Matt Logan News

Something Rotten! this way comes - along with a healthy assortment of recent Broadway hits, a homegrown version of an Andrew Lloyd Webber hit and a transfer from London's West End - as the Tennessee Performing Arts Center revealed the list of shows included in their 2016-17 HCA/TriStar Health Broadway at TPAC series during a Monday night event.

Scot Copeland, longtime producing artistic director of Nashville Children's Theatre and one of the world's leading proponents of theater for younger audiences, died during the overnight hours of February 25 from an apparent heart attack. He is survived by his wife, Rene Dunshee Copeland, producing artistic director of Nashville Repertory Theatre, his two sons, many family members and countless 'chosen family' and friends all over the world.

There's so much great theater going on in the Nashville area right now, that you may be having a difficult time choosing among the bounteous offerings local companies are providing you. We're delighted to herald the return of BWW Nashville's Critics Choice with today's feature, offering up a compendium of what's available, what we recommend you see, and - in the cases of show's we've seen already - snippets of our reviews to help you make up your mind!

Nashville actor and NFL Hall of Famer Eddie George, who makes his Broadway debut Tuesday night in the iconic musical Chicago, was named First Night's Outstanding Leading Actor in a Play for his searing portrayal of a former slave haunted by the spectre of abuse in Nashville Repertory Theatre's The Whipping Man. Rene Dunshee Copeland, producing artistic director of Nashville Rep, was named Outstanding Director of a Play, while her three-actor ensemble (which included James Rudolph and Matthew Rosenbaum) were awarded as First Night's Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Play for their rendition of the Matthew Lopez play.

This will probably be an emotional weekend for Savannah Frazier as the curtain comes down on Amazing Grace, the Musical, the show in which the Nashville native made her Broadway debut. Closing after its final performance at the Nederlander Theatre on Sunday, Amazing Grace gave Frazier her biggest exposure to date in New York and with its closing she heads onward - and we daresay upward - in her pursuit of musical theater dreams.

There's a very good chance that Belmont University musical theater student Grace Williams is going through some separation anxiety this week. Along with her castmastes and the creative team, she bade farewell to Gypsy – the stunning revival of the iconic Broadway musical mounted by Franklin-based Studio Tenn – on Sunday after a run that drew unanimous acclaim from the critics and inspired audience accolades throughout the run. As a member of the show's ensemble, Grace played a variety of roles in director Matt Logan's imaginative staging of the show.

Nan Gurley's stunning performance of Mama Rose is reason enough to see Studio Tenn's 2015-16 season opening production of Gypsy - the legendary backstage musical about the rise to stardom of Gypsy Rose Lee - but there is so much more to be found in director Matt Logan's sumptuously appointed show than her career-crowning portrayal of the near-mythical character.

When word spread quickly among Nashville's theater community that Nan Gurley had been cast as Mama Rose in Studio Tenn's 2015-16 season opening production of Gypsy, the response was universal: artistic director Matt Logan once again had proven his brilliance. Simply put, Nan Gurley - a member of Nashville theater's first family - was the perfect choice to play the overpowering and flawed mother of stripper/entertainer/author/raconteur Gypsy Rose Lee.

And Sondra Morton, Jayme Smith and co. (that would be Act Too) stages their company's latest work at the historic Franklin Theatre - The Sound of Music - starring Kimberly Rye as Maria, Cameron Bortz as Rolf and the inimitable Matt Baugher as Georg Von Trapp. Check it out!

There are certain things audiences have come to expect in a new production from Studio Tenn, the Franklin-based, Nashville-nurtured professional theater company headed up by Matt Logan and Jake Speck: You know it will be beautifully designed, sumptuously mounted and impeccably cast.

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.

To know Megan Murphy Chambers is to love her: Make no mistake about it, she's as beloved among Nashville's theater community as anyone you could possibly imagine. Her stage appearances are noteworthy and memorable, to be certain, but it's her offstage personality that proves how much everyone loves her. She's thoughtful and kind, funny and charming, sweet and entertaining.

Despite being a veteran of five Studio Tenn productions already, Patrick Waller - who's clearly one of Nashville theater's favorite thespians - admits being a bit terrified by taking on a new role in the company's upcoming rendition of the iconic musical The Wizard of Oz, playing the Schermerhorn Symphony Center this weekend.

If writer P.L. Travers, the notoriously protective creator of Mary Poppins, was even half so prickly as we have been led to believe she was - thanks in large part to the screenplay for Saving Mr. Banks, the film retelling of her experiences with Walt Disney, et al, over the film adaptation of her beloved work - it's very easy to imagine how she might cringe at the thought of high school students taking on the musical theater version of her timeless story. However, if she knew in advance that it was being produced by Nashville's Christ Presbyterian Academy, under the direction of an artist as exacting as Paula Flautt, we rather think Miss Travers would be pleased -and without reservation.

Next week, theater students at Nashville's Christ Presbyterian Academy (CPA) will hit the stage in one of childhood's most beloved stories, penned by P.L. Travers and adapted for the stage: Disney and Cameron Mackintosh's Mary Poppins. This musical tale features a family in disrepair; a family in need of rescue that comes in an astonishing form.

Finding it difficult to get into the holiday spirit? Studio Tenn has the perfect antidote to the grey, cloudy and wet days of early December in Nashville: It's A Wonderful Life-the company's production of the stage adaptation of the iconic holiday film. If it doesn't put you in the right frame of mind, then we suspect nothing will.

The world premiere of a brand-spanking new musical with Broadway in its sights, a relatively young but awe-inspiring theater company and a sparkling, witty new play about Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald led the list of Tennessee's outstanding theatrical achievements in 2012 that was revealed Sunday night at Midwinter's First Night.

In this week's edition of 'Regional Highlights of the Week', we bring you the most-read stories for the week of November 5. Sit back and catch up on all the latest theater happenings around the nation and the world!

Legend has it-as stories like this are wont to go-that Matt Logan has always been something of a genius, a wunderkind if you will, since he first found his way home to the theater. An integral part of the theater scene in Nashville, a city where creativity abounds and the imagination flourishes, Logan has made a name for himself as artistic director of Studio Tenn, the theater company he heads with managing director Jake Speck. Together, the two men have created a theater company that is widely respected by actors and audiences alike, gaining acclaim from critical types who regularly heap praise upon its productions.

Official trailer for Twelve Angry Men, the second show of Studio Tenn's 2012-2013 season. Trailer by ANTHONYMATULA.