NASHVILLE THEATER REVIEWS

The Pajama Game's abbreviated run (just four public performances in four days) means that time's a-wasting to get your tickets for the remaining two shows tonight and tomorrow afternoon. So get to it! You'll be glad you did....

...The best production I've seen in these here parts is the one that's currently onstage at The Roxy Regional Theatre, starring Matt Varelia as Frank N. Furter, Ryan Bowie as Riff-Raff, and Rob Rodems and Kaitlin Doughty as Brad Majors (asshole!) and Janet Weiss (slut!) that's just about as good as ...

Under the clear and focused direction of Tim Larson and Clay Hillwig, who heretofore separately have provided Nashville audiences with a number of impressive theatrical adventures, this evocation of The Color Purple is made all the more appealing by its trio of leading ladies....

If I were to die very soon, there's no doubt that I would go to heaven, because Rachel York and the all-singing/all-dancing company of Anything Goes took me and a couple of thousand other people up to the heavenly gates with their spectacular opening night performance of "Blow, Gabriel, Blow."...

Lisa Marie Wright's impeccable timing and on-target comic performance-not to mention her cantilevered breastworks-are reason enough to book your favorite table at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre for Spreading It Around, a formulaic comedy about seniors spending their kids' inheritances that actually p...

Despite the taut direction of Ryan Williams, particularly sinister underscoring by Rollie Mains and a compelling, bravura performance by Luke Hatmaker as the ringleader of a group of prison escapees, Street Theatre Company's The Desperate Hours is a rare misfire from the company and the creative tea...

Director David McGinnis and his cast of nine actors bring Michael Cristofer's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Shadow Box to life in a solid and straightforward production that kicks off ACT 1's 2012-13 season at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater....

Write this down in your journals, post it on your Facebook, tweet it to your tens of followers, theaterati: Kevin Thornton and Enoch Porch are ridiculously talented! And there's no better way to celebrate the festive Halloween season than with these two-and their gorgeous and versatile cohort/partne...

Now, ABC is banking on Music City, putting big bucks behind the promotion and the production of Nashville, the soapy new television series written by Academy Award winner Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise) that debuted last night, right after the Emmy Award-winning comedy juggernaut that is Modern Fa...

Now onstage in a thoroughly effective production directed by Sondra Morton at Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre, Parade is not your mama's or your granddaddy's musical comedy, to be certain....

Now onstage at Dickson's Renaissance Center, in a professional production at The Gaslight Dinner Theatre helmed by Pacer Harp, and featuring a cast of winning performers, 9 to 5: The Musical has Dolly's unmistakably sunny outlook-exemplified by her tuneful score for the show-and Patricia Resnick's s...

Engrossing and compelling, John Logan's Red-which features a pair of tour-de-force performances from Ronnie Meek and Justin Boccitto under the focused and sure-handed direction of Mike Fernandez-is an altogether impressive third season opener for Nashville's Blackbird Theatre, the company that has f...

Thanks to the sparkling, imaginative Studio Tenn revival of Smokey Joe's Cafe-the Tony Award-nominated musical revue that collects some 39 (although a couple were cut, so we'll place the number at 37 for this production) of those terrific Leiber and Stoller songs into one smooth, entertaining packag...

That notion is borne home stunningly by Katori Hall's acclaimed play The Mountaintop, now presented in its Nashville premiere-just 12 months after its critically lauded Broadway premiere with Samauel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett-in an astonishingly crafted production directed by Jackie Welch Schlic...

Starring Amanda Morgan, Lital Abrahamson and Broadway veteran Bailey Hanks in the roles originated by Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Parton herself in the 1980 film, 9 to 5: The Musical provides the perfect vehicle for a musical score composed by Dolly herself, who may well be the most successful woman...

Legally Blonde, the Musical is as tuneful and entertaining as any musical could ever hope to be, and while the story seems lighthearted and fun, there's a definite message to be found in Heather Hach's book and the music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe and Neil Benjamin. Under Adams' laser-sharp dire...

Compellingly dramatic and musically inspiring, Caroline, Or Change-the musical now onstage at Street Theatre Company through the end of the month-might very well be the most startling and thoroughly extraordinary production from the company in its rather brief existence in Nashville....

Growing up as a baby boomer in the South, you carry with you at least a modicum of guilt-regardless of whatever your upbringing actually may have been-about racism and the impact of one's skin color on the society in which you are raised. Here in the South, we're well aware of our history founded u...

Back in the day-1907, actually-when John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World premiered at Dublin's Abbey Theater, it apparently caused riots, its tale of an apparent patricide engendering great public outrage and overt hostilities. Four years later, when the play debuted in New York ...

There is absolutely no doubt about it: The playwriting trio of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten very clearly know the people about whom they write so prolifically. Their affection and respect for the Southern way of life is obvious in every honey-drawled word, as is their abundant unders...

Fun-filled and light-hearted, Much Ado About Nothing-the latest Shakespeare-in-the-Park offering from Nashville Shakespeare Festival-offers its audiences a tuneful, sprightly way to celebrate late summer amid all the trappings of theatrical magic, brought to life by a confident, self-assured cast ut...

Director Lisa Gillespie is responsible for my most recent serving of Steel Magnolias (onstage at Boiler Room Theatre in Franklin through September 8), which like all richly decadent Southern delicacies, sates something within me that yearns for a memory-laden repast-serving up Harling's artful blend...

Kirk-Burgess Productions makes an auspicious debut on the Nashville theatrical scene with a solid production of Prince Gomolvilas' play Mysterious Skin, based on the Scott Heim novel of the same name, that weaves together the interconnected stories of two young men, each struggling to overcome his h...

There comes a moment in Xanadu-the deliciously campy musical theater confection that is based on the unintentionally campy 1980s movie of the same name-when the Greek muse Calliope suggests that "it's just like children's theater for 40-year-old gay people" (or words to that effect) which perfectly ...

Featuring a triumvirate of capable, confident and consummately talented actors-LaToya Gardner, Kevin Mead and Lisa Graham-in the show's leading roles, it is a beautifully sung, interestingly staged and tremendously affecting musical that succeeds even despite the limitations of director Ralph Gabrie...