Jeffrey Ellis News

Hottest Articles on BroadwayWorld.com from this weekend Sunday, May 8, 2011 - Sunday, May 8, 2011.

The Barter Players bring Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day to life at Barter Theatre through May 21, complete with new songs to accompany the story, at the ter in Abingdon, Virginia.

Dance Theatre of Tennessee brings the magic and beauty of Cinderella to life through dance in celebration of the Mother's Day weekend at Middle Tennessee State University's Tucker Theatre in Murfreesboro.

Circle Players' upcoming production of Jason Robert Brown's new musical 13 will close at Larry Keeton Theatre on May 8.

Quite simply, with Long Way Down Eppler proves himself a playwright of the highest order, delivering a well-crafted script that delves into the pro-life movement with an incisive wit that is blended artfully with a gritty realism to create a completely believable premise, peopled by characters so genuine it is as if you know them intimately. To put it succinctly, Nate Eppler is likely to become very famous, with Long Way Down a most worthy vehicle for his success

Joy Tilley Perryman always seems to be in motion, always busy and rushing from one theatrical venture to another and, somehow, she always has a smile on her face. But don't let that smile fool you: beneath that lovely, gentee and quintessentially Southern facade lies a mischievous soul...so keep your eyes open, there's no telling what's really going on behind that smile!

Tennessee's best and brightest theatrical stars will take to the stage of the Boiler Room Theatre -to celebrate The Tony Awards during First Night: The Tony Concert, presented by Keeping Scores Concerts on Monday, June 6 - and to perform an evening of songs from Broadway musicals that have won the Tony Award for best musical.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project returns to Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater for the fifth year running - beginning Friday May 6 - for its annual Women's Work festival of performing and visual arts created by women. Running through Sunday, May 22, the festival cuts a broad swath across styles and genres to offer eleven completely different programs: poetry and essays; one-woman shows; staged readings of new plays; film, dance, music and a display of visual art works in the theater lobby. On Friday night, May 20, audiences will be treated to Black Girl Lost, a new play by the prolific Mary McCallum (who also directs her cast), an acclaimed local actress, writer and director who is currently playwright-in-residence at Tennessee Repertory Theatre.

Since arriving in Nashville from his home in the Philippines a few years back, Christopher Mohnani has gained quite the glowing reputation, first as a dancer for Nashville Ballet, then as a choreographer and arts administrator for the relatively young Dance Theatre of Tennessee. Now in its second full season of offerings for Middle Tennessee audiences, DTT is already looking forward to its third season even while in final rehearsals for its full-length production of Cinderella, which plays this weekend at the Tucker Theatre on the Murfreesboro campus of Middle Tennessee State University.

After much too long an absence, 2010 First Night Honoree A. Sean O'Connell finds herself in the director's chair again, this time helming the latest production from Nashville's GroundWorks Theatre - the regional premiere of Joel Drake Johnson's The Fall to Earth.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project returns to Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater for the fifth year running - beginning Friday May 6 - for its annual Women's Work festival of performing and visual arts created by women. Running through Sunday, May 22, the festival cuts a broad swath across styles and genres to offer eleven completely different programs: poetry and essays; one-woman shows; staged readings of new plays; film, dance, music and a display of visual art works in the theater lobby. On Friday night, May 13, audiences will be treated to My Father's Chair, a new play by Lisa Soland (directed by Charles R. Miller), a playwright-in-residence at Tennessee Repertory Theatre.

The Ten Minute plays will be presented as staged readings performed and directed by volunteers from the Nashville theater community. Audiences in attendance will not only get to see exciting new plays, but will also be able to give the playwrights feedback following the readings.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project returns to Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater for the fifth year running - beginning Friday May 6 - for its annual Women's Work festival of performing and visual arts created by women. Running through Sunday, May 22, the festival cuts a broad swath across styles and genres to offer eleven completely different programs: poetry and essays; one-woman shows; staged readings of new plays; film, dance, music and a display of visual art works in the theater lobby. On Saturday night, May 7, audiences will be treated to Motherland, a new play by two-time First Night Award winner Melissa Bedinger Hade (who also directs), starring Linda Speir, Amanda Bailey, Michael Roark and Phil Perry.

Ryan Bowie, now firmly ensconced in his new professional life in Clarksville, Tennessee, made his way southward from New York City to do one show and, thanks to fate, ended up deciding he'd found his way home. Now onstage in the Roxy Regional Theatre's production of The Civil War, the Frank Wildhorn musical that continues through May 21, he won acclaim (both critical and otherwise) at The Baker in the Roxy's 2010 revival of Into The Woods (ranked among the year's best performances by First Night and BroadwayWorld.com readers).

Hottest Articles on BroadwayWorld.com from this weekend Sunday, May 1, 2011 - Sunday, May 1, 2011.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project returns to Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater for the fifth year running - beginning Friday May 6 - for its annual Women's Work festival of performing and visual arts created by women. Running through Sunday, May 22, the festival cuts a broad swath across styles and genres to offer eleven completely different programs: poetry and essays; one-woman shows; staged readings of new plays; film, dance, music and a display of visual art works in the theater lobby. Opening the festival on Friday night is Thus Spoke the Mockingbird, starring Joy Tilley-Perryman as Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird.

Mike Reed plays Charlie, a terribly shy man who seeks peace and solitude in a rural backwoods hunting lodge in north Georgia in Larry Shue's The Foreigner running April 15-May 1 at The Arts Center of Cannon County in Woodbury. Directed by Mary Wilson, The Foreigner also features Arts Center favorites Tim Spry, Phil Mote, Emily Roberts, Pat Garrett, Justin Winton, and Becky Coutras.

The theatrical legacy of playwright Lanford Wilson will be commemorated at Murfreesboro's Out Front on Main theater with the company's production of Burn This, closing May 1.

Of course, one way around that theatrical conundrum is to take the route that director Scott Logsdon and Keeping Scores Concerts at Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre have embarked upon for three performances this weekend: Cast 12 different actresses as Fanny Brice, each one well-qualified to take on a particular song, allowing her to interpret, both musically and dramatically, the character of Fanny. And for support of the 12 actresses taking up the Fanny challenge, you'll need an amazingly gifted ensemble. The result? A wonderfully entertaining night at the theater, replete with outstanding performances from some of your favorite Nashville actors - and the chance to hear a beautiful, memorable score brought to life as it was meant to be heard by the team of composer Jule Styne, lyricist Bob Merrill and librettist Isobel Lennart.

The award-winning play Circumference of a Squirrel rolls onto Barter Stage II on April 30: 'Round and 'round it goes, where it stops, even Chester doesn't know and the results are laugh-out-loud moments of comedy and discovery, plus heartfelt moments of revelation.