Jeffrey Ellis - Page 153

'Alexander knows it is going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day when he wakes up with gum in his hair, and he is right! Things only get worse as the day goes on: his best friend bails on him, there's no dessert in his lunch bag, there's lima beans for dinner and kissing on TV! The only reasonable response is to move to Australia. Judith Viorst adapted her own award-winning children's book into a marvelous musical that is wacky, wild, and wonderfully wise!'

Nashville Shakespeare Festival invites you to journey to a magical island for a story filled with laughter, enduring wisdom and beautiful poetry when they present The Tempest at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre - the company's third winter production there - January 14-31. Public performances of The Tempest, directed by Claire Syler, NSF education director, will be held Thursday through Saturday evenings at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday afternoons at 2:30 p.m.

While the women in Nashville theatre might garner more critical attention, showier roles and sparklier costumes, the men, clearly, are no slouches themselves. Capable and committed, the men who assay roles on Nashville stages are a pretty impressive collection of actors who can take on the most traditional of roles one week, while tackling parts that require them to be more experimental and brave the next. In 2009, Nashville's best actors showed their range while strutting themselves in some of the best productions we've seen in years.

If, indeed, 'it takes a village,' and if, as the poets say, 'no man is an island,' then perhaps no art form is more collaborative than live theatre. With a village of artists backstage and offstage assuring that each production is mounted, then coming to life during each performance, the collaborative effort is renewed. And what audiences see onstage is the collaboration of artists, the people who comprise the acting ensemble, the folks who bring the stagebound script to life, sending it soaring into our imaginations.

While there were plenty of productions to be excited about during the 2009 Nashville theatre season, as with any year the most memorable theatrical moments were due to the many fine individual performances seen on local stages. Featuring a blend of both veterans and newcomers, the 2009 season proved once again that Music City has an impressive retinue of actors to call upon. Whether it's in an emotionally draining drama, a laugh-out-loud comedy or a joyously inspiring musical, there are actors here who can deliver the goods, time after time.

Art After Hours, the citywide gallery alliance of The Nashville Association of Art Dealers (NAAD), will host its first First Thursday of 2010 on January 7, from 5 to 8 p.m., providing art lovers and patrons an opportunity to explore Nashville's vibrant art scene.

With the strains of 'Auld Lang Syne' mere moments away, minds are apt to be caught up in reflection, remembering the year now ending as a new one awaits just over the horizon. Certainly that's what I've been doing lately, looking back over the past year in Nashville theatre as I pencil in dates in my new 2010 (Here's a question to ponder: Is it 'two thousand ten' or 'twenty ten'...think about it and get back to me) calendar for the shows set to open in the months ahead.

Martha Wilkinson, one of Nashville's most popular actresses, will take on the role of Diane, which won Julie White the Tony Award for her performance on Broadway. Wilkinson is joined in the reading by her husband, David Compton, as well as Marin Miller and Patrick Waller. Lauren Shouse, Tennessee Rep's artistic associate, will direct.

While she is one of hundreds of people who pursue their theatrical art in Nashville year after year, in many ways Denice Hicks might be considered 'the face' of Nashville theatre, so prevalent has been her influence and her presence among the city's best. As the artistic director of Nashville Shakespeare Festival, she leads one of the city's most vibrant professional companies, and she is widely considered one of the region's most capable individuals, lauded for her artistic vision, her impeccable timing and her seemingly boundless energy.

In this musical sequel to Smoke on the Mountain, the Sanders family returns to Mount Pleasant, North Carolina, home of the Mount Pleasant Pickle Factory for Christmas Eve in 1941. Reverend Oglethorpe, of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Chruch, has invited them to sing and witness, getting his congregation into the down-home holiday spirit before the boys, including one of the Sanders' own, are shipped off to serve in World War II. The show's score features more than two dozen Christmas carols - many of them vintage hymns - and hilarious yuletide stories from the Sanders family keep the audience laughing, clapping and singing along with some bluegrass Christmas favorites.

With the holiday season just around the corner, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre has a special gift all wrapped up for the Nashville theatre-going public with their production of Christmas Belles, opening November 19 and running through December 31. The hilarious Futrelle sisters and all the other denizens of fictional Fayro, Texas return in this holiday-themed sequel to the smash hit comedy, Dearly Beloved by the playwriting trio of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Directed by Nate Eppler, the cast features some of Nashville's best-loved actors and promises to be one of the hottest tickets in town this season.

Director/playwright Robert A. O'Connell's latest work, Christmas on the Pecos, opens in a new production at Darkhorse Theatre December 4-20, the latest offering from GroundWorks Theatre. Described as 'a gentle comedy,' Christmas on the Pecos takes place on Christmas Eve as two modern cowboys, sheltering from a storm, find themselves playing host to a couple seeking protection from the elements and the law.

Amun Ra Theatre's jeff obafemi carr came off the roof and hit the ground running, with the fifth anniversary production of the company's Black Nativity by Langston Hughes as the first offering in the 2010 season. Black Nativity will feature the children of the Amun Ra Performing Arts Academy, alongside some of the stars of previous Black Nativity productions of the past five years. Black Nativity runs December 18-20 at the Shamblin Theatre on the campus of David Lipscomb University. This marks the first year the show will be produced on the Lipscomb campus, and the university is a major sponsor of the event. Lipscomb staff and students will have the opportunity to work with ART's professional crew, which includes nationally recognized lighting designer Scott Leathers.

Nashville native Lane Wright has long been a mainstay on local stages, performing for virtually every Music City-based theatre company in a wide variety of roles. During this holiday season, he's been entertaining audiences at the Darkhorse Theatre as one of playwright/director Bob O'Connell's cowboys in Christmas on the Pecos, concluding its world premiere run this weekend. Coming fresh off his run as a communist spy in the Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre production of See How They Run, which came right after his performance in Boiler Room Theatre's production of Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile - it's clear that he's one Nashville actor who always seems to be working.

Amun Ra Theatre's jeff obafemi carr came off the roof and hit the ground running, with the fifth anniversary production of the company's Black Nativity by Langston Hughes as the first offering in the 2010 season. Black Nativity will feature the children of the Amun Ra Performing Arts Academy, alongside some of the stars of previous Black Nativity productions of the past five years. Black Nativity runs December 18-20 at the Shamblin Theatre on the campus of David Lipscomb University. This marks the first year the show will be produced on the Lipscomb campus, and the university is a major sponsor of the event. Lipscomb staff and students will have the opportunity to work with ART's professional crew, which includes nationally recognized lighting designer Scott Leathers.

Nashville Ballet ushers in the holiday season in glorious style with its revival of artistic director Paul Vasterling's visionary re-interpretation of The Nutcracker, onstage at TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall through December 20. More accurately referred to as Nashville's Nutcracker, Vasterling's epic work is a joyous, colorful Christmas card to the people of Music City who have embraced it with their customary warmth and rewarded it with their own glowing accolades.

A graduate of Nashville's Overton High School and Western Kentucky University, Christi Dortch is also one of those hard-to-find Nashville natives. With Music City serving as an entertainment mecca, attracting creative types from all over the world, Christi is homegrown, as it were, plying her trade in her hometown - and loving every minute of it. When she left to work for the Westport (Connecticut) Country Playhouse, her presence was sorely missed and her subsequent homecoming was greeted with enthusiasm by her friends, family and supporters - and TPAC patrons who have her to thank for some of their greatest theatrical experiences.

Like hundreds, maybe even thousands, of other Nashvillians before and since, Carolyn German would walk through the lobby of the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, passing by the historical marker heralding Looby's role in Nashville history without really giving it much thought. Then one day, during a visit to the Looby Center in her role as director of theatre for Metro Nashville Parks, German stopped and read intently the information included on the plaque, learning that Looby was an attorney who played in a key role in Nashville's storied civil rights history.

Director/playwright Robert A. O'Connell's latest work, Christmas on the Pecos, opens in a new production at Darkhorse Theatre December 4-20, the latest offering from GroundWorks Theatre. Described as 'a gentle comedy,' Christmas on the Pecos takes place on Christmas Eve as two modern cowboys, sheltering from a storm, find themselves playing host to a couple seeking protection from the elements and the law.

Somebody's stolen Santa's Christmas Magic and a crafty young girl and some of her special friends have joined forces to get it back in the Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre presentation of Sarah and the Secret of Santaland, a new play by J. Dietz Osborne and Nate Eppler, based on a story by Davey Peppers. The world premiere production debuts on Tuesday, December 8, and continues through December 19 at the venerable Nashville venue, with doors opening at 10 a.m. and the show starting at 11 a.m.