Jeffrey Ellis - Page 112

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.

Just when you thought it was safe to fill the stockings by the chimney with care, Music City Theatre Company presents The Eight: Reindeer Monologues, a Christmas-themed theatrical diversion by playwright Jeff Goode, in which the eight reindeer - yep, those eight reindeer - dish about the real Santa Claus and all the accompanying scandals and hoopla that will have you talking about the big guy and his entourage until long past December 25.

It's that thematic power of hope and reconciliation that plays out so evocatively on theater stages throughout the world at this time of year, urging each of us on to our revelry during this hectic, oftentimes trying and crazy time of the year. Nashville's Larry Keeton Theatre presents just such an evocative story of Christmastime during wartime with A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol, the sequel to The 1940s Radio Hour, one of regional theater's most-often performed musical revues.

Just in time for the holiday season, the company's original 'musical comedy dinner show,' writer Curtis Reed's Cousin Cleetus' Country Christmas is onstage through the end of 2015, offering audiences a tuneful, if sometimes tone-deaf, holiday extravaganza not unlike a Christmastime television special, the likes of which we haven't seen since the heyday of Hee Haw and other cornfed entertainment offerings. And like its predecessors, Cousin Cleetus' Country Christmas offers a good-hearted, if sometimes confusing, holiday parable that features some mighty talented people deserving of a far-better script.

David Perlman - who plays Ralph Sheldrake, the sometimes manipulative, always cunning television producer in Irving Berlin's White Christmas - admits he may have been a tad 'aggressively inspirational' recently when it came time to persuade his castmates and company cohorts to take part in a pet project that ultimately became a labor of love and yuletide revelry for the lot them.

But there are those Christmas-themed shows that we're delighted to see no matter the time or place. Case in point: A Tuna Christmas, the seasonal sojourn to the third smallest town in Texas, where the wacky denizens are up to all kinds of hijinks as they celebrate baby Jesus' birthday, complete with a Christmas Phantom, a sale on firearms at Didi Snavely's gun emporium and a reintroduction of Helen Bedd and Inita Goodwin, the good-time gals at the Tasty Kreme, and Joe Bob Lipsey, the extravagantly over-dramatic director of Tuna Little Theater's beleaguered production of the royalty-free A Christmas Carol.

Rebekah Durham is not Reese Witherspoon, so no one is paying her a million bucks to star in some holiday-themed rom com - but make no mistake about it, they damn well oughta be! But for now, Nashville theater-goers are the lucky ones; we get to see her onstage in Tennessee Women's Theater Project's first-ever Christmastime production: Ginna Hoben's The Twelve Dates of Christmas, a thoroughly delightful and wonderfully entertaining one-woman show that offers up some universal truths for this or any other season.

Leave it to the ambitious and creative people of Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble to continue the celebration of the company's 20th anniversary season with the presentation of a new and compelling play – The Nether by Jennifer Haley – which ushers audiences into the dystopian world that has evolved in the not-too-distant future. It's an intriguing choice, to be sure, and one which could be fraught with failure and pretension were it not for the superb production concept and vision of director/producer Jessika Malone, given the wherewithal by ABE producing artistic director and co-founder Vali Forrister to challenge audiences in every way possible and to upend all conventional thought with a production that continues to haunt me almost a week after seeing it.

All this yuletide revelry to which I am alluding comes courtesy of BUMT's latest production: Irving Berlin's White Christmas, the onstage updating of the 1954 film version that features a score of the master musician's finest songs as it tells the story of two song-and-dance men and their female counterparts who join together during one particularly mild winter ski season to help save the bacon of an inspiring leader who's played a significant role in their lives. It's a tuneful, feel-good show that's certain to lift your spirits and, as performed by the BUMT cast, reaffirm your faith that the future of musical theater will be thriving for years to come.

Nashville Ballet returns this year - for the eighth consecutive year - with one of Music City's most beloved holiday traditions: Paul Vasterling's Nashville's Nutcracker, running tonight, December 5-23 at TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall.

Jessika Malone directs Actors Bridge Ensemble's 20th Anniversary Season's upcoming production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, opening December 4 at the new Actors Bridge Studio at the Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue (entrance on 47th Avenue).

Tennessee Women's Theater Project presents its first-ever holiday season offering, Ginna Hoben's The Twelve Dates of Christmas, for a limited, seven-performance run at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre tonight, December 4-13. Described as a 'comic romp' and a 'side-splitting' one-woman play, The Twelve Dates of Christmas stars Nashville actress Rebekah Durham in the role of Mary.

Opening tonight, December 3  and running through December 20, The Larry Keeton Theatre presents the Middle Tennessee premiere of A 1940s Radio Christmas Carol - from the writers and composers of Disney's successful High School Musical - the long-awaited sequel to The 1940s Radio Hour, one of the most popular musical revues among regional and community theater companies.  

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.

Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas becomes a part of Nashville holiday tradition, as the Broadway musical version of the timeless tale is brought to life on the stage of The Grand Ole Opry House through December 27, featuring an artful blending of local talents with out-of-town performers joining them in Music City to help tell the story.

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.

Theater during the holiday season tends to be something of a mixed bag: multiple productions of A Christmas Carol, countless stagings of It's A Wonderful Life, numerous renditions of The Nutcracker and a sampling of original revues that include songs suitable for the season and heart-tugging and oftentimes cloyingly sweet reminiscences of home and hearth, all of which is designed to put you in the holiday spirit.

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.

Matt Smith and Mark Thomas star as 22 of Tuna, Texas' most illustrious citizens in A Tuna Christmas, playing at the Arts Center of Cannon County in Woodbury December 4-13. The holiday-themed sequel to Jason Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard's Greater Tuna theatrical juggernaut, A Tuna Christmas is directed by Vickie Bailey.

Once again, it's that time of year: a period of reflection and introspection that gives us all the perfect opportunity to express our gratitude for the things in our lives that have meant the most to us in 2015. We reached out to members of our theater community, to inquire about that which they are thankful for and we got some very heartfelt, considered romances that, leavened by the humor injected from some of our favorite people, gives us added insight into the psyche of the artistic and creative-minded people who make theatrical magic every day…