Jeffrey Ellis - Page 13

H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S and H-E-A-R-T-W-A-R-M-I-N-G are just two of the words audiences will learn how to spell after experiencing the Tony Award-winning musical comedy  hit The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee - onstage April 26-May 5 at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts.

Members from the Chaffin's Barn's cast of Listen To Your Mother will tell us about their own moms and their lessons learned. Today's interview subjects are Chandra J. Walton (but you can call her CJ) and Scott Stewart, who join their castmates for the show at the theater, located at 8204 Highway 100 in Nashville. For ticket information or reservations, call (615) 646-9977 or go to www.chaffinsbarntheatre.com.

No matter how you describe them - although granted, 'handsome, charming, engaging and amazingly talented' comes readily to mind - nor how many times you've seen them (whether it's your first or twenty-first time), there's one thing you cannot help but think about Under the Streetlamp: These four guys really know how to put on a show!

Based on the true story of Mexican-American author and educator Tomas Rivera, Tomas and the Library Lady - the final offering of Nashville Children's Theatre's 2018-19 season - is told in both Spanish and English, and follows the son of migrant farm workers as he discovers a surprising world of stories inside his local library with support from a special librarian.

Members from the Chaffin's Barn's cast of Listen To Your Mother will tell us about their own moms and their lessons learned. Today's subject is Molly Breen, who with Listen To Your Mother makes her debut at the theater, located at 8204 Highway 100 in Nashville. For ticket information or reservations, call (615) 646-9977 or go to www.chaffinsbarntheatre.com.

On the heels of a year that BroadwayWorld.com called 'their best season ever,' Nashville Repertory Theatre will kick off the celebration of its 35th season with a slate of shows designed to appeal to the most discerning of audiences. Nashville Rep artistic director Rene D. Copeland announced the slate last week during a cocktail party at Cabana restaurant in Hillsboro Village, much to the delight - and applause - of those gathered for the big reveal.

Here in the south, we revere our mamas, y'all, often expressing our loyalty and devotion to the woman who raised us in a myriad of ways. Rarely a day passes that we don't give mama credit for teaching us a lot of things during our lifetime, whether it's the proper technique of frying chicken, how to starch a shirt and then iron it in such a way to rival the best professional launderers in the business or, perhaps most significantly, how to fold a fitted sheet properly.

Under The Streetlamp - the critically acclaimed musical group that's returning to Nashville this weekend for a trio of performances with The Nashville Symphony - was formed when four friends, who had appeared together in the Chicago production of the Tony Award-winning musical Jersey Boys, decided they should continue their collaboration after the show was shuttered.

Nashville audiences will be treated to premieres of Tony Award winners Dear Evan Hansen and Hamilton, along with revivals of Once On This Island and My Fair Lady, during the upcoming 2019-20 Broadway at TPAC series, which was revealed last night by TPAC president and CEO Kathleen O'Brien - her final season reveal following a storied 30-year career at the performing arts center - in Andrew Jackson Hall.

Daring to dream, to allow one's imagination to soar and one's creativity to thrive is at the core of theater and thanks to a clever and engaging retelling of a time-honored fable now onstage at Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre - Jack and the Giant, the latest offering of ACT 1's 2018-19 season - audiences are reminded of the power of live performance to transport them to another world.

Last time we had the opportunity to talk to Katie LaMark she was on tour with the 20th Anniversary production of Rent, which at the time was heading to Music City for a stand at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. The time was October, 2016, and we were immediately taken by her easy manner, her obvious charm and her appreciation for where she found herself in her career. Now she's back on-tour, playing the role of Sherrie in the 10th anniversary national tour of Rock of Ages, heading back to Nashville this weekend for a three-performance run at TPAC this Friday and Saturday, April 12 and 13. And we're happy to report, she's just as great an interview as ever!

Bold, brash and totally bonkers - but only in the very best of ways to be found in a big Broadway musical - The Producers scores another hit for Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts (where its run ends this weekend), thanks to strong direction by Chris McLaurin and Natalie Quinn and to a cast of actors who are in on all the jokes and are game to do it up right for their audiences. The result is a zany, fast-paced, totally uproarious and completely ridiculous night of theater that pokes fun at everyone while telling the tale of two producers yearning to strike it rich with the worst show ever to play the Great White Way.

What with all the creativity being expressed onstage at Broadway's August Wilson Theatre during the run of the Tony Award-winning Jersey Boys, it should come as no surprise that imaginations were just as active - and as fertile - backstage. Take for example, the creation of The Doo Wop Project, the six-member enclave of performers that was borne of offstage conversations and considerations among some cast members of the long-running show.

Craig Lucas' evocative libretto and Adam Guettel's lushly romantic (and Tony Award-winning) score, notwithstanding - and putting aside the momentous occasion of Street Theatre Company inaugurating a new theater venue - perhaps the most notable attribute of the Ernie Nolan-directed version of The Light in the Piazza debuting tonight is its stellar cast of artists who bring the show to life with such apparent ardor. Continuing through April 20, STC's The Light in the Piazza is beautifully sung and impressively acted by Nolan's impeccably cast ensemble in a production fairly redolent of mid-century Florence and it serves as the perfect introduction to STC's new home.

Today, we invite you to get to know Briar Moroschak and Lindsay Hess, who play the daughter and mother at the heart of the story, who graciously answered our questions for the latest in our continuing series of Friday 5 (+1) in order to gain some insight into the two women and to suggest why you might want to make reservations now to see the acclaimed musical at Street Theatre Company.

Lindsey Reynolds (who plays the title character) and Anna McRae (The Cheshire Cat) shared some of their own theatrical backgrounds and interests, as well as offering some compelling reasons for you to join them and their castmates at the show this weekend in today's edition of High School Drama.

Jack and the Giant is described as "a joyous, heartfelt, and family-friendly new folk musical." This new spin on the classic fairy tale 'Jack and the Beanstalk' has a dynamic score and intriguing new characters. Directed by Jacob Heinz, the world premiere production features Dwayne Benn, Ryan Harrelson, Brett Myers, Caroline Nelson and Alaina Smith who found time this week to answer our questions for the latest Friday 5 (+1) on Thursday...

What if? For many, their lives are filled with the search for answers to the questions that tend to keep people awake in the middle of the night, wondering if they'd made another choice how their lives would have been impacted and, more importantly, where they might find themselves instead of lying awake in a cloistered apartment, cut off from adventure and intrigue, living a life largely unexamined until 3 a.m.

Can there be a better way to capture Matilda's spirit so evocatively than in musical theater (the musical debuted on the West End in 2010 and made its subsequent New York transfer in 2013) - a journey through which her soulful, heartfelt ascent into a literary hierarchy (in which readers can live vicariously) be charted? Matilda's forays into her fictional world of devil-may-care adventure, oftentimes aided by her gift for telekinesis or her penchant for clever tricks (like switching her father's hair oil with her mother's peroxide is just one of her intriguingly contrived comeuppances) - which is at once darker than other offerings of similar ilk, yet somehow rather more confectionary than even the fluffiest of musical comedies that have come before or since - lend themselves exquisitely to Matilda the Musical, the stage version of the tale that makes an impact due to its somehow hopeful outlook, despite everything that exists to crush the spirit of its young protagonist.

Anna Perry's energetic and period-perfect choreography - along with impressive performances from a cadre of university students destined for Broadway stardom - ensures that Belmont University Musical Theatre's Thoroughly Modern Millie is a complete and utter delight, featuring a memorable score wrapped up in a rather daft but engaging storyline that earns every bit of the resounding applause in a standing ovation that comes at show's end.