NASHVILLE THEATER REVIEWS

I can now feel the tiny pin pricks of the needles piercing the flesh of the Jef Ellis voodoo dolls held about the neck by various members of the cast and crew as they exact their revenge while they continue reading this review. I say: Bring it on! Sticks and stones and all that......

More to the point, Ragtime in Concert at Street Theatre Company is not to be missed. It is an awe-inspiring night of theater, staged with confidence and a practiced eye for what works visually by Cathy Street and Jane Kelley (who also conducts the 30-some member ensemble) and featuring the always si...

Memphis, the musical, is a lot like Memphis, the city: You either love it or you hate it. But if you let its sincerely heartfelt story and evocatively written music wend its way into your heart, you'll find your soul. With the national touring company now ensconced at Tennessee Performing Arts Cente...

With audience participation required to bring it fully to life onstage, Jeff Wirth's The Antics of Romantics is overflowing with imagination and creativity, making it one of the most exhilarating theater offerings we've seen this season. Directed stylishly - with generous wit and flashes of comic br...

Truth be told, seeing Henry Haggard and Jeff Boyet playing first graders may be enough to ensure that you get yourself to Nashville Children's Theatre for the company's wonderfully entertaining production of Junie B. in Jingle Bells, Batman Smells. But the production holds so many delightful riches ...

Ginger Newman and Kate Adams-Johnson have perfected the recipe for musical success: Take three ginger-haired beauties, pair them with three dark and handsome young men and add a musical score that includes some of the best-known and most-beloved songs of the 1930s and '40s. That's the winning formul...

Crist is a promising writer - although her works for the theater would benefit greatly from some workshopping of the material before audiences are asked to buy tickets - and a warm-hearted, genuine woman who, quite frankly, I adore. But I don't adore being made to feel ignorant or unsophisticated be...

You can hardly swing a cat in Nashville without hitting someone in costume as Edna Turnblad or her dancing progeny Tracy, so popular has the show become with local theaterati. But, truth be told, if I never live to see another Hairspray, I can now die a happy man: Because I saw director/choreographe...

When you live in a city ringed by suburbs like Old Hickory and Hermitage, when one of the most popular tourist attractions is The Hermitage and we all think of Andy Jackson as someone we know (his visage is found on countless public buildings throughout the city), it just makes sense that Bloody, Bl...

Now onstage at Dickson's Renaissance Center, in a sparkling production from The Center's Mind Enriching Theatre sure to delight, A Year With Frog and Toad is a delightful romp of a tale that explores the importance of friendship between two very similar, yet very different, people. 'People?' you ask...

With new and expressive choreography by Paul Vasterling - set to Prokofiev's timelessly beautiful 1944 score - Nashville Ballet opens its 26th season with a sumptuous remounting of Cinderella which captures, once more, the sheer artistry of the company's dancers while giving audiences exactly what t...

First presented in 2010 by the Bethlehem Players (of Franklin's Bethlehem United Methodist Church), Southern Fried Funeral, now onstage through November 26 at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre (where Osborne and Eppler staged their First Night Award-winning Rear Widow last year), is aging gracefully, ta...

With vampires such a hot topic (seriously, could the timing be any more perfect than now for the tale of a legendary bloodsucker like the Transylvanian Count?) in American popular culture, you'd think it would be a slam dunk for a theater company to stage a show like Dracula - and it would be if you...

Telling a universal tale of friendship and the power of love to overcome hardship, prejudice and the callous disregard of an ill-informed public, Wicked represents musical theater at its very best: The story intrigues you, the characters engage you, the music touches your heart in ways that might su...

So it was with some trepidation - and more than a little wariness - that I approached a new production of A Few Good Men, now onstage through October 15, at Lakewood Theatre Company in Old Hickory. While the physical realities of Lakewood's venue preclude any such staging innovations as employed by ...

You gotta give credit to Scott Rice: the man's got style! Approaching his 40th birthday with the same trepidations that anyone would, instead of just throwing a drunken revelry for all his Nashville friends, he has chosen instead to become an impresario in order to produce, direct and star in the Mu...

Superbly performed by a cast of eight exceptional student actors in the Belmont University Department of Theatre and Dance, under the direction of Bill Feehely (co-founder of Nashville's acclaimed Actors Bridge Ensemble), Dancing at Lughnasa opens the 2011-2012 season with theater of the highest ord...

Arthur Miller's All My Sons, which debuted on Broadway in 1947, continues to resonate with contemporary audiences thanks to its timeless, heart-wrenching relevance and Miller's unequaled ability as a storyteller. Now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre in an impressive production that opens Ten...

Poetic and profane, David Mamet's 1975 play American Buffalo is brought to the stage of Nashville's Darkkhorse Theatre in a stunningly raw and beautifully realized production directed by Ryan Williams for ACT 1. As one of the city's most enduring community theatre groups, ACT 1 consistently has prov...

With spirited campiness in abundance - and the sumptuous physical trappings provided by designers Anthony Popolo and Billy Ditty - The Rocky Horror Show takes over the Boiler Room Theatre for the month of October, giving audiences a rose-tinted view of a fantastical world full of transsexuals, trans...

In so many ways, Trying - Joanna McClellan Glass' richly drawn portrait of the relationship between a patrician American jurist and his Canadian prairie-born secretary - is full of surprising moments, the various and disparate elements of fine drama woven together beautifully to tell a genuinely mov...

Dreamgirls, now onstage at Cumberland County Playhouse, is musical theater at its best, telling a universal story of a group of tremendously talented girls who grow into internationally known musical superstars, brought vividly to life onstage, filled with enough fiery theatrics and backstage drama ...

Lipscomb University Theatre brings Nashville audiences the never-before-seen-locally Leading Ladies, a gender-bending take-off that pays homage to Shakespeare's own gender-bending Twelfth Night, for the opening production of its 2011-12 season. Directed by Robyn Berg and featuring a focused cast of ...

Now onstage at the nationally renowned and venerated company's Ann Stahlman Hill Theatre through October 16, Holes features an extraordinary cast of some of the region's finest actors bringing the beloved tale to life with such vigorous energy that audiences of any age (not just the ones 'age 8 and ...

In short, Chicago is the best production ever presented by The Keeton Theatre. In fact, it's one of the finest versions of the tuneful musical we've ever seen on any stage, from any production company - and trust me, we've seen a bunch of 'em, ranging from Broadway and national touring companies to ...