, who take on our Friday Five (+1) questions and tell us why they think you should come see their show. You know the drill: Read their answers, call and get tickets, then tell everyone you know to meet you there.

Meghan Wombles’ spirited portrayal of 19th century British genius Ada Byron Lovelace provides the very heart of Lipscomb University Theatre’s Ada and The Engine, currently onstage through February 18 at the Shamblin Theatre, in a beautifully conceived production directed by Beki Baker.

A musical theater version of the infamous pair’s ill-fated life together is brought to life in a highly romanticized, tuneful and fast-paced production of the Frank Wildhorn-Don Black-Ivan Menchell Broadway musical Bonnie & Clyde, which played just a month on the Main Stem, but has since enjoyed a successful run in the United Kingdom and in American regional theater. Now onstage through Sunday, February 18, at Lebanon’s Capitol Theatre and directed by Angie Dee for Audience of One Productions, Bonnie and Clyde offers audiences a rip-roarin’ good time, featuring superb performances from the company’s stable of stars.

Should you feel the sudden urge to go home and bake some gingerbread upon leaving a performance of Nashville Children’s Theatre’s world premiere production of The Gingerbread Kid, rest assured it’s not a sign that you’ve developed cannibalistic tendencies. Rather, it’s part of a clever plot by director/choreographer/librettist Abe Reybold and executive artistic director Ernie Nolan (and their gang of creative artists) to ensure you’re immersed in the sweet-smelling world of confectionery treats while enjoying the brand-new musical that presents all manner of childhood tales in “bakery-fresh” packaging.

It is a chilling reminder of the hardships of life, the capricious nature of humankind and the cruelty to which people are still subjected today. And that, quite frankly, is why you should make it a point to see Nashville Repertory Theatre’s stunning production of Indecent, which is at once warmly amusing, heartbreakingly authentic and horrifically prescient more than a century after many of the events depicted took place.

Perhaps without knowing it, McPherson, the show’s creative collective and everyone involved with bringing Girl From The North Country to the stage have created the perfect musical for Nashville’s discerning theater audiences, people who know a thing or two about appreciating music, art and live performance. Only when you begin to leave the theater, perhaps awestruck by what you have just experienced, will you realize the gravity of what you have just seen.

Calling Girl From The North Country a 'jukebox musical' is not only a misnomer, but it completely misses the point of Irish playwright/director Conor McPherson’s acclaimed Broadway musical that features a score by Bob Dylan, according to actress Jennifer Blood, who plays Elizabeth Laine in the national touring company that begins its weeklong stand at Nashville’s Tennessee Performing Arts Center tonight.