Jeffrey Ellis - Page 88

Matt Smith and Ted Verbeten star in the iconic roles of Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar in Arts Center of Cannon County's new production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, opening tonight at the theater in Woodbury for a run through October 15.

West End United Methodist Church's 4th Story Theater presents Cotton Patch Gospel - by Tom Key and Russell Treyz, with music and lyrics by Harry Chapin - directed by Kirk McNeill, the company's artistic director.

Although she's only a freshman in high school, Shelby Jones (who attends Murfreesboro's Middle Tennessee Christian School) has already amassed an enviable theater resume and established a reputation as one of the finest singers to be found onstage.

ACT 1's 2016-17 season officially opens with the Daniel DeVault-directed production of Joseph Kesselring's classic comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre October 7-22, and starring Debbie Kraski and Linda Speir as the daffy yet dastardly Brewster sisters.

Which brings us to this year's first installment of our popular feature/interview series, Collegiate Theatrics, featuring Belmont University sophomore Mary-Alexis McEntire, who is perhaps better known to friends, family and fans as Lexie McEntire. The Fairfax, Virginia, native is in the initial throes of her second year at the school - known widely for its theater and dance and musical theatre programs - as another young artist in a long line of Belmont students (then and now) making their names known on stages all over the globe.

Today's subject of Where Are They Now?, our regular feature in which we catch-up with those people who once called Nashville home but who are now reaching for their dreams all over the creative world. Actor Tyler Cravens first made a splash in Nashville theater after starring on the Roxy Regional Theatre stage while still in the U.S. Army and stationed at nearby Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

When an already unstable cast of actors begins to suffer the slings and arrows of falling in love (as well as falling down stairs) the possibility of a successful performance plummets, but the likelihood of audience delight skyrockets. That's what audiences can expect when Nashville Repertory Theatre opens the second show of its 2016-17 season: Michael Frayn's Noises Off.

One thing in theater seems certain: Give an accomplished and veteran director the reins to a show and you can be guaranteed they will approach the work decisively and imaginatively - no matter how weak or how strong a particular play's script may be…

Tony Award-nominated director Lynne Taylor-Corbett (Swing!) helms Part of the Plan, an original musical featuring the songs of the late, celebrated singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg, currently in development at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center which this week will receive a 29-hour Equity staged reading with three invitation-only presentations September 22-24.

From the very first moment - when principal guest conductor Nathan Fifield raises his baton and the musicians of the Nashville Symphony play the very first notes of Prokofiev's lush score - it becomes apparent that Nashville Ballet's Cinderella is going to be something very special. And so it goes for the next two-and-one-half-hours: All the way to the final tableau in which the lovely young woman (danced with power and grace by the always-superb Kayla Rowser) finds herself upon a swing in an altogether bucolic setting, with the comforting and loving arm of her dashing prince (Judson Veach, handsome and steadfast) gently caressing her.

ACT 1 kicks off its 2016-17 season with a special limited engagement of Lucas Hnath's The Christians, directed by Chris Bosen, which opens tonight and continues through Sejptember 24 at Tulip Street United Methodist Church (522 Russell Street in Nashville). Curtain is at 7:30 p.m. for each performance.

Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years is one of the most popular contemporary musicals currently en vogue, particularly among newer (read: younger) generations of theater devotees and those older musical theater lovers “in the know.” So it should come as no surprise that Nashville Repertory Theatre launches its 2016-17 season with a Jason Tucker-directed (and musical directed) production, now onstage at Andrew Johnson Theatre at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) announces the addition of its sixth TPAC Education program, a partnership with Lipscomb University's College of Entertainment and the Arts to implement the Nashville High School Musical Theatre Awards, or "The Nashies."

Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts presents the farcical Suite Surrender, running September 16-25.  Called 'a rib-tickling good time,' by the Palm Beach Post, the stage comedy promises to keep audiences laughing from beginning to end.

Distraction Theatre Company and The Red Arrow Gallery present Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things, running September 16-October 1 at the East Nashville gallery.

Edward Allan Baker's Rosemary With Ginger - starring Laura Holloway and Tarama Todres - is the next production of the Nashville-based Chicago Talking Machine , running September 23-25 and September 30-October 2 at the Centennial Black Box Theater, 211 27th Avenue North.

Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theatre's 16th anniversary season continues with the latest musical from Dan Goggins: Nunset Boulevard - The Hollywood Bowl Show. Everyone's favorite Little Sisters of Hoboken take the stage once again in the musical comedy. This time, they have been invited to Tinseltown to sing at the Hollywood Bowl.

Playwright Christopher Durang has been named Ingram New Works Playwriting Fellow for the 2016-17 season of Nashville Repertory Theatre's Ingram New Works Project, it was announced today.

As assured and confident as any long-running musical now - or ever, for that matter - on Broadway, the altogether worldly and completely engaging production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita, playing at Andrew Jackson Hall through September 18, gives Nashville audiences the kind of exceptional theater experience they've come to expect from Studio Tenn.

2015 First Night Star Award winner Jessika Malone has been named associate artistic director of Actors Bridge Ensemble. Her new appointment was announced in late August by the company's producing artistic director - and 2016 First Night Honoree - Vali Forrister, the ABE Board of Directors and company members.