Kyla Lowder

Despite the best efforts of some of Nashville's finest and most promising young actresses, who do their best with such a disappointing script, they can't bring the show to life. The play's characters-who represent some of the 1,800-plus real women who entered training in 1943 to become Womens Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) a paramilitary organization designed to allow women to provide support for the male pilots of the Army Air Forces-represent a cross-section of American women who wanted to aid the war effort in the best possible way.

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to Nashville.BroadwayWorld.com's latest installment of The Friday Five: five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find on stages in the Volunteer State. Sure, it might be Thursday on your calendar (same as mine, actually), but with Angels Without Wings premiering tonight at Darkhorse Theatre, it just seems like perfect timing to talk to Halee-Catherine Culicerto, who's been part of Angels for quite some time now.

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…

Angels Without Wings, described as "the patriotic story of six women who beat the odds to become the first women in flight in the Army Air Corps during the World War II era" will land at Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre for an August 2-5 world premiere engagement.

Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it's difficult to know who's playing whom-hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known-or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin' world-thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We're gonna tell ya...Today's actor/subject/model is the beautiful, talented and soon-to-be-graduated-from-Belmont University (not to mention 2010 First Night Most Promising Actor) Kyla Lowder, photographed by Bennett Farkas.

Vali Forrister retuns to the stage for the first time since her 2006 triumph in How I Learned to Drive to lead the cast of Actors Bridge Ensemble and the Belmont University Department of Theatre and Dance's production of Frederico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. Jessika Malone, artistic associate at ABE, directs the cast of Emily Mann's adaptation of Lorca's work which has been described as 'a cross between Downton Abbey and The Bachelor with an added splash of Mommie Dearest.'

Tyrannical and imperious, Bernarda Alba rules her five daughters with an iron-fisted vehemence in Actors Bridge Ensemble and Belmont University Theatre's presentation of Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, which marks the return to the stage of Vali Forrister, Actors Bridge producing artistic director, after a far too long six-year absence.

Vali Forrister retuns to the stage for the first time since her 2006 triumph in How I Learned to Drive to lead the cast of Actors Bridge Ensemble and the Belmont University Department of Theatre and Dance's production of Frederico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. Jessika Malone, artistic associate at ABE, directs the cast of Emily Mann's adaptation of Lorca's work which has been described as 'a cross between Downton Abbey and The Bachelor with an added splash of Mommie Dearest.'

Jessika Malone, artistic associate at ABE, directs the cast of Emily Mann's adaptation of Lorca's work which has been described as 'a cross between Downton Abbey and The Bachelor with an added splash of Mommie Dearest.' Opening, Friday, February 17, and running through February 26, The House of Bernarda Alba plays Belmont University's Troutt Theatre at 2100 Belmont Boulevard. General admission tickets are $18, with tickets for seniors at $12.

Vali Forrister retuns to the stage for the first time since her 2006 triumph in How I Learned to Drive to lead the cast of Actors Bridge Ensemble and the Belmont University Department of Theatre and Dance's production of Frederico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba. Jessika Malone, artistic associate at ABE, directs the cast of Emily Mann's adaptation of Lorca's work which has been described as 'a cross between Downton Abbey and The Bachelor with an added splash of Mommie Dearest.'

With audience participation required to bring it fully to life onstage, Jeff Wirth's The Antics of Romantics is overflowing with imagination and creativity, making it one of the most exhilarating theater offerings we've seen this season. Directed stylishly - with generous wit and flashes of comic brilliance - by Brent Maddox, Wirth's play is now onstage at Belmont University's Black Box Theatre at the Troutt Theatre complex starring an accomplished and adept cast of student actors who, obviously, are having the times of their lives.

Superbly performed by a cast of eight exceptional student actors in the Belmont University Department of Theatre and Dance, under the direction of Bill Feehely (co-founder of Nashville's acclaimed Actors Bridge Ensemble), Dancing at Lughnasa opens the 2011-2012 season with theater of the highest order, delivering a sumptuously appointed physical production that soars because of the wonderfully nuanced portrayals of the actors.

There must be something in the water on campus at Nashville's Belmont University - sure, the theatre and musical theatre faculty's skills are virtually unparalleled, but it's the talent, the quality and the devotion to their craft of the students that truly boggles the mind and is worthy of unbridled and enthusiastic acclaim. You'd have to search far and wide for a more impressive group of student actors who, with director James Al-Shamma's staging of The Government Inspector, have once again proven themselves equal to any theatrical challenge.

With a cast of 125 performers, a seven-member band, the show's running crew and a smattering of other people holding forth, the backstage scene at last Sunday night's First Night Nashville Theatre Honors was a virtual stage show in itself with all the hustle and bustle amid the hushed tones associated with the backstage area of a huge theatrical production.

Photographer Stacy Battles, one of Nashville's best known celebrity photographers, was on hand to shoot the red carpet arrivals that heralded the return of First Night, after an absence of some 14 years. First Night is presented by Jeffrey Ellis, who covers Nashville theater for BroadwayWorld.com, and who is the founder of the awards celebration that was first held on September 17, 1989.