Towne Centre Theatre Has Family Affair on Tap for I REMEMBER MAMA, 4/9April 5, 2010Described a 'a sweet and endearing look at the American dream for all types during any era in our nation's history,' I Remember Mama features Paula Higgins as the headstrong Mama, while Annaliese Higgins plays her daughter Katrin. Recently transplanted to Tennessee, the two actresses have been looking for an opportunity to share the limelight and, at the same time, that would allow them to become more involved with the Brentwood community.
Tennessee Rep Announces 26th Season ProductionsApril 5, 2010Christopher Sergel's stage adaptation of Harper Lee's classic Southern novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, will open Tennessee Repertory Theatre's 26th Season with an October 2-23 run at the Andrew Johnson Theatre at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Other shows featured during the 2010-2011 season includes Steven Dietz's Yankee Tavern, the acclaimed stage adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, and the toe-tapping musical favorite Pump Boys and Dinettes. Last season's holiday hit, A Christmas Story, will be revived as a season special and Tennessee Rep has three shows on tap for its popular REPaloud Series of staged readings.
TPAC announces 2010-11 Broadway SeasonApril 2, 2010The national tour of 9 to 5: the Musical will launch in Nashville this September, setting the stage for one of the most varied Broadway seasons in the history of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.
BWW Reviews: THE FANTASTICKS at Boiler Room TheatreMarch 29, 2010McCarthy's boyishly appealing Matt, Sonn's winsomely beguiling Luisa and Sevier's beautifully sung El Gallo are, clearly, the lynchpins that guarantee audiences will respond favorably to the show, and they are given ample support from a gifted veteran cast assembled by Morton. Morton's direction is sure-handed and confident, with her obvious care and genuine affection for the piece apparent throughout the quickly moving production. Coupled with Green's exquisite musical direction and the accompaniment of his three-person band which ensures that the actors have the requisite musical underpinnings for their performances, The Fantasticks lends further credence to Boiler Room's ever-expanding reputation as a thoroughly professional theatrical venue in a city where musical theatre truly shines.
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2 on Tap at Clarksville's Roxy TheatreMarch 25, 2010Celebrating the last day of their junior year, the East High Wildcats blast onto the summer scene with newfound jobs at the Lava Springs Country Club. Keeping the light-hearted fun that made High School Musical a household name, the takes on the questions of real kids facing the realities of the adult world. Friendships are tested, summer romances go haywire and the meaning of success is redefined.
Nashville Cast of TITANIC, THE MUSICAL to Perform at Pigeon Forge Museum OpeningMarch 25, 2010The weekend-long Titanic Museum Attraction Grand Opening Celebration, hosted by Regis Philbin, will also feature a free concert by country music artist Neal McCoy. The event, open to the public, also will be attended by descendants and family members of those onboard the Titanic and includes a christening of the ship.
BWW Reviews: THE COLOR PURPLE at Tennessee Performing Arts CenterMarch 25, 2010Led by the exquisitely voiced Dayna Jarae Dantzler in the pivotal role of Celie, we are taken on a journey of almost 40 years in the lives of Walker's richly drawn characters, to learn the true lessons of life and love. The story is as moving as it has ever been - Walker's novel relates the story of Celie's extraordinary life eloquently and articulately - but the creators of this musical (which earned a whopping 11 Tony Award nominations, winning the top honor for LaChanze's stirring performance as Celie) have re-fashioned the story to make it more palatable for theatre-goers, delivering a version of the story that is easier to follow, while retaining all the epic scope and dramatic possibilities of the original work. Neither is it slavish in its devotion to Stephen Spielberg's fine film version; The Color Purple, 'the musical about love,' obviously tells the same story, but in a different way, offering instead a re-intepretation of Walker's artfully created story set to music and told vividly onstage.
BWW Interviews: Cinda McCain, A Life in the TheatreMarch 25, 2010Cinda McCain is one of the most naturally gifted actors you'll find on a stage anywhere. Thankfully, though, most of her work has been performed in Nashville and over the years the Mississippi native has assembled a resume that's full of some of the best theatrical roles for women: Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (which won her the First Night Award for Outstanding Leading Actress in a Play); Meg in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart; Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - the list goes on and on. Most recently, however, she's found herself on soundstages, making film appearances alongside such notables as Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw in the upcoming Love Don't Let Me Down.
BWW Reviews: BIG RIVER from Tennessee Repertory TheatreMarch 23, 2010But three other individuals are perhaps most responsible for the overall delight that is Tennessee Rep's 25th Anniversary season production: director Rene Dunshee Copeland, whose imaginative work helps to re-invent this musical on a basis that is at once more intimate while, somehow, is on a grander scale; music director Paul Carrol Binkley, whose concept for performing the work's music gives it the ideal down-home feel that only a band of expert Nashville players can give it; and design genius Gary Hoff, who transforms Johnson's black box space into something we've never seen in that venue before - the proscenium theatre you've only seen in your mind's eye - and who, in so doing, elevates Nashville theatrical design beyond its previous limits, fashioning it into something of opulently epic proportions.
BWW Reviews: ACT 1's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?March 23, 2010Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - Edward Albee's scathing evisceration of marriage and indictment of suburban morality - is brought to the Nashville stage once again in a superbly acted and confidently directed production from Artists Cooperative Theatre 1 (ACT 1). First staged by ACT 1 in its 1989-90 season in a critically-lauded staging directed by Peg Allen and headed by a cast that included A. Sean O'Connell, it is revived now as part of the company's 20th anniversary season, once again proving the power of Albee's exquisitely created words and plot and the frankly horrifying characters whose lives play out onstage.
BWW Reviews: FRANKLY, MY DEAR at Chaffin's Barn Dinner TheatreMarch 22, 2010It's 1939 and producer David O. Selznick (played by Derek Whittaker) finds himself under the gun: He only has seven days to fashion a shooting script for his epic film version of Margaret Mitchell's worldwide bestseller. Virtually every writer of note (including Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) has submitted a treatment of the novel only to have Selznick - whose reputation as a controlling perfectionist remains intact in this play - reject every one of them
Melinda Doolittle to Headline Benefit Concert for Boiler Room TheatreMarch 21, 2010Boiler Room Theatre alumna and American Idol Season 6 finalist Melinda Doolittle returns to Franklin for a one-night-only concert event with all proceeds going to the Boiler Room Theatre on Monday, April 12 at 7 p.m. in Liberty Hall at The Factory. Acclaimed contemporary gospel performers Point of Grace will share the stage for the fundraising concert for Williamson County's only professional theatre company.
Patrick Waller Stars in BIG RIVER for Tennessee Rep's 25th Anniversary SeasonMarch 20, 2010The musical version of Mark Twain's classic tale sweeps audiences down the mighty Mississippi as the irrepressible Huck Finn helps his friend Jim, a slave, escape to freedom at the mouth of the Ohio River. Their adventures along the way are propelled by an award-winning score from Roger Miller, which provides a theatrical celebration of pure Americana.
Bethlehem Players Stages World Premiere of SOUTHERN FRIED FUNERAL for 3/12-3/20 RunMarch 20, 2010Nashville's playwriting duo of Nate Eppler and J. Dietz Osborne, who scored with Filthy Rich at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre last fall, have yet another world premiere production bowing this week. The pair's Southern Fried Funeral takes the stage at Franklin's Bethlehem United Methodist Church's Performing Arts Center on Friday night, continuing through March 20.
BWW Reviews: Nashville Children's Theatre's MISS NELSON IS MISSING!March 18, 2010You know you have a hit musical on your hands when audience members leave the theatre humming the songs they just heard. But you know you have a mega-hit musical onstage when those audience members are of the six-, seven-, or eight-year-old variety and they are singing the show's songs and dancing their way out the door. Well, that's exactly what Nashville Children's Theatre is experiencing with their current production of Miss Nelson Is Missing, the high-spirited adaptation of the 1977 book by Harry Allard, updated to 2010 and featuring terrific performances by six talented actors.