Joy Tilley Perryman News

Danny Proctor, Helen Shute-Pettaway, Layne Sasser, Pam Atha, Dan Brewer and Gary Hoff were introduced Monday night as the six members of the 2011 Class of First Night Honorees during the First Night Preview Party, hosted by founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis at The Listening Room Cafe in downtown Nashville.

Thanks to Carolyn German and her efforts to engage younger performers through musical theater and cabaret, Nashville area producers and directors should have a consistent supply of new and interesting actors (who clearly comprehend the history and legacy of musical theater) for their shows for years to come. No further proof of this is needed than the latest production from German and her cohorts: Roar!, which bears the telling and descriptive subtitle of 'the fringe, the flappers, the jazz...the '20s!'

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

If you were asked to name Nashville's Top Ten Favorite Musicals, what show would you name as number one? Perhaps surprisingly, when that question was posed to a group of Nashville theater folk, the number one-ranked show is Les Miserables (but perhaps it's not that surprising, since Victor Hugo's book was a huge hit in the American South upon its initial publication in this country), followed by A Chorus Line, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods claiming the remaining slots in the Top Five.

'There are no small parts, only small actors,' goes the old theatrical saw that's tossed about willy-nilly to encourage budding thespians to take on roles they suspect might be beneath them and their lofty stature. But, of course, there's much truth to be found in the axiom and you will certainly see it brought to life in the efforts of the members of many acting ensembles, particularly those considered among the best in Nashville's 2010 theater season:

Following the reversal of their convictions and their release from prison, six Death Row inmates tell their harrowing stories in their own words in the drama, The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jenson. The play will be performed at Nashville's Christ Church Cathedral's Cheek Hall in six performances October 7-9 and 14-16 as the kick-off to the seventh season of the Sacred Space for the City Arts Series.

Following the reversal of their convictions and their release from prison, six Death Row inmates tell their harrowing stories in their own words in the drama, The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jenson. The play will be performed at Nashville's Christ Church Cathedral's Cheek Hall in six performances October 7-9 and 14-16 as the kick-off to the seventh season of the Sacred Space for the City Arts Series.

Following the reversal of their convictions and their release from prison, six Death Row inmates tell their harrowing stories in their own words in the drama, The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jenson. The play will be performed at Nashville's Christ Church Cathedral's Cheek Hall in six performances October 7-9 and 14-16 as the kick-off to the seventh season of the Sacred Space for the City Arts Series.

Signs of a New Day is not a perfect play, by many measures, but the fact that it focuses on Looby - whose name almost every Nashvillian most certainly knows, but someone about whom they know precious little - elevates it to near-perfection. Thanks to German's extensive research and dedication to detail, coupled with her dramatist's keen eye and ear for what works onstage, the play gives Looby and his wife, Grafta Mosby Looby, the attention they so richly deserve. It is a moving work that challenges its audiences to continue the noble work of the Loobys and all of their contemporaries who risked their lives and livelihoods so that we all might live in a more just and equitable society.

Thanks to director Jessika Malone and her cast of talented actors, you'll find oh-so-much to identify with and relate to in Nashville's own version of My First Time, onstage at Darkhorse Theatre through this Saturday night. It's a funny, poignant, laugh-out-loud hour that flies by as Malone's six thespians relate some of the dozens of tales sampled in Davenport's script. Gleaned from the thousands of responses to the First Time website (some 40,000 responses, in fact) that was launched in 1998 during those halcyon pre-blogging, pre-social networking days when posting something online could still be kind of anonymous and somewhat safer than it is now.

Ken Davenport's My First Time, a collection of monologues about experiencing sex for the first time, is next on the season for Actor's Bridge Ensemble, opening Friday night, October 2 and continuing through October 10 at Darkhorse Theatre, 4610 Charlotte Avenue. Starring Jaclyn Johnson, Joy Tilley Perryman, Emily Fleming, Brandon Hirsch, Will McKinney and Chris Basso and directed by Jessika Malone, My First Time was described by The Village Voice as 'funny and touching to sweet, sexy and silly.'