Jeffrey Ellis - Page 46

The year is 1934 and Shakespeare's most famous fairies, Oberon and Puck, have magically materialized on the Warner Bros. lot as director Max Reinhardt stages his film adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, resulting in what is described as a "hilarious comic romp" - Shakespeare in Hollywood - from playwright Ken Ludwig.

Helen Olaketi Mariah Shute-Pettaway, a 2011 First Night Honoree and one of Nashville's most revered actresses, will take on the iconic role of Regina Giddens in the ACT 1 production of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. Directed by 2014 First Night Honoree Jeffrey Ellis, senior contributing editor for BroadwayWorld.com, The Little Foxes runs at Darkhorse Theatre May 4-19.

No matter how many times you see Wicked, no matter how many actresses defy gravity to soar as Elphaba or how numerous the renditions of 'Popular' you may hear Galinda sing, make absolutely no mistake about it: Wicked is a musical theater masterpiece. Winnie Holzman's engaging book (based on the novel by Gregory Maguire, which was in turn inspired by the original L. Frank Baum story about the wonderful wizard of Oz) and Stephen Schwartz's memorable score ensure that for generations to come, audiences will continue to be dazzled and delighted, thrilled and moved by the story of two very different individuals who become lifelong friends, proving that no obstacles in life are insurmountable.

Leah Lowe directs Jaclyn Backhaus' Men on Boats as Actors Bridge Ensemble and Belmont University Department of Theatre and Dance celebrate their 11th annual collaborative production with the Nashville premiere, running April 13-15 and April 19-22 at the Belmont Black Box Theater.

Lipscomb University Theatre has only just announced its 2018-19 season and Beki Baker, chair of the Lipscomb University theatre department, says student response already has shown “an overwhelming amount of excitement.”

Theater's power to illuminate and to elucidate even while offering diverting entertainment has perhaps never been felt so strongly as in Nashville Repertory Theatre's engaging version of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's Inherit the Wind, a fictionalized account of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre through April 25.

We Southerners take our literary history seriously, whether it's a book, a poem, a novel or a play - no matter the genre, we are proud to read about our way of life and the things that we believe make us so very special. Such is the case with Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias, which debuted in 1987 to near unanimous acclaim only to gain in popularity and adulation in the intervening three decades. Whether it's a feature film, a made-for-TV movie or live onstage, Harling's tale of six Louisiana women and their shared experiences captured in a series of snapshots from their lives is beloved and somewhat revered.

There's really nothing better than a musical theater-inspired epiphany: On opening night of Belmont University Musical Theatre's altogether invigorating and exhilarating On The Town (which plays Belmont's Troutt Theatre through this Sunday, March 25) I was struck by the similarities - both structurally and musically - to the Gershwin masterpiece An American in Paris.

Talented students from 26 Tennessee high schools will seize the opportunity to improve their skills - and perhaps to be recognized for their theatrical and musical talent - as part of the fifth annual Nashville High School Musical Theater Awards, aka The Spotlight Awards.

Studio Tenn's 2018-19 season promises "yet another year of original works, family classics, musical masterpieces and Broadway blockbusters," as the company celebrates its ninth season.

All of Nashville is a stage - or will be at some point - as Nashville Shakespeare Festival's celebration of its 30th anniversary continues at venues both expected and unexpected during the coming months.

With its vision focused squarely on the future, Nashville Children's Theatre (NCT) - the nation's oldest professional theatre for young audiences - last night revealed its upcoming "Season of Discovery," a slate of six challenging productions, along with an updated rendering of the company's iconic dragon logo.

Bleak and darkly menacing, playwright Martin McDonagh's view of the world in his blackest of black comedies The Pillowman focuses on the investigation into a series of child murders in a fictional totalitarian state sometime in the near future - or, given the political climate in this real country in which we finds ourselves existing right now, it could well be representative of a parallel universe of which we will learn in the next few weeks or even moments.

Poignant and compelling, Mockingbird - the play adapted for the stage by Julie Jensen from the National Book Award-winning novel for younger audiences by Katherine Erskine - is a remarkably timely and prescient look at the aftermath of a school shooting for the people most intimately affected by it, in particular an 11-year-old girl named Caitlin, who has Asperger's syndrome, and whose beloved older brother was a victim of the horrific incident that takes place (mercifully, for audiences) prior to the start of the play.

Hedda Gabler, both Henrik Ibsen's legendary anti-heroine and his eponymous play from whence she comes, challenges even the most experienced directors and actors to create a version of the piece that is engaging and authentic - and, perhaps more importantly, appealing to the people sitting in the audience witnessing the willful Hedda succumb to her baser instincts, even while attempting to become a dutiful wife in a society for which she seems emotinally ill-equipped.

One thing becomes abundantly clear while witnessing Bailey McCall Thomas' emotionally charged performance of the song 'Cabaret' during a performance of the iconic Broadway musical of the same name: there is perhaps no 'title song' quite so evocative, quite so stunning as John Kander and Fred Ebb's composition for Cabaret. For it is during that song, performed by Sally Bowles in a Weimar era nightclub in Berlin, that the show's entire focus - every theme that shapes the work in order to tell its totally engrossing and entertaining story - is brought sharply into view, set to a memorable melody that seems at once to be both joyous and mournful, ensuring that every audience member experiences a response unique to them.

Broadway star and two-time Tony Award nominee Laura Osnes will headline Nashville Children's Theatre's Grand Night benefit, set for Saturday, April 14. Nashville Children's Theatre is the nation's oldest professional theater for young audiences.

Theater's next generation of actors will come from all over the globe, to be certain, but one might find an impressive concentration of artists on the campus of the University of Southern California, where the list of candidates for the Master of Fine Arts in acting rivals any group to be found anywhere. Take Michael Khachanov, for example. Born in Azerbaijan, he grew up (from the age of 7 to 17) in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and now calls Los Angeles as his hometown. As an undergraduate at Berkeley, he majored in business and economics, and now he finds himself in the midst of USC's MFA three-show repertory of plays while he and his classmates prepare for showcases in New York City and LA.

Traversing the world as we know it, the journey from Weimar Germany in the 1920s to Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center in 2018 is a circuitous, challenging one for Bailey McCall Thomas, the talented University of Tennessee graduate now playing the iconic Sally Bowles in the national touring company of the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret.

Greg Wilson, artistic director of Actors Point Theatre Company, will direct Little Women - The Broadway Musical, which is based on the classic novel by Louisa May Alcott, running March 8-17.