Jeffrey Ellis - Page 86

t's that universal truth - or perhaps just an urban legend - that connects people who share their lives on a deeper level and which very well may have been the genesis for Sex Tips for Straight Women From a Gay Man, the off-Broadway hit that's now touring the United States, wending its way to Nashville for a three-show stand at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, November 4 and 5.

Have you decided on your Halloween costume yet? You better get to work since it's only four days until the big night is upon us and you won't want to caught with your pants down, so to speak. May we respectfully suggest a trip to your local, neighborhood theater? Not only will you be entertained, transformed and transported - we're willing to be on this happening - but you'll also probably get some great costume ideas in the process! And there is the added bonus that the theater company might be in the business of renting out costumes which would make your efforts even easier than you first thought…

2015 First Night Honoree Paula Flautt directs the Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman classic comedy, The Man Who Came to Dinner, as Christ Presbyterian Academy's high school theatre stages the show about a critic and raconteur who becomes a surprising houseguest for a small-town Ohio family.

Today, Megan Scott, one of 2015 First Night Star Award winner Brenda Dent Gregory's talented student sat Murfreesboro's Siegel High School, continues our new season of High School Drama, the latest in a long list of younger actors to be introduced via Broadway World Nashville in the coming year…

VUTheatre, in partnership with the Vanderbilt University Holocaust Lecture Series, presents the emotional drama, A Shayna Maidel, opening November 4 at Neely Auditorium on the Nashville campus.  

Patrick Kramer's commanding performance as Frederick Frankenstein (that's 'FRONKENsteen' for the uninitiated) in the Center for the Arts' production of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein is reason enough to buy a ticket (if you're lucky enough to score one - shows are playing to capacity crowds in Murfreesboro, so make your reservations yesterday), but director Renee Robinson and musical director Stephen Burnette very adroitly surround him with such strong support that the entire ensemble of Transylvanian thespians is worth the price of admission.

Here are our suggestions - our choices, as it were - for the shows to catch, the people to see, before Monday morning rolls around. Again. When work beckons, we promise you'll have so much more interesting water cooler chatter to share that you'll be the envy of everyone at the office:

As the leaves begin to turn and the temperatures start to drop and we see autumn all about us, it signals the frantic period of 2016 when local high schools are busily prepping their fall productions. Nashville's Hume-Fogg Academic High School is one such place, where students - under the direction of 2014 First Night Honoree Daron Bruce and his artistic collaborator Lisa Forbiss - are deep into rehearsals for the first of this academic year's presentations: Big Fish, starring Lindsey George, Jonathan Hankins and Nashville theater legacy Michael Dunaway.

It's hard to believe that Jonathan Larson's epic rock musical masterpiece, Rent, debuted on Broadway, making headlines around the world, winning the Pulitzer Prize and bringing a whole new generation of audiences to the theater 20 years ago. Larson who died just prior to the show's 1996 off-Broadway opening didn't live to see the acclaim with which his musical - based upon Puccini's La Boheme - was greeted, but if we believe in such things, we may rest assured that since his untimely demise he has watched over Rent's evolution, which includes the 20th Anniversary production now touring the country in an astounding revival which reaffirms its place among the very best of American musical theater.

How does one go about describing Blair Allison? She's funny, irrepressible, charming, talented and kooky…beautiful, personable and clever - just to name a few of the Murfreesboro native's most obvious attributes. She's also determined and ambitious, focused and committed and a graduate of Belmont University's widely respected theater program, headed by 2010 First Night Honoree Paul Gatrell.

There comes a moment in Act Two (or maybe it's Act One - on second thought, maybe it's the second Act One, although it could be the third…) of Michael Frayn's Noises Off, now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre, in which Martha Wilkinson comes onstage, hits her mark, cuts her eyes at another actor and with perfect timing reaches out to touch his arm, her expressive face showing every word the audience needs to hear, eliciting guffaws and applause as her reward.

Joseph Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace, a genteel and sometimes beguiling 'suspense comedy,' is a favorite among the nation's various and sundry community theater companies. And for good reason: It's slyly amusing, despite its age, and it features some genuinely engaging (if somewhat despicable, depending upon your perspective) characters who have entertained audiences for 75 years (it bowed on Broadway in 1941).

2013 First Night Honoree Jamey Green leads the cast of Act Too Pro's production of Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka, opening Tuesday night, October 18, at the historic Franklin Theatre. Running through October 23, Willy Wonka follows the critically acclaimed Act Too Pro debut production of Mary Poppins, which played to capacity crowds in 2015.

It becomes very clear, just moments into a phone conversation with actress Katie LaMark that she's tremendously charming, amazingly sharp and intuitive and, quite frankly, very intelligent and quick-witted. So it comes as absolutely no surprise that the young woman - a Boston native now on the road, playing the role of Maureen in the 20th Anniversary Production of Rent, which makes its way to Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center next week - considers herself to be 'living the dream' as she criss-crosses the United States, bringing Jonathan Larson's character to life in an acclaimed revival.

It's only October, but the 2016-17 school year is already off to a frenzied start for Belmont University's Kyle Caress, who this week gets a respite from the halls of academia to spend fall break in New York City with some of his musical theater classmates/comrades/friends, taking in some of the hottest shows on Broadway before returning to Nashville to put the finishing touches on the department's fall musical offering.

Actor, stage manager, teaching artist, blogger, raconteur, Lipscomb University alumna - no matter how you refer to Emily Faith, she remains something of an enigma. No matter how well you think you know her, there's always more to discover, more layers to peel away. To say that Emily Faith is an intriguing individual remains an understatement of the first order: She is a fascinating woman.

Make no mistake about it, to know Lauri Gregoire is to love her - just ask the legions of people lucky enough to know her throughout her life, particularly those who have come to know her in the 20-plus years she's lived in Nashville. She's beautiful, to be certain, but perhaps more to the point, she is bright, clever, intelligent, empathetic, kind and committed to her family and friends, her career and business and to living the kind of life that has created a legacy of creativity and art in her adopted hometown.

There's something about Tonya Pewitt, a certain, almost indefinable, something that makes her an ideal musical theater leading lady (perhaps, we admit, that's a dated term in these politically correct times – we are, after all, in the 21st century and the election of the first woman president of the United States seems imminent – but in regard to Ms. Pewitt, we use the term affectionately, respectfully and even reverently), attributes that she has accumulated, if you will, in a lifetime spent as a fan of classic Broadway and film musicals. She's charming and oh-so-engaging, beautifully alive onstage in a way only great musical theater stars can be when the follow spot hits them upon their first entrance.

Melding Italian Renaissance elements with contemporary street art to signify a 'clash of cultures,' Vanderbilt University Theatre's production of Othello, one of Shakespeare's most powerful dramas and the first VUT production of the 2016-17 season, opens tonight at Neely Auditorium on the Nashville campus.

Just in time for the Halloween season, Cumberland County Playhouse presents its version of the recent Broadway hit The Addams Family - starring Playhouse favorite Jason Ross and newcomer Audrey Moore as Gomez and Morticia Addams - onstage in Crossville beginning tonight (Friday, September 30) and running through November 12.