Patrick Waller News

Meanwhile, you can cast your eyes toward today's photogenic cover models, the lovely and talented Cooper and his human, Nashville actress/designer Ashley Wolfe - both of them are pretty swell, in our estimation (even deserving of a Tony Award), and while we worry about them taking selfies while driving and while catching up on the theatrical news every morning, we are assured they were at a full stop when this photo was snapped. In fact, according to the human member of the duo she hadn't yet turned her key to the on position.

Nashville Rep will produce Posterity to run from February 11 - 25, with discounted previews on February 9 and 10. Posterity, by Pulitzer and Tony Award-wining playwright Doug Wright, had its world premiere at Atlantic Theater Company in New York. Nashville Rep's production will be only the second production of this play - and a regional premiere.

Nashville Rep will produce Posterity to run from February 11 - 25, with discounted previews on February 9 and 10. Posterity, by Pulitzer and Tony Award-wining playwright Doug Wright, had its world premiere at Atlantic Theater Company in New York. Nashville Rep's production will be only the second production of this play - and a regional premiere.

With former Tennessee Titan Eddie George, Jenny Littleton of The Doyle and Debbie Show, founding Rep actor Jackie Welch, a collection of audience favorites, and some intriguing new faces added to the mix, Nashville Repertory's five-show season for 2016-17 tackles the many dimensions of love: commitment, dilemma, risk, joy, and disappointment.

Shows are opening (Carolyn German unveils her latest, Go From Here, and Nashville Ballet revives Carmina Burana, both this weekend), shows are closing (your last chance to catch The Taffetas at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre before they go the way of The Plaids is this weekend) and The Miss Firecracker Contest is back onstage at Donelson's Larry Keeton Theatre for the second of three weekends. Obviously, the 2016 theater season continues to reveal itself at a breakneck pace, giving audiences a veritable buffet of offerings from which to choose.

In Robert and Willie Reale's whimsical show, Frog and Toad wake from hibernation in the Spring, plant gardens, swim, rake leaves, eat cookies, go sledding, and learn life lessons along the way. The two best friends celebrate and rejoice in their differences that make them unique and special. The jazzy, upbeat score bubbles with melody and wit, making A Year With Frog and Toad a musical sure to entertain the whole family.

In Robert and Willie Reale's whimsical show, Frog and Toad wake from hibernation in the Spring, plant gardens, swim, rake leaves, eat cookies, go sledding, and learn life lessons along the way. The two best friends celebrate and rejoice in their differences that make them unique and special. The jazzy, upbeat score bubbles with melody and wit, making A Year With Frog and Toad a musical sure to entertain the whole family.

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.

In a city like Nashville, where art and creativity thrives, there really is nothing more heartwarming and welcome at this time of year than the onstage theatrical traditions we have come to love, like Nashville Repertory Theatre's annual production of A Christmas Story, the stage iteration of the classic film version of writer Jean Shepherd's nostalgic memoir of his boyhood holidays in Indiana. With all the iconic imagery of that “major award” lamp shown off in the living room window, A Christmas Story is vividly reimagined onstage, capturing the film's most memorable moments in clever ways that are at once new and familiar.

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.

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.

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.

Nashville Repertory Theatre provides its contribution to the holiday season with a production of their traditional, family comedy A Christmas Story, running November 27 - December 20, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

Reprising a Music City holiday tradition - while providing plenty of laughs for Black Friday - Nashville Repertory Theatre brightens the season with its A Christmas Story, opening November 27, at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center and running through December 20.

It's Halloween weekend and every dramatic personage and theatrical type we've ever encountered is caught up in the annual rush to find just the right costume for their holiday revelries (we confess we've never had the knack for coming up with Halloween get-ups - not since we went in drag to a party at the First Baptist Church as the age of 12…tongues were wagging, we are certain, but we lived to tell about it, so it couldn't have been that bad). In the meantime, there are all sorts of onstage happenings this weekend to keep you otherwise engaged should the difficulty of selecting your costume prove to be too much.

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.

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.

There's the definite feeling of autumn in the air that makes you want to gut a pumpkin or at least have a pumpkin spice latte, chances are you are definitely going to need a sweater in the early morning hours, and it's past the perfect time for you to pick out a Halloween costume. Luckily, theater companies are well into their new seasons and there's plenty of shows to entertain you while you take time off from berating yourself for wearing that same tricked-out Star Wars costume you wore the past fwo-and-one-half years.

We're back! After an extended absence due to The Last Five Years (we directed it to boffo notices from our critical colleagues), The 2015 First Night Honors (which played to SRO crowds at Chaffin's Barn in September) and a sense of overwhelming malaise and ennui (we are ever so dramatic at times), BWW Nashville's Critic's Choice is back on the interwebs, offering you our insights and advice on the shows that are coming up and what you should try to find time to see - or to avoid at all costs, depending on our perspective.

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to present its production of the Tony Award-winning comedy ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, running tonight, October 8, through October 31, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.