Anastasia Teel News

So, this is how it all started: Cori Laemmel, who despite her many flaws (she's too sweet, too talented and too pretty, not to mention that she is, well, just darling) is one of my favorite theatrical types, calls me up and asks me to come see The Most Amazing Anything of Evertime, the new show she wrote and directed for the first, big-scale, open-to-the-public, onstage production of The Theater Bug, her performing arts training program for younger actors.

Cori Laemmel is one of those actresses you're instantly drawn to onstage: When she comes on, there's an indefinable quality about her that rivets your attention to her, regardless of the role she's playing. Offstage? Well, you find yourself in that same, almost indefinable, realm of being unable to stop watching her: She's charming, as sweet and disingenuous as anyone could possibly be, funny and slightly goofy - and absolutely, completely, no-doubt-about it a star-in-the-making. Seriously, she's got mad talent and remarkable skill. The fact that she is pursuing her theatrical dreams in Nashville is just so much luck for those of us fortunate enough to revel in the spectacle that is she.

SchoolHouse Rock Live!, the Emmy Award-winning 1970s Saturday morning cartoon series that taught history, grammar, math, science and politics through clever, tuneful songs, is now instructing a whole new generation to 'Unpack Your Adjectives' and 'Do the Circulations' in the theatre production now onstage at Hendersonville' Steeple Players Theatre through September 27.