Jeffrey Ellis News

Our second spotlight of the week focuses on Abigail Davis Haggard, one of Music City's busiest actresses, who opens tonight in the Keeton Theatre's seasonal production of A Christmas Carol, the Musical, directed by Jamie London and music directed by Ginger Newman.

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to BroadwayWorld Nashville's freshest installment of The Friday Five: five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find onstage throughout the Volunteer state. This week's spotlight falls on Cumberland County Playhouse's legendary Jason Ross.

Jeremy Benton is a journeyman actor, plying his trade all over the world, proving himself the consummate song and dance man in performances in countless theaters. Clearly, the charming and talented Benton has come a long way since he was dancing in his hometown of Springfield, Tennessee.

Funny and irreverent, Chaffin's Barn's A Christmas Carol-featuring a witty new adaptation by Lydia Bushfield-gives audiences the perfect entree into the whole crazy-wonderful holiday season, replete with sentimental carols, fruitcake jokes, horrid Christmas sweaters and Warren Gore on his knees.

We kick off this new series with the enormously talented, big-voiced Harley Seger, a 16-year-old junior at Christ Presbyterian Academy, who has been onstage for half her life. A stalwart of CPA theater under the direction of Paula Flautt, earlier this spring Harley was named best actress at the first Lipscomb University High School Musical Awards.

Two weeks after conservative Tennessee voters turned the Volunteer State a deeper shade of red and some three years after I was told The Book of Mormon likely would never play the Tennessee Performing Arts Center because its plot is too outlandish, its book too profane, its tenor too irreverent, the second national touring company of the nine-time Tony Award-winning musical came to Nashville and gave audiences a much-needed jolt of electricity that elicited one of the longest, uninterrupted standing ovations I've ever witnessed in TPAC's Jackson Hall.

This week the spotlight falls on two actors who are sharing the stage in the Nashville premiere of 2012 First Night Honoree Chambers Stevens' Twain and Shaw Do Lunch, directed by veteran director Melissa Carelli: Brian Hill and Michael Roark, arguably two of Music City's finest actors, onstage together playing literary lions Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw, respectively.

It's the stuff of theatrical legend. Or perhaps it's the perfect recipe for a theatrical endeavor of legendary proportions. You must simply bring together eight of Nashville's finest actresses under the direction of a man who is helping to change the face of local theater with his inventive, imaginative original works. Then give them two noteworthy scripts from the late 20th century and place them in a rehearsal hall to prepare for public consumption

Let's be clear from the very start: Ryan Bowie gives a tour de force performance as the leading 'lady' in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, now playing in theotherspace at the Roxy Regional Theatre in Clarksville for only three more performances through Tuesday, November 18.

MAS, aka Erin Parker, Cori Laemmel, Melodie Madden Adams, Laura Matula and Megan Murphy Chambers will take to the Belcourt stage to present their latest holiday cabaret, which follows in a series of critically acclaimed and audience lauded cabaret shows from the five-woman group.

In a delightful production helmed by veteran director Melissa Carelli, and starring a trio of very capable Nashville actors, Twain and Shaw Do Lunch treats audiences to an imagined afternoon affair in which the two literary lions-Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw at the top of their parlor game-swap stories, trade quips and exchange bons mots.

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.

Caroline Davis, taking on the role of Charlotte Shaw, has performed with various local theatre groups-ACT 1, Blackbird, Carrick, Circle, Groundworks, Rhubarb-"on occasion as an ice skater, a geisha, a monkey, a dog, a Marx Brother, a shepherdess (twice) and a dead person (thrice)."

After staking a claim on Nashville property with an amazingly varied slate of projects (Venus in Fur, A Chorus Line and an original musical revue skewering one of Tennessee's most infamous politicians, Bradley Moore returns to the stage tonight in the ACT 1 season-opening production of Lilies.

First Night Award-winning Boiler Room Theatre, recognized as Tennessee's Outstanding Theatre Company in 2011, will stage a full production of Les Miserables with a limited run in August, 2013. The iconic musical will be presented as a special three-performance benefit for the non-profit Boiler Room Theatre tonight, August 8-10.

Tonight, August 4, the Arts Center of Cannon County will host a special evening of fun and games that includes a reverse raffle-with a grand prize of $5,000-and gourmet dinner. Tickets are $75 each and is your passport to an entertaining and fun-filled evening-and you don't even have to be there to win.

Nine-time First Night Award winner Martha Wilkinson directs a revival of John Chaffin's Ded Herring, running now through May 19 at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville.

William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night-directed by Denice Hicks, artistic director of Nashville Shakespeare Festival-is presented by David Lipscomb University's theatre department, tonight, April 18-21. In what is considered one of the greatest comedies ever written, Shakespeare delivers a night of deep, satisfying laughter, according to Hicks.

Return engagements of two of Nashville's favorite Broadway musicals and the arrival of a critically lauded international production are among the highlights as The Tennessee Performing Arts Center announced on Tuesday the six Broadway titles in its upcoming 2013-14 HCA/TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC series as well as several special engagements.

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.