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Take A Holiday of 'Pure Imagination' With NCT's CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
While the debate rages on about the proper time to start celebrating the holidays, Nashville Children’s Theatre may have devised the ideal plan with their current onstage offering – the world premiere of the theater-for-younger-audiences version of the recent Broadway musical Charlie and The Cho...
Middle Tennessee State University's RODGERS + HAMMERSTEIN'S CINDERELLA Proves Anything Is Possible
Today we celebrate our most recent sojourn with Cinderella and company, thanks to the sumptuously designed, beautifully staged and wonderfully sung Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, presented in an all-too-brief one-weekend run at Middle Tennessee State University’s Tucker Theatre in Murfreesb...
Lipsomb University Theatre's Emotional and Whimsical BIG FISH THE MUSICAL
On its surface, there is so much about which to alternately fall in love with/wonder quizzically about in Big Fish, the musical with book by John August (based on his screenplay for the 2003 film version) and a score by Andrew Lippa, that there’s no wonder the show had trouble finding its audience...
Playhouse 615 Wins Spooky Season With Suspenseful THE WOMAN IN BLACK
The play in question? The Woman in Black, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from the book by Susan Hill, that finishes up its three-weekend run in Mt. Juliet with performances through November 5. Directed by Meriwether, whose director’s note offers the tale of his own fascination with the script and h...
Laughter Abounds In Belmont University's Zany and Uproarious THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG
That laughter you hear coming from within the Troutt Theatre on the Belmont University campus this weekend and next should probably come with a trigger warning. For no matter how rollicking, rambunctious and uproarious it truly is, it should be pointed out that what is transpiring on that stage over...
'Don't dream it. Be it!' Get Your Tickets to Roxy Regional Theatre's ROCKY HORROR Before It Closes
What rugby shorts did for Paul Mescal’s thighs in 2020’s Normal People, so do fishnet stockings do for Bradley Oosterink’s thighs in the Roxy Regional Theatre’s The Rocky Horror Show in 2023. Not that Mr. Oosterink’s thighs are the best things about the Roxy’s 11th annual iteration of th...
Studio Tenn Inaugurates Sparkling New Turner Theatre With Electrifying MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET
A musical retelling of producer Sam Phillips' serendipitous gathering of four of music's most notable Southern boys - Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley - at his Memphis-based Sun Records Studio on December 4, 1956, Million Dollar Quartet will set your feet to tapp...
Street Theatre Company's RIDE THE CYCLONE May Be the Best Thing We've Seen in 2023
What if (of all the things possible in the mythical, magical world of musical theater) the four earnest boy singers of Forever Plaid hooked up with the vengeful Heathers, while at the same time Hedwig (of the Angry Inch fame) was getting busy with Carrie White (of the bucket of pig’s blood fame) a...
Belmont University Musical Theatre's WORKING: A MUSICAL Offers Audiences a Heartfelt, Emotional Tribute to American Workers
Over the past three-and-a-half decades, I have had the privilege of seeing some remarkably talented and gifted young actors on every stage on the Belmont campus and never have I ever left a performance there without feeling inspired, absolutely certain that the future of theater as we know it is pre...
Florance and Jamison Star As Ethel Waters in Kennie Playhouse Theatre's HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW
While we wait for Ethel Waters to get the large-scale showbiz treatment she deserves, Nashville audiences, for now at least, can show respect and give recognition to the legendary figure who is brought to life onstage once more by Connye Florance and Saaneah Jamison via the Kennie Playhouse Theatre ...
Nashville Rep's Season-Opening 9 to 5: The Musical Kicks Off An Eagerly Anticipated Slate of Theater
Baker’s superb direction brings all the various moving parts of this huge production together to deliver a gratifyingly heartfelt paean to the millions of working women (and men) who inspired the screenplay and musical book by Patricia Resnick. Baker’s vision for the piece, in concert with her t...
Nashville Children's Theatre's STRONG INSIDE Offers Emotional View of the Segregated South
Thanks to Andrew Maraniss’ best-selling book Strong Inside – adapted for the stage by Tyrone L. Robinson – Wallace’s storied basketball career in the Southeastern Conference and the details of his upbringing in the segregated South are now brought vividly to life onstage in a history-making ...
'Imaginative and Original,' 35MM-A MUSICAL EXHIBITION Opens 2023-24 Season for Street Theatre Company
Street Theatre Company’s residency at The Barbershop Theatre continues in its expected fine form as the groundbreaking company heads into the 2023-24 season with a gloriously sung production of 35MM – A Musical Exhibition, a song cycle from one of musical theater’s contemporary power couples: ...
'Heartbreaking, breathtaking and powerful': Kenley Smith's FAN ME WITH A BRICK Provides a Fascinating Portrait of an American Family
Post-pandemic Nashville theater audiences have witnessed a groundswell of creativity as local companies have made the production of original works part of their programming initiatives. While the result might best be described as hit-or-miss depending on perspective, one company’s efforts have bee...
BWW CD REVIEW: ARCHETYPE at Lexicon Classics
What did our critic think of BWW CD REVIEW: ARCHETYPE at Lexicon Classics?a not-to-be-missed musical delight that will elicit the desire for repeated listenings...
Warren-directed FALSETTOS Proves A Potent Reminder of How Life Once Was
It was a part of life only understood completely, if experienced, and its impact continues to be felt today in ways you can sometimes predict, although oftentimes it invokes unexpected memories that take you completely unaware. That explains why I’ve taken so long to compose this review of Falsett...
Studio Tenn and CPA Arts' THE SOUND OF MUSIC Provides Pleasant Summertime Entertainment
One of musical theater’s most beloved offerings, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music is again brought to life by Studio Tenn in a lovely – and certainly crowd-pleasing – production through July 16 at Christ Presbyterian Academy’s Soli Deo Center, which marks the welcome return to ...
Page and Paulus' Revival of 1776 Offers a New Perspective on The Birth Of A Nation
Imagine walking into Jackson Hall on opening night, as I did, thinking, “Why did the directors reimagine this pleasant, if somewhat plodding, old-school musical with an ensemble of multi-ethnic women, trans and non-binary actors cast in the roles of America’s founding fathers?” Then leaving th...
Star-studded INTO THE WOODS Tour Comes to Nashville for Eight-Performance Run at TPAC
Truth be told, this may be the most impressive assemblage of talent we’ve ever encountered on the Jackson Hall stage in our 30-some years of reviewing Broadway at TPAC. Seriously....
HERE YOU COME AGAIN Stars Tricia Paoluccio In a Stunning Tribute to Dolly Parton's Down-Home Spirit
For years – for decades, really – I have advocated that Music City tourism would benefit from a sit-down production of a country music-themed musical, one that would appeal to a wide range of aficionados and would showcase the musical library of a beloved figure in the pantheon of Nashville musi...
Nashville Rep Closes Out 2022-23 Season With Rousing Production of Tesori's VIOLET
With noteworthy performances across the board, Nashville Repertory Theatre’s production of Violet – with a lovely, haunting and emotional score by Jeanine Tesori and a sometimes meandering, oftentimes difficult to follow, libretto by Brian Crawley, based upon Doris Betts’ short story “The Ug...
Colorful, Campy and With All The Fun The Law Will Allow, DISNEY'S ALADDIN Thrills Nashville Audiences
Colorful and campy, fast-paced and royally entertaining – and about as much fun as current Tennessee laws may allow (our state legislature’s supermajority, however, might be clutching their pearls and wailing about “who’ll protect the children?” even as the youngsters surrounding me on ope...
Roxy Regional Theatre's Timeless Revival of SPRING AWAKENING Arrives Just When Tennessee Audiences Need It
We’ve been thinking about that 2012 legislation as we prepared to see Roxy Regional Theatre's 2023 production of Spring Awakening, the Tony Award-winning musical by Duncan Sheik and Stephen Sater, which is based on the play of the same name written in the late 19th century by playwright Frank Wed...
At Nashville Children's Theatre, Self-Expression Shines, Sparking Young Imaginations in HIP HOP CINDERELLA
Among attributes audience members have come to expect from a Nashville Children’s Theatre production – fired by significant amounts of imagination and enough creativity to empower the minds of every youngster who has ever been introduced to the transformative power of live theater by the artists...
Actors Bridge Ensemble's World Premiere Production of Alicia Haymer's HEAVY
When the history of live theater performance in Nashville, post-pandemic, is written sometime in the future, it’s highly likely there will be a chapter dedicated to and inspired by the significance of the artistry of Alicia Haymer, the actor/director/playwright who grew up in Nashville and whose i...
Videos
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Disney's Frozen Playhouse on the Square (11/13-12/20) |
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NMTN Presents: The First Stage Analog @ The Hutton Hotel with ASCAP (6/13-6/13) |
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Jack Johnson at Ascend Amphitheater Ascend Amphitheater (8/25-8/25) |
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Disney's Beauty and the Beast Orpheum Theatre (6/02-6/07) |
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Steel Magnolias Watershed Public Theatre (5/29-6/07) |
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The Book of Mormon (Non-Equity) Tennessee Performing Arts Center (6/02-6/07) |
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The Night Shift Before Christmas The Circuit Playhouse (11/20-12/20) |
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Les Miserables Playhouse on the Square (5/28-6/27) |
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The WordPlayers presents Hairspray: The Musical Bijou Theatre (7/10-7/12) |
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Playhouse Pours Playhouse on the Square (10/08-10/08) |
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