Aurora Daniels

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to the start of Memorial Day Weekend: It's Friday, May 26, 2017 and time to live life dramatically! It really sounds like we should be cutting a ribbon somewhere to herald the start of the long weekend that kicks off summer, but instead we sit here in front of a computer screen, remembering and reminiscing, in hopes of providing you with something to read while you sit by the pool, waiting for the SPF37 to kick in!

David Compton – one of the region's most accomplished and acclaimed and most beloved actors and directors – died early Wednesday morning, May 4, after a four-year battle with heart disease and cancer. He leaves his wife, Amanda Card Compton (whom he married on Tuesday, May 3, just hours before his death); his mother, Jo Compton of Badin, North Carolina; his sister Becky Compton Taylor; his brother Jim Compton; and countless other friends and family who are mourning his passing.

At long last, Music City Confidential is back to help you get caught back on the talk of the town - all the news that's fit to print about the Nashville theater community - and to immerse you in the minutiae of life in Theater City (a term we've been trying to copyright since we were in junior high with Thespis, Aristophanes and Martha Wilkinson).

We've been doing our part to prepare ye the way, watching the action onstage, taking some furtive peeks backstage, listening to all the offstage gossip and venturing beyond the confines of the theater to gain the informed knowledge to see more shows in the Volunteer State than you ever thought possible. So, good people of the theaterati, read on and get all the information you need to know in this, our latest installment of Music City Confidential. This is #6…

The Boston native, whose circuitous career and meteoric rise to fame took her from New York City to Berlin and back to Los Angeles and various points in between, moved to Nashville in 1995, seeking a more laidback existence for herself and her family, a bucolic setting to raise her two daughters, a place that would allow her to continue to pursue her artistic dreams and aspirations while making her presence here known with a quiet dignity and a perhaps unexpected grace. To put it succinctly, Donna Summer moved to Nashville to escape the bright lights and paparazzi in order to be part of the community that so warmly welcomed her home.

Dance-the quality of performance, the merits of the performers, the creativity of the choreographers-at Middle Tennessee State University has certainly improved since the last time I reviewed the fall dance concert at MTSU. Of course, it was 32 years ago and the dance program at the university has grown by leaps and bounds.

A cast of more than 125 performers took to the stage of the Troutt Theatre at Belmont University to fete the eight members of the 2010 Class of First Night Honorees in a production that featured the best of the best of Nashville theater and included a surprise appearance by Joseph Mahowald, winner of a 1989 First Night Award, now playing the role of Franklin Hart Jr. in the national tour of 9 to 5: The Musical, which opened in Nashville at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, September 21.

Wicked opened its run at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center Wednesday with a capacity crowd enjoying the performance by the Second National Touring Company in Andrew Jackson Hall. Opening night also featured the inaugural Nashville.BroadwayWorld.com First Night Theatre Event, with some 25 theatre devotees attending the show, with cocktails and hors d'oevres before curtain and a dessert/champagne reception afterward.

Take one of east Nashville's hottest hot spots, mix in a couple hundred theatre enthusiasts, add a dollop of Vegas-style entertainment and a whole slew of gaming tables and you have the second annual fundraiser for Street Theatre Company: It's Vegas, Baby! Held Thursday, August 13, at Limelight, 201 Woodland Street, just across from LP Field, the event attracted a large sampling of Nashville's theatre community and socialites.