Ramona Richards

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! According to the non-clock thing hanging on the wall - what's it called? Oh, yeah, a calendar (yeah, like we'd ever allow a calendar to hang on any wall under our control - today is May 31, 2017! It's another day to allow yourself to live life dramatically and to gain ownership of your own schedule for the rest of the week so you can be certain to get to the theater. Yesterday, in our never-ending quest to enlist all of you to write our daily column for us, we posted TODAY'S QUERY on Facebook, asking our gentle readers to weigh in or whether or not 'dressing for the theater' is de rigueur or is it more of a 'come as you are' nature. Little did we know that such a question could engender such passionate responses and we daresay rather passionate defenses of the wear-whatever-the-hell-you-want school of thought.

Hear ye, hear ye…Music City Confidential is back! Which means, of course, that I've heard an awful lot of scuttlebutt since last week's column went live on the interwebs - or, more likely, that I am trying to avoid boring and mundane stuff like packing - I'll let you decide what my motivation truly is...

Gina D'Arco and Taylor Novak will lead the cast of William Inge's Picnic, in a revival of the classic play helmed by Jeffrey Ellis, for Nashville's Circle Players, which this season celebrates its 65th year of bringing live theater to audiences throughout Middle Tennessee. Picnic will run tonight, March 27 through April 4, and will be performed at the theater at Hillsboro High School.

Initial artwork for Circle Players' upcoming production of William Inge's Picnic, with art by Arthur Henry Kirkby IV and graphic design by David Arnold, has been released just as rehearsals get under way for the show's March 26-April 4 run at Nashville's Hillsboro High School.

Gina D'Arco and Taylor Novak will lead the cast of William Inge's Picnic, in a revival of the classic play helmed by Jeffrey Ellis, for Nashville's Circle Players, which this season celebrates its 65th year of bringing live theater to audiences throughout Middle Tennessee. Picnic will run March 27 through April 4, and will be performed at the theater at Hillsboro High School.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project returns to the Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater on Friday, May 7, with its fourth annual Women's Work showcase of performing and visual arts created by women. Running through Sunday, May 23, the festival cuts across typical borders of style, medium and genre, offering 11 completely different programs: poetry and essays; one-woman shows; staged readings of new plays; dance, and even a clown performance combining the Pochinko and Commedia dell' Arte Bouffon styles.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project returns to the Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater on Friday, May 7, with its fourth annual Women's Work showcase of performing and visual arts created by women. Running through Sunday, May 23, the festival cuts across typical borders of style, medium and genre, offering 11 completely different programs: poetry and essays; one-woman shows; staged readings of new plays; dance, and even a clown performance combining the Pochinko and Commedia dell' Arte Bouffon styles.

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.