Jeffrey Ellis - Page 144

This week we introduce you to one of Paula Flautt's outstanding actors: Holly Hill, an 18-year-old senior at Christ Presbyterian Academy, who is busy doing her college auditions while preparing for what could well be the most challenging role any young actress could aspire to: Mary Poppins in CPA's April production of the Broadway musical. In addition, she is a member of the Tennessee State Thespian Conference advisory board

Much has been made of late about a reviewer for the Wall Street Journal - by the name of Joanne Kaufman - who recently wrote a column in which she fairly chortled about regularly sneaking out of shows she was being paid to review in order to go home early, rather than sit through sub-par productions of questionable quality.

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: James Rudolph and Shawn Knight.

One of Nashville's favorite young actors is quickly growing up. As a teenager, he was onstage for countless area theater companies, but now he's known as James Spencer Dean and he's pursuing his bachelor of fine arts degree in musical theater at The Boston Conservatory. Who'd have thought that Spencer Dean, who delighted audiences in numerous Act Too productions and was a 2012 First Night Most Promising Actor, would now be known as "James Spencer Dean" and wowing audiences in the northeast just as did back home?

If you're in need of some intense family drama leavened with heaping helpings of laughter - just like the kind Mama and them can dish up along with the grits and the gravy - then look no further than ACT 1's cracklin' production of Del Shores' Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will?

Celebrating its 65th season, Nashville's Circle Players is Middle Tennessee's oldest community theater organization and I can think of no better way to celebrate that milestone than with the company's current show, the Tim Larson-directed version of Ragtime, the musical adaptation of the acclaimed E.L. Doctorow novel.

Oh, that wacky and wily Joy Tilley Perryman…she's one of Nashville's favorite comedic actors and tonight she assays another Del Shores role as she opens Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will? for ACT 1 at the Darkhorse Theater. Because of that, she has our Friday Five spotlight focused squarely on her while she teases her hair high to heaven and creates food props that'll make you want to slap your mama!

Since yesterday afternoon, when news of the death of Nashville theater stalwart Marianne Clark began making its way through the community, people have taken to social media to send their own farewells, to express heartfelt thoughts and to remember warmly the impact of Clark's stage career and the affects of the untimely demise of one of our own theatrical legends. You see, if Layne Sasser is Nashville's Betty White, as I maintain, and Nan Gurley is Meryl Streep, Denice Hicks is Emma Thompson and Vali Forrister is our answer to Susan Sarandon, then it would go that Marianne Clark was probably our version of Elaine Stritch.

This week we introduce the lovely and graceful Jessie Gholson, a 17-year-old senior at Hume-Fogg Academic High School. She recently completed a run in the school's fall production of The King and I, playing the leading role of Anna Leonowens. Her previous roles at HFA include Amber Von Tussle in Hairspray and a Kit Kat Girl in Cabaret. Jessie is also a member of The Blue Notes show choir for the third consecutive year.

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to BroadwayWorld Nashville's latest installment of The Friday Five (on Thursday!): five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find onstage throughout the Volunteer state. This week the spotlight shines one day early on Erica Patterson, who opens tonight in Circle Players' production of Ragtime the Musical, starring as Sarah Brown.

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to BroadwayWorld Nashville's latest installment of The Friday Five (on Thursday!): five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find onstage throughout the Volunteer state. This week the spotlight shines one day early on David Arnold, who opens tonight in Circle Players' production of Ragtime the Musical, starring as Father.

Marianne Clark, longtime leader of Nashville's theater community, died Wednesday while doctors attempted to bring her out of a drug-induced coma after she suffered a heart attack Sunday night at home.

When members of the Tennessee State Thespian Conference gather in Murfreesboro this weekend, one of the many offerings they'll be treated to is a performance of The Royal Shakespeare Company's version of Beauty and the Beast, presented by Nashville's Christ Presbyterian Academy.

Bawdy, irreverent, perhaps even unhinged: What better way to describe Midwinter's First Night? Held Sunday night at Backstage at the Barn, the intimate cabaret theater at Nashville's iconic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, the slightly offbeat, decidedly more casual younger sibling of The First Night Honors focused on the fun, while honoring some of Middle Tennessee's best and brightest with First Night Awards.

Lauren Knoop, a Nashville native, is currently a senior at Belmont University, pursuing her BFA degree in theatre performance in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the university that has helped to transform the term "academic theater" into something far more substantial than it once may have been considered. A 2013 First Night Most Promising Actor, Lauren has her eyes set squarely on her prize: May 2015 graduation.

Theater folk from throughout Tennessee gathered at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theater on Sunday night for Midwinter's First Night, which included the presentation of the BroadwayWorld Nashville Awards, recognizing performers and productions brought to the stage between October 2013 and September 2014.

Today, in our latest installment of Nashville Theater 101, we introduce three more members of our wildly divergent, almost prototypically dysfunctional theater family: Tamiko S. Robinson, Nan Gurley and Wayne Gurley.

Denice Hicks' vision for Twelfth Night warmly ingratiates itself with the fluidity of its presentation, enacted by a delightful cast of NSF veterans and newcomers who envelop their audience with genuinely high-spirited good feelings sure to thaw the most frozen of hearts.

This week the spotlight shines on Austin Ryan Hunt, who not only just started the final semester of his senior year at Lipscomb University, but was also among the opening night cast for Nashville Shakespeare Festival's winter season offering of Twelfth Night.

In today's installment of High School Drama, the spotlight falls on a young man who exemplifies the term 'renaissance man': Brayden Myrick of Nashville's Hillsboro High School.