Donald Fann News

Opening tonight, August 6, Cumberland County Playhouse presents a madcap adventure about love, life, and man's eternal love affair with golf, The Fox on the Fairway! Written by Ken Ludwig (Crazy for You, Lend Me A Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo), The Fox on the Fairway pulls the rug out from under the stuffy members of a posh country club. Filled with mistaken identities, slamming doors, and over-the-top romantic shenanigans, it's a fast-paced comedy that recalls the Marx Brothers' classics. This hysterical comedy is sure to be a hit with everyone who loved Suite Surrender or The Foreigner!

Opening August 6, Cumberland County Playhouse presents a madcap adventure about love, life, and man's eternal love affair with golf, The Fox on the Fairway! Written by Ken Ludwig (Crazy for You, Lend Me A Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo), The Fox on the Fairway pulls the rug out from under the stuffy members of a posh country club. Filled with mistaken identities, slamming doors, and over-the-top romantic shenanigans, it's a fast-paced comedy that recalls the Marx Brothers' classics. This hysterical comedy is sure to be a hit with everyone who loved Suite Surrender or The Foreigner!

We pride ourselves on our bounteous Southern hospitality here in Nashville, so who's gonna explain this: On Thursday, as thousands of country music fans gathered downtown for CMA Fest and thousands more fans of every musical genre you can think of were headed southward for the Bonnaroo Music Festival - just another summer in Tennessee, mind you - a truck spilled its load all over Interstate 65-S, adding to the hot, humid atmosphere with a whole mess of fish parts. Yep, you heard it right: smelly, disgusting fish parts baking on the hot asphalt under the blazing sun.

It's another busy theater week in Tennessee, and in Nashville there are an extra 50,000 to 100,000 country music fans jamming up traffic and increasing wait times at local restaurants, thanks to CMA Music Fest, which natives and longtimers will remember as Fan Fair. So while you're steering clear of our version of Broadway in downtown Nashville, which will be teeming with more people than you can shake a stick at (as my mama would say),  you should instead make reservations to see some local talent onstage at some of the shows included in our Critic's Choice column today!

It's another busy weekend of new shows opening and many others continuing to delight audiences, with ACT 1's Dog Sees God and Street Theatre Company's Dogfight both opening tonight, while two shows that opened yesterday will continue to treat audiences to some especially wonderful music. Plus, there's a whole slate of shows being performed at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse, a revival of Osborne & Epplers' Southern Fried Nuptials down in Woodbury at the Arts Center of Cannon County, and John Chaffin's Cliffhanger enters its final weekend at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. Go to the theater, young man (and woman) and let yourself be transported to a whole new world of magic and enchantment!

No matter what the calendar says, we're in early summer already - insofar as theater in Tennessee is concerned, at least - and there are four new shows opening this week that should command your attention. Along with a number of shows that are continuing their runs (like John Chaffin's Cliffhanger at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre), you have plenty of diverse and intriguing onstage offerings to keep you in the relative, air-conditioned comfort of a darkened theater. We've done the necessary research, made the calls to the people-in-the-know and have included the dates, the phone numbers and the websites to make it as easy as possible for you to buy tickets and go show some support for the arts while indulging in the magic of live theater…

The weekend is upon us and that means that tonight is opening night for a couple of new shows (with performances continuing through the weekend) and closing performances of several others, including Newsies (at TPAC), Circle Players' The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and the farewell production of GroundWorks Theatre's Starlite Waltz. Meanwhile, John Chaffin's Cliffhanger continues at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre and Cumberland County Playhouse continues its 50th anniversary season with a whole slate of terrific shows.

Disney's Newsies will claim Nashville as their own hometown with a weeklong run at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center beginning Tuesday, Osborne and Eppler's Southern Fried Nuptials takes the stage in Woodbury, and local favorite Geoff Davin unveils his latest theatrical creation - Adamenses Huckster…and there's plenty of theater continuing this week to keep you occupied all week long!

It's your last week to vote for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Nashville Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 26th. Voting closes at the end of the year, in under one week!

Time is ticking on your last chance to vote for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Nashville Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 19th. Voting closes at the end of the year!

Voting has now opened for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Nashville Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 4th.

Lindy Pendzick and Greg Pendzick, who were resident company members at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse from 2010-13, are now co-cruise directors and headlining performers on the American Empress riverboat with the American Queen Riverboat Company.

Voting has now opened for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Nashville Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 4th.

Voting has now opened for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Nashville Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of November 25th.

Broadway musicals of the most recent vintage will find a new home in Tennessee in 2015 as The Arts Center of Cannon County plans an impressive and ambitious season of shows. Ranging from two Disney classics (Mary Poppins and Tarzan) to two productions based on hit films (Bring It On and Ghost) and a riveting courtroom drama (12 Angry Men), the Woodbury-based theater company promises an upcoming season that will delight audiences while bolstering ticket sales.

The Cumberland County Playhouse production of The Miracle Worker shares the story of Helen Keller and her teacher Annie Sullivan with honesty and simplicity with stars Lindy Pendzick and Emma Rhea Sells.

Duck Hunter Shoots Angel, the uproarious and surprisingly poignant story of two bumbling Alabama brothers who have never shot a duck but think they shot an angel, comes to Woodbury's Arts Center of Cannon County tonight, April 13-28, 2013.

Opening Friday, April 5, in the Adventure Theater at Cumberland County Playhouse is William Gibson's The Miracle Worker, starring Lindy Pendzick as Annie Sullivan, the gifted young teacher who brought light, words, and the world to a blind, deaf child.

Duck Hunter Shoots Angel, the uproarious and surprisingly poignant story of two bumbling Alabama brothers who have never shot a duck but think they shot an angel, comes to Woodbury's Arts Center of Cannon County for an April 13-28 run.

Camelot's score-with music by Frederick Loewe and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner-is performed by director Cyndie Verbeten's large ensemble and music director Fran Gebuhr's orchestra with respect for the literature of the piece and with an obvious affection for the characters and their stories, both individual and collective. As a result, the ACCC production is entertaining, made even more accessible by the cast's commitment, with the story made more relevant by the company's lively approach.