Matthew Hayes Hunter News

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Doubtless, there's a lot of hustling, bustling and what-not going on at Murfreesboro's Center For The Arts today as the company prepares for tonight's premiere of the musical extravaganza Dreamgirls. Directed by 2013 First Night Most Promising Actor Matthew Hayes Hunter (who may or may not answer to the name of "Matt" these days), the grand-scale production features four of the loveliest, most talented and mesmerizing leading ladies to be found on any stage, anywhere: Ra'Shaun Simon (playing Deena Jones), Brianna Booker (Lorell Robinson), Brittany Easley (Michelle Morris) and Robbyn "Vyrgo" Daniel, who plays the clarion-voiced Effie Melody White, the part made famous on Broadway by Jennifer Holliday.

Dreamgirls – the Tony Award- and Oscar-winning musical by Academy Award nominee Henry Krieger and book and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award-winner Tom Eyen – opens at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts this Today night, running February 12 through Sunday, February 28.

Dreamgirls – the Tony Award- and Oscar-winning musical by Academy Award nominee Henry Krieger and book and lyrics by Tony and Grammy Award-winner Tom Eyen – opens at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts this Friday night, running February 12 through Sunday, February 28.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Thus, we are happy to present one of our most popular features: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come

Thus, we are happy to present one of our most popular features: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2016 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come.

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.

Theatrical surprises and sneak previews of upcoming productions of veteran director Tim Larson's Sister Act, from Nashville's Circle Players - Middle Tennessee's oldest community theater organization - and Center for the Arts' Dreamgirls, directed by 2012 Most Promising Actor Matthew Hayes Hunter, will highlight Sunday's Midwinter's First Night.

Justin Boyd, Britt Byrd, Katherine Morgan and Taylor Novak will team up to host 2016 Midwinter's First Night - set for Sunday night, January 10, 2016 - and to ride herd on First Night founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis for the presentation of the BWW Nashville Awards and the presentation of First Night's Top 10 of 2016.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of The Larry Keeton Theatre's upcoming production of Sunset Boulevard, Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts' Dreamgirls, Arts Center of Cannon County's Memphis the Musical and ACT 1's production of Will Enos' The Flu Season. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse: go follow your dream!

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of Will Enos' The Flu Season, Memphis the Musical and The Wiz. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse: go follow your dream!

Theater in Tennessee has never been busier nor has it been more diverse than what you'll find onstage this weekend throughout the Volunteer State. From frothy and fun summer musicals that are sure to make you think - like All Shook Up at Chaffin's Barn and A Chorus Line at Cumberland County Playhouse - to new plays from Shawn Whitsell (his latest, Songs For Our Sons, premieres at Darkhorse Theatre on Friday night) and emerging playwright Che Pieper (his new script based on the book The Man With the Light in His Window debuts at The Theater Bug this weekend)…the magic of live theater is all around you…even in this heat and humidity! So pull your seersucker suits and sundresses out of the closet, get all gussied up and make your way to the relative cool of a darkened theater for some midsummer magic!

The First Night Honors' Class of 2015 will be revealed next Monday night, July 27, as Nashville Theater's Big Reveal: The First Night Preview Party gets under way at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre at 6 p.m., featuring entertainment by the casts of some of the summer's biggest musicals throughout Tennessee.

Over the coming months, we'll be sharing some of the fondest, funniest and most moving memories shared by many CCP alumni as we commemorate the company's golden anniversary. We kick off the celebration today with remembrances from Ryan Haderlie, Harry Bryce and Matthew Hayes Hunter. As they take us down memory lane, you're likely to feel like you're right there in Crossville, being treated to the transformative, transporting work of 2013 First Night Honoree Jim Crabtree and his team - his family, really - still focused on creating art in the middle of Tennessee…

The Center for the Arts will present The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Directed by Matthew Hayes Hunter, Music Direction by Emily Dennis, Choreography by Hayley Orozco. This musical adventure is a genuine family classic: an orphaned young girl unhappy with her drab black-and-white existence on her aunt and uncle's dusty Kansas farm. Dorothy yearns to travel 'over the rainbow' to a different world, and she gets her wish when a tornado whisks her and her little dog, Toto, to the land of Oz.

Today, in our third installment of Nashville Theater 101, we introduce you to three more members of the Nashville theater family: Patrick James, April Hardcastle-Miles and Matthew Hayes Hunter. Our questions are fairly basic and to the point: Why do you do theater? And why do you choose Nashville, perhaps best known as the home of country music, as your home base?

Although it seems hard to believe, Thanksgiving is this Thursday and as we reflect on the people, places and things that have made us truly happy this year and makes us most thankful, in general, we're also considering what things theatrical for which we are especially grateful in 2014.

The Center for the Arts will stage the popular 'Shrek, the Musical' weekends today, Jan. 10-26.

The Center for the Arts will stage the popular "Shrek, the Musical" weekends Jan. 10-26.