Jeffrey Ellis News

After a record number of nominations, and careful proofing by our local editor, Jeffrey Ellis, we are VERY excited to announce that voting has begun for this year's BWW Tennessee Awards.

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang will be on hand for the opening night performance of Nashville Opera's production of The Difficulty of Crossing a Field, his treatment of a fanciful Ambrose Bierce short story from 1888.

Colin Cahill stars as The Cumberland County Playhouse wraps up its 2012 season with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, opening Friday, November 16 and runnng through December 23 on the Crossville theater's Mainstage.

Curtain's up on Cumberland County Playhouse's 15th annual presentation of A Sanders Family Christmas-the holiday-flavored sequel to the enormously popular Smoke on the Mountain-a down-home musical filled with faith, family and old-fashioned fun and starring a cast of Playhouse favorites.

Karen Lewis directs Peter Pan-based upon Sir James M. Barrie's 1904 play about the boy who refuses to grow up-is onstage in Woodbury through November 17, the latest in Arts Center of Cannon County's 2012 Stagedoor Series.

The Pajama Game's abbreviated run (just four public performances in four days) means that time's a-wasting to get your tickets for the remaining two shows tonight and tomorrow afternoon. So get to it! You'll be glad you did.

In this week's edition of 'Around the Broadway World: Regional Highlights of the Week', we bring you the most-read stories for the week of October 29. Catch up on all the latest theater happenings from all corners of the world!

Ah, Halloween...the theaterati's favorite holiday (right after Tony Awards Day and, in Tennessee of course, First Night Day!)...gives everyone the opportunity to show off their inner characters and unknown doppelgangers. So how did Tennessee's theater types celebrate the day? Dress up with some place to go...

Beki Baker directs and 2011 First Night Award-winning Justin Boccitto will choreograph as Lipscomb University's Department of Theatre brings the Richard Adler-Jerry Ross Tony Award-winning musical The Pajama Game to the stage of Collins Alumni Auditorium tonight, November 1-4.

Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Sally, Schroder and the irresistible Snoopy-the whole Peanuts gang-present their familiar scenarios and foibles for Middle Tennessee families, when Nashville Children's Theatre performs You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown, beginning today, November 1 and running through December 23.

Dancers in the Nashville area will have the opportunity to learn from-and to dance with-the world-famous Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, as they host the Rockettes Master Class, a Rockettes Experience, on Sunday, November 11, at Nashville Ballet.

For the third time since 2005, student actors from Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville-along with a trio of actresses "on loan" from Harpeth Hall School-have claimed the state one-act play competition during this past weekend's Tennessee Theatre Association annual meeting in Maryville.

Eager to feed Music City's growing appetite for quality original theatrical material, Playhouse Nashville is now accepting submissions for the fourth incarnation of its popular showcase for Middle Tennessee artists, The Ten Minute Playhouse-named one of The First Night Award's Top 11 Theatrical Events of 2011.

Irina Sundukova's White Orchard Theater will finally make its Nashville debut this week with its upcoming production of Harold Pinter's The Caretaker, which examines the dynamics of modern Western Civilization and which is, the director explains, "is Pinter's landmark cultural masterpiece."

Rhubarb Theater Company presents Birds in Church, a series of 14 vignettes written by New Yorker/former Catholic priest Joe Pintauro, selected from the playwright's larger 27-vignette collection Metropolitan Operas.

...The best production I've seen in these here parts is the one that's currently onstage at The Roxy Regional Theatre, starring Matt Varelia as Frank N. Furter, Ryan Bowie as Riff-Raff, and Rob Rodems and Kaitlin Doughty as Brad Majors (asshole!) and Janet Weiss (slut!) that's just about as good as it gets.

Under the clear and focused direction of Tim Larson and Clay Hillwig, who heretofore separately have provided Nashville audiences with a number of impressive theatrical adventures, this evocation of The Color Purple is made all the more appealing by its trio of leading ladies.

Kelsey Porter, who plays the role of Nettie in Circle Players' production of The Color Purple, is the latest recipient of The First Night Robe. Jeffrey Ellis, founder and executive producer of The First Night Honors, presented the robe to Porter on Thursday, October 25, prior to the opening night performance of The Color Purple, a joint production of Circle Players and Tennessee State University, at TSU's Performing Arts Center.

The complex relationship between two men caged together in a Latin American prison is explored.

For only the second time in Circle Players' 63 year history, the venerable community theater company will join with Nashville's Tennessee State University to collaborate on the production of one of contemporary theater's most beloved works: The Color Purple. The musicalized version of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple features an all-star cast of local performers from both the Nashville theater community and TSU's student body.