Jeffrey Ellis - Page 48

American Idol finalists - and real-life husband and wife - Ace Young and Diana DeGarmo will star as Danny and Sandy this spring as Studio Tenn's production of Grease hits the stage at Jamison Theater at the Factory at Franklin for a May 10-27 run.

Who'd have thought that a play written in 2000 and based upon a work by Aeschylus from 463 BC (give or take a year or two) would prove to be so timely in the 21st Century? Yet that is exactly what Big Love, a play by Charles Mee, directed by Amanda Card and produced by Tamara Todres, Kristin McCalley and Clayton Landiss, has proven in six performances at a former Methodist Church in Inglewood, delivering a production that challenges preconceived notions about a myriad of issues, ranging from sexism, racism and any number of other "isms" that punctuate our current conversation.

Marguerite Lowell's exquisitely crafted performance as Sister Aloysius will continue to reverberate long after the curtain has come down on Studio Tenn's remarkably prescient and timely production of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, which runs at Jamison Theatre in the Factory at Franklin through Sunday.

Are Caucasians (specifically, white men) 'hard-wired' to be prejudiced - genetically engineered to be biased against the members of other races - their so-called white privilege perhaps mitigated by circumstances beyond their control? That's but one of the intriguing queries posed during the two-and-a-half-hours of Lydia R. Diamond's provocative and stimulating Smart People, now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre in a winning production directed by Jon Royal.

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 2018 list of candidates for the Master of Fine Arts in acting rivals any group to be found anywhere. Take Isadora Lee Cintron Moya, for example. A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, she earned her bachelor's degree in theater from the University of Puerto Rico, where she was a member of the university's acclaimed Traveling Theatre Group.

Terrific performances across the board, sprightly direction that keeps the action moving at a quick clip-clop and a no-holds-barred sense of ridiculous theatricality all come together in Center for the Arts' production of Monty Python's Spamalot, the hilarious stage musical based on the irreverent troupe's 1975 film comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail. With a slate filled with stage favorites - of both the musical and 'straight' variety - still to come in 2018, Murfreesboro's CFTA will likely have a banner year.

Nashville Children's Theatre, the nation's oldest professional theatre for young audiences will perform Mockingbird from March 1-18. Based on the award-winning book, Mockingbird provides a look at how a parent and his daughter with Asperger's syndrome cope with a tragic loss due to a school shooting.

Jessika Malone (a Fred Coe Artist-in-Residence) directs the Vanderbilt University Theatre production Orlando, Sarah Ruhl's adaptation of a 1928 novel by Virginia Woolf, through February 24.

Passionate and captivating, The Hunchback of Notre Dame - the stage musical based on the Disney animated classic, featuring music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Peter Parnell - is given a superb production at Woodbury's Arts Center of Cannon County and discerning theater patrons in Middle Tennessee have but two performances left to experience the show under the direction of Darryl Deason and Rachel Jones.

Directed by Debbie Shannon and Jay Shannon, the musical stars Hunter Thaw as Charlie Brown; Elizabeth Krebs as Lucy; Charlotte Myhre as Sally; Haydin Oechsle as Linus; 2018 First Night Most Promising Actor Danielle Threet as Snoopy; Jared Taylor as Shroeder; 2018 First Night Most Promising Actor Maddi Keaton as Frieda/Woodstock; Halley Andrews as Peppermint Patti; and Rachel Baskin as Marcie.

Some 90 captivating minutes of creative, imaginative movement, Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project features the superb dancers of Nashville Ballet at their finest, bringing to life history in such a way that left their audiences rapt, riveted to the smallest of moments and the largest of themes as they are conveyed onstage to a stunning, stirring musical score.

Mary McCallum directs her latest play - Chasing Jeremy - for a February 16-24 run at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater.

The selection of The Threepenny Opera to inaugurate Street's 2018 season is one of the year's most eagerly anticipated theatrical events in Music City - thanks in part to the fact that it may well be the first home-grown staging of Brecht and Weill's parody of operetta that, in turn, skewers capitalistic society while touting socialist, even Troskyite, values in the guise of a rather farcical music hall diversion. Does it succeed? The answer is 'yes,' perhaps even an emphatic 'YES!' although one must pay close attention to the lyrics for the punch of the political set amidst a story that, on the surface, seems somewhat apolitical in tone, style and nature.

Neal Simon's Barefoot in the Park - described as "the perfect romantic comedy for the Valentine's season" - will open the newly created Warren Arts theater space at 605 Red Road in McMinnville, running February 22-March 4.

Voice students of critically acclaimed soprano Katherine Sandoval Taylor will be presented in a theatrical showcase on Saturday, February 10, at Murfreesboro's Washington Theatre at Patterson Park.

What perfect timing! Kudos to Nashville Children's Theatre executive artistic director Ernie Nolan and education director Alicia Lark Fuss (who does double duty as director of the play) for their impeccable midwinter choice of A Snowy Day as the venerable company's first show of 2018. That they had frigid temperatures and snowy conditions to herald the opening of A Snowy Day, playwright Jerome Hairston's adaptation of four stories by Caldecott winner Ezra Jack Keats, was indeed serendipitous, lending some of Mother Nature's authenticity to the show's launch.

Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, Nashville's iconic professional theater, opens its 2018 season - its 52nd! - with an entertaining, if somewhat overly long, production of Disney's Freaky Friday, the new musical with a starry musical theater pedigree.

Annie - the big-hearted Broadway musical about the comic strip heroine in search of her long-lost parents - opens Saturday, February 3, as the annual youth/volunteer production at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse.

Lipscomb University Theatre kicks off its spring semester this February with Eric Overmyer's On the Verge, running February 16-25 in Shamblin Theatre.

Four TPS fellows - chosen from a competitive application process - will work under the direction of Kenley Smith, director of the TPS program, to develop new full-length scripts to be presented in a public reading at the Darkhorse Theatre this fall. Two Associates will serve as alternates for the program and will contribute to monthly workshop sessions in the first year and will fill two TPS fellow positions in 2019. TPS will work with actors from the Nashville community for workshops and readings.