The latest reviews and critic recommendations from Nashville.
While most Broadway shows pack a powerful punch, FUN HOME accomplishes that by capturing the viewer's heart, whether gently plucking at one's heartstrings or tugging with all its might, and its opening night in Nashville at TPAC's Andrew Jackson Hall offered viewers a bevy of emotion.
If the production of Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men closing tonight after a much too brief two-weekend run at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts proves anything it's just how current and relevant the play remains, almost 30 years after its Broadway premiere.
Ernie Nolan, Nashville Children's Theatre's new executive artistic director, makes an impressive debut with The Hundred Dresses, the initial show of his first official season as the leader of the country's oldest theater for younger audiences.
Singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg's music has provided the soundtrack for so many people's lives over the past 40 years that it should come as no surprise that his remarkable catalogue of music now provides the score for a new musical with its sights focused on a Broadway transfer.
There is no mistaking the incisive wit of Jane Austen's rather genteel evisceration of the British aristocracy to be found in Sense and Sensibility, the thoroughly delightful and completely engaging adaptation by Kate Hamill that opens Nashville Repertory Theatre's 2017-18 season.
Memory plays are a challenge for any playwright - ask Tennessee Williams, whose The Glass Menagerie is not only the quintessential memory play, but is also a theatrical masterpiece - and that may, perhaps, explain the shortcomings found in Studio Tenn's The Battle of Franklin: A Tale of a House Divi
If not for the fact that she is already one on Broadway, it could be said that Rachel Potter's performance in Mamma Mia! - which opened last night at Nashville's historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre - was, without doubt or without danger of fulsome exaggeration a "starmaking turn.
Sometimes even the loveliest and most appealing of musical theater scores can be forgotten, virtually erased from your memory.
Director Chris McLaurin makes a particularly auspicious debut at the helm of his rollicking - and beautifully sung and winningly staged - production of Gilbert and Sullivan's classic The Pirates of Penzance, now playing at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts through August 27.
Katharine Boettcher's glorious soprano is finally given the showcase it so richly deserves in the beautifully sung production of Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon's The Secret Garden, the oftentimes stirring and altogether bewitching story of a young orphaned girl forced to live with her mysterious uncle
Strong and energetic - some even show-stopping - performances from a youthful, fresh-faced cast, choreography that will have you dancing in the aisles and sprightly direction that moves the plot along at an astonishing pace…if you aren't already a fan of Bring It On the Musical, then Circle Player
Theater's power to transform and transport is astonishing and the capability of artists to create a sense of time and place, with words and music and theatrical wizardry to lend a tangible feeling to the experience can leave you breathless.
Nothing seems to spark so much debate among the theaterati than the announcement of an upcoming production of a show considered overdone, old-fashioned or somehow hackneyed and quasi-provincial.
Nashville audiences have become rather familiar with the work of Lauren Gunderson, the most produced living American playwright of the 2016-17 season, primarily due to works presented by Tennessee Women's Theater Project.
Despite its provocative title and abundant profanity (or maybe even because of it), Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Motherf**ker With the Hat is actually filled with a lot of humanity and heart, enough that you'll find it difficult to shake off the story and its characters long after the final scene has p
Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva's miraculous transformation into music legend Billie Holiday may well be the performance of 2017, theater-wise, in a city where we revere and venerate our favorite vocalists.
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.
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.
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
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 entert
Musical theater lends itself to the "high concept" approach, to be certain, even if it doesn't always add to the overall success of a production.
'Over-the-top' and 'larger-than-life' are but two of the descriptive phrases that may be used in reference to both director Jason Lewis and his latest theatrical project Reefer Madness the Musical - and, in both instances, they are equally justified.
Back in the day, theatrically speaking, there was something you could always count on in Nashville: some of the very best (if not the best) summer musicals could be found at one venue - Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre.
Shawn Knight's stunning and transformative performance as the 600-pound protagonist in Samuel D.
The Nashville Ballet has a special way of producing unique works you've never seen before.
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Misery Ramsey Theatre Company (3/19-3/20) |
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Leanne Morgan Bridgestone Arena (12/11-12/11) |
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The Great Gatsby Orpheum Theatre (12/01-12/06) |
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The Shark is Broken The Circuit Playhouse (5/07-5/30) |
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Nashville's Nutcracker Tennessee Performing Arts Center (11/27-12/27) |
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Gunhild Carling at City Winery Nashville City Winery Nashville (11/01-11/01) |
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Dial M for Murder Hendersonville Performing Arts Company (3/19-4/04) |
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Ain't Too Proud Playhouse on the Square (3/26-4/18) |
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The Night Shift Before Christmas The Circuit Playhouse (11/20-12/20) |
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Dia de los Mourtes Nashville Ballet at The Martin Center (9/28-11/01) PHOTOS |
