Jeffrey Ellis - Page 142

It will enable you to someday say that you, too, "knew them when"…like Brentwood's Blake Marshall, a graduate of Franklin High School now in the middle of his freshman year at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City

Eddie George, actor. After years of pursuing his dream, of plying his trade, perfecting his craft, it is now apparent that Eddie George - the once and future Tennessee Titan, pro football Hall of Fame member, Heisman Trophy winner, the very personification of professional sports in a town known worldwide as Music City USA - is one of this region's finest actors. He's paid his dues and in doing so, he silences his detractors with his most recent onstage role in Nashville Rep's stunning production of Matthew Lopez's The Whipping Man, now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre through February 21.

Why do you do theater? We've been putting that question to members of the Nashville theater famiy for the past month to find out what it is that motivates creative types to pursue an illusory and challenging career, while for others the theater gives them a creative avocation that helps keep them sane. Today, in our latest installment of Nashville Theater 101, we introduce two more members of our wildly divergent, almost prototypically dysfunctional theater family: Brooke Leigh Davis and Robert Coles.

Arriving at Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theatre just in time for Valentine's Day and all those accompanying celebrations of love and marriage is I Do! I Do!, the other Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt musical (with The Fantasticks being the other other one - my apologies to fans of 110 in the Shade), that details 50 years in the lives of Agnes and Michael Snow, played with almost impossible charm by Jenny Norris-Light and Andy Brown.

Bradley Moore and Elizabeth Turner direct a cast of Nashville actresses in The Vagina Monologues next week. Among the actresses featured in the cast are Susan Adkins, Heather Vaughn Alexander, McKenna Driver, Lisa Fults, Savannah Hall, Jessica Hausberger, Aubrey Iwan, Karen Kirby, Amie Lara, Julia Nettles, Terry Occhiogrosso, Sarah Shepherd, Memory Strong, Mindy Tolbert and Elizabeth Turner. Music City Theatre Company will present Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues at Vibe Entertainment Complex Thursday, February 12 through Saturday, February 14, with a 7:30 p.m. curtain each night.

What is it about theater kids that make them special? What's that indefinable quality that sets them apart from other teenagers? To my way of thinking, theater kids have more poise than the average high school student, an ability to talk to anyone they meet with confidence and razor-sharp focus. At least, that description certainly applies to this week's star of High School Drama, 2015 First Night Most Promising Actor Cameron Bortz of Brentwood High School.

As staged in the six-time Tony Award-winning show, the moment is at once tremendously uncomfortable and remarkably eye-opening, making the audience squirm in their seats due to the unease and the sense of voyeuristic embarrassment they feel, as if they have come upon such a scene happening in their real lives instead of seeing it play out onstage.

If the theme of Kinky Boots the Musical - opening tonight at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center - is 'just be who you wanna be,' then you can rest assured that both J. Harrison Ghee and Mikey Piscitelli are living every moment of their lives with that as their motto.

Today, in our latest installment of Nashville Theater 101, we introduce two more members of our wildly divergent, almost prototypically dysfunctional theater family: directors Bethany Langford and Tim Larson, both of whom have been represented by productions onstage of recent vintage.

The Tennessee Performing Arts Center and the Tennessee State Museum are partnering to present NEWSIES: A Tennessee Special Edition, a collaborative exhibit that explores the story behind Disney's Broadway musical Newsies and the state's rich printing history.

As Kinky Boots continues its national tour, which sets down roots in Nashville for a week's worth of performances at TPAC starting Tuesday, February 3, Harvey Fierstein talks about the journey of the musical and his collaboration with Cyndi Lauper and Jerry Mitchell…

Over the coming months, we'll be sharing some of the fondest, funniest and most moving memories shared by many CCP alumni as we commemorate the company's golden anniversary. We kick off the celebration today with remembrances from Ryan Haderlie, Harry Bryce and Matthew Hayes Hunter. As they take us down memory lane, you're likely to feel like you're right there in Crossville, being treated to the transformative, transporting work of 2013 First Night Honoree Jim Crabtree and his team - his family, really - still focused on creating art in the middle of Tennessee…

Ashley Glore, who was graduated from Nashville's Belmont University last May, has quickly made a name for herself on area stages with her acclaimed performances in such shows as Closer at Bongo After Hours Theatre, Theatre With Chldren at Play Theatre Company and Seascape With Sharks and Dancer for Spaghetti Theatre (directed by Bethany Langford). A native of Anchorage, Alaska, she lived in New York for two years (studying at Pace University) prior to transferring to Belmont.

One of Broadway's quintessential renaissance men, Jerry Mitchell talked about the genesis of Kinky Boots the Musical and his unique collaboration with Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein

Today, we introduce you to Hume-Fogg Academic High School senior Ray Gleaves, a 17-year-old senior who's been an integral member of Daron Bruce's theater productions, as well as a four year member of the school concert choir (he's serving as president this year), a three year member of The Blue Notes (the HFA show choir), as well as a three year member of both Resonance (the school's men's choir) and The HFA Singers, which is best described as a small specialty ensemble. Among the roles on his theatrical resume are Anxious in West Side Story, Seaweed J. Stubbs in Hairspray, Otto in Cabaret and Simon of Legree/male ensemble in The King and I.

First-time Broadway composer Cyndi Lauper, who first conquered the music charts back in the 1980s, recently sat down to talk about her Kinky Boots experience and to share the show's impact on her own life - which provided much of her inspiration as she approached the project.

Over the coming months, we'll be sharing some of the fondest, funniest and most moving memories shared by many CCP alumni as we commemorate the company's golden anniversary. We kick off the celebration today with remembrances from Daniel W. Black, Jessica Wockenfuss, Lar'Juanette Williams and Brenda Sparks. As they take us down memory lane, you're likely to feel like you're right there in Crossville, being treated to the transformative, transporting work of 2013 First Night Honoree Jim Crabtree and his team - his family, really - still focused on creating art in the middle of Tennessee...

As hard as it may be to fathom, the calendar indicates we're practically to February already and 2015 is off and running like some out-of-control roller coaster. Perhaps no one is more acutely aware of this than Emily Hughes, an acting major at Nashville's Lipscomb University, who no sooner than she had her bags unpacked from Christmas break that she was already hard at work on her next assignment: playing Mayzie LaBird in Seussical the Musical, which runs February 13-22 at Collins Alumni Auditorium.

Nashville's non-profit Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC) created a record-breaking economic impact of more than $64 million during its 2013-14 season. The impact, based on the nationally accepted formula from Americans for the Arts, is one of four records broken by the organization during the banner year, according to its annual report released today at a partnership event

With a new year comes a lot of new theater in Nashville and in 2015, area theater companies are heating up winter with some of the most compelling and challenging productions to grace local stages in quite some time. Already, Circle Players and Nashville Shakespeare Festival have upped the ante with their respective productions of Ragtime the Musical and Twelfth Night (NSF traditionally kicks off the dramatics with their winter production at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre), and in the coming weeks theater-goers will be treated to even more, top-notch, high-quality theatrics.