Jeffrey Ellis - Page 58

Sometimes even the loveliest and most appealing of musical theater scores can be forgotten, virtually erased from your memory. Unless, of course, you have your digital music system programmed to play a cavalcade of memorable showtunes, but even then, you're likely hear songs from the same ten shows on a continuous loop.

Among the show's stars are Teal Davis and Elliott Robinson, who portray the show's protagonists Huck and Jim and take audiences on a journey down the Mississippi River in the rollicking, rambunctious show. Somehow, the two actors found time in their hectic, tech week schedules and sat down to take on our questions in order to offer some insight into why they do what they do, as well as suggesting why you just can't miss Big River during its three-weekend run at 108 Donelson Pike.

Looking for a challenging role or to embark upon a new onstage adventure? Here is the latest audition information to come across the BroadwayWorld Nashville newsdesk. Want your audition information to be included? Send your information to jeffrey@bwayworld.com.

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Director Chris McLaurin makes a particularly auspicious debut at the helm of his rollicking - and beautifully sung and winningly staged - production of Gilbert and Sullivan's classic The Pirates of Penzance, now playing at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts through August 27. Charming and engaging, McLaurin's Pirates hews closely to the comic opera's original production (the only one of Gilbert and Sullivan's works to actually have its initial staging on Broadway - in 1879), testament to the libretto's timelessness and its refreshingly contemporary humor.

Katharine Boettcher's glorious soprano is finally given the showcase it so richly deserves in the beautifully sung production of Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon's The Secret Garden, the oftentimes stirring and altogether bewitching story of a young orphaned girl forced to live with her mysterious uncle in his 'house upon the hill' overlooking the moors in Yorkshire in the early years of the 20th Century.

Strong and energetic - some even show-stopping - performances from a youthful, fresh-faced cast, choreography that will have you dancing in the aisles and sprightly direction that moves the plot along at an astonishing pace…if you aren't already a fan of Bring It On the Musical, then Circle Players' production will make you one in short order.

Chris McLaurin and one of his cast members, Mara Bloomfield Smotherman (who will be seen later this season in The Larry Keeton Theatre's production of South Pacific) take on our list of six questions for this latest version of Friday 5 (+1), offering insight into what makes them tick, what brought them to the theater in the first place and to suggest why you won't want to miss their show.

Now, Lewis and his team - which includes choreographers Ashley Danielle and Tosha Pendergrast - give the show their own unique spin, opening tonight at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, featuring a fresh-faced young cast bringing the show to life. Two of those cast members - Emily Urbanski and Miracle Ham - responded to our queries, telling us how they found their way to theatrical careers and suggesting why you should be certain to see their show in this edition of Friday 5 (+1)...

Maya Riley and Holly Hill take on roles in the lushly-scored musical, performing for hometown audiences who have wondered what they have been up to in college, showing off their talents in director Tim Larson's cast, offering a glimpse into their creative processes and their personal and professional growth in the theater.

Stars Jacqueline Leach, Lucas Beckett and Jeremy Hargis took time from their packed schedules to tell us more about themselves, as well as to offer some reasons why audiences should come see their show. Read all about it in the latest Friday 5 (+1) and make your reservations quickly - the show is bound to sell out!

One of Music City's longest running summer theater traditions continues tonight with the debut of 2017's Shakespeare in the Park, Nashville Shakespeare Festival's annual gift to a generation of theater audiences. This year's edition of Shakespeare in the Park will feature two of the Bard's best known works - The Winter's Tale, which opens tonight, and Antony & Cleopatra, which opens next Thursday night at the Centennial Park Band Shell.

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Theater's power to transform and transport is astonishing and the capability of artists to create a sense of time and place, with words and music and theatrical wizardry to lend a tangible feeling to the experience can leave you breathless. Who'd have ever thought that such thrilling artistry, the very magic of make believe, could be so vividly expressed, so awesomely felt in two hours spent in a backwoods Southern church on a Saturday night in 1938? But that's exactly what happens in Smoke on the Mountain, Connie Ray and Alan Bailey's evocative, down-home musical that lovingly takes its audiences back home again in ways not even Thomas Wolfe may ever have imagined.

Nothing seems to spark so much debate among the theaterati than the announcement of an upcoming production of a show considered overdone, old-fashioned or somehow hackneyed and quasi-provincial. Take for example, Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias - the somewhat nostalgic and Southern-fried seriocomic tale of six women who gather every Saturday morning in a Louisiana beauty shop to have their bouffants teased, their shags trimmed, popular recipes swapped and the lives of their neighbors vivisected in the relative sanctity of a women-only establishment - that has been a part of contemporary literature since its 1987 premiere at off-Broadway's WPA Theatre 'up north' in New York.

Nashville Shakespeare Festival presents its latest version of The Winter's Tale, directed by NSF artistic associate and apprentice company director Santiago Sosa, the 2017 season opening production of Shakespeare in the Park this Thursday, August 10, at Centennial Park's band shell.

Circle Players kicks off its 2017-2018 season in high-flying style with the Nashville premiere of Bring It On The Musical, promising to take audiences to a colorful place filled with the complexities of high school friendship, jealousy, betrayal and forgiveness.

The musical theater version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden opens this Friday night at Brentwood's Towne Centre Theatre in a new production directed by First Night Star Award winner Tim Larson. The Secret Garden features a book by Marsha Norman, with music by Lucy Simon.

Looking for a challenging role or to embark upon a new onstage adventure? Here is the latest audition information to come to the BroadwayWorld Nashville newsdesk.

The most wonderful time of the year is quickly drawing to a close: 2017 Sideshow Fringe Festival opened last week only runs through this Sunday, August 6, but until then you have a jam-packed calendar of creative, imaginative and adventurous theater to inspire you and to enlighten you - perhaps even enough to keep you satisfied until the 2018 rendition rolls around.