Jeffrey Ellis - Page 62

Once again, Cori Laemmel and Laura Matula - along with their team of creative collaborators and their always surprising and courageous troupe of young actors at The Theater Bug - have achieved much with their latest original musical. If I Were You, which focuses on four young protagonists gives the youthful Theater Bug company of actors an opportunity to explore the depths of their own emotions amid the turmoil of their formative years and, in so doing, they give every audience member a chance to examine their own emotions and preconceived notions of the people around them.

Seventh Annual Sideshow Fringe Festival - billed as Nashville's Progressive Performing Arts Event, presented by Sideshow @ Actors Bridge - gathers hundreds of local artists for what promises to be its largest endeavor in its seven-year history. Sideshow Fringe runs July 27 through August 6 at various Nashville locales.

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!

One of the world's best-known and longest-runnng musicals - The Fantasticks by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt - ushers in the 2017-18 season at Franklin's Pull-Tight Theatre in a new production helmed by director Pat Street, running August 11-26.

Sister Act - the feel-good musical comedy smash based on the hit 1992 film that has proven to be a hit with audiences all across Tennessee - will open at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse on July 21, running through September 8.

Bring It On The Musical launches Circle Players' cinema-inspired 68th Season - a lineup that includes four musicals and one play - and the company is offering season ticket packages for theater-goers eager to witness the oldest community theater in Middle Tennessee's latest slate of productions, all related to  major motion pictures.

Ragtime, the stirring Lynn Ahrens-Stephen Flaherty-Terrance McNally musical about American society at the turn of the 20th century - based on the E. L. Doctorow novel of the same name - premieres on the Murfreesboro stage of the Center for the Arts, directed by Rachel Jones and starring a cast of Middle Tennessee's favorite performers.

Opening tonight at the Arts Center of Cannon County in Woodbury is the newest iteration of the beloved musical Annie, directed by Matthew Hayes Hunter and featuring an all-star cast of actors bringing the show to life. Featuring songs that have become musical theater standards since the show's premiere on Broadway in 1977 - including "Tomorrow," "Maybe," "Easy Street" and "Hard Knock Life."

Kurt Jarvis directs Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Motherfucker With The Hat for a July 21-29 run at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater, marking the tenth anniversary summer production from Destiny Theatre Experience, founded by actor-playwright-director-producer Shawn Whitsell.

Nashville Shakespeare Festival (NSF) continues its tradition of Shakespeare in the Park with The Winter's Tale and Antony & Cleopatra, running from Thursday, August 10 through Sunday, September 17 at Centennial Park's band shell.

Jaclynn Jutting directs a new production of Simon Stephens' acclaimed monologue Sea Wall, presented as part of OZ Arts' local spotlight series, on Thursday, July 20, starring Nat McIntyre. Sea Wall is the first theater production within OZ Arts' TNT local spotlight series.

Ryan Bowie revives his amazing performance as the 'international song stylist' Hedwig Schmidt in the latest incarnation of Hedwig and The Angry Inch, now onstage at Clarksville's Roxy Regional Theatre through July 15. No matter if you saw him in 2014 during the show's initial run at theotherspace at The Roxy, you simply must make every effort to catch this vibrantly restaged version of the show that is unlike any other you're likely to see on any stage.

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!

Performed amid a gorgeous, bucolic setting, the latest offering from Nashville's KB Productions - a retelling of Theresa Rebeck's Greek tragedy cum American family drama The Water's Edge - is performed upon what may be the most detailed, stunningly conceived and beautifully realized set ever seen on the stage of the iconic Darkhorse Theater. Designed by director Jaymes Campbell and crafted by a construction crew led by Joe Stinemetz, it provides an evocative backdrop for the action (or lack thereof) in Rebeck's much-maligned play, ideally capturing the physical trappings of a somewhat down-on-its-heels lakeside cottage where tragedy lurks behind every tree.

What's a stage manager? What do they do? What's their job? Seriously. Perhaps no job in the theater is as hard to define as that of a production stage manager and it's that blend of mystery, fear and total dependence that makes actors, directors, crew members, producers - you name it! - hold a really great stage manager in total awe and to revile someone who is (how do you say it, without offending anyone?) less than stellar in their position?

Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts explores what it means to be an American with its production of Ragtime, running July 7-23. The Tony Award-winning musical with book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens is directed by Rachel Jones, a CFTA newcomer.

Directed and choreographed by Matthew Hayes Hunter, with musical direction by Brittany Goodwin, Annie, the beloved musical about the plucky comic book heroine of the 1930s, comes to the Arts Center of Cannon County for a July 7-22 run.

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!

Nashville audiences have long been noted for their generosity in rewarding performances with a standing ovation - to the point that they have become rather commonplace - but never before have we witnessed a 'standing O' at the end of a particularly raucous, thoroughly inspiring and resolutely entertaining musical number. That is, we had never seen it happen until opening night at the conclusion of the rousing and rollicking 'A Musical' that comes midway through Act One of Something Rotten!, the uproarious Broadway hit that made its Music City debut at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall on Tuesday evening.

Try as you might, chances are you won't be very lucky in convincing Wayne Kirkpatrick to give you the scoop about his next Broadway musical - that information is kept under the strictest of confidence, thanks to his pledge to producer Kevin McCollum and his musical collaborator who just happens to be his brother, Karey.