Nashville Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 10

BWW Review: THE BOYS IN THE BAND at Barbershop Theatre is one party you will NOT forget!
by Payton McCarthy - September 28, 2018

Fifty years following the premiere of Mart Crowley's iconic pre-stonewall comedic drama about a group of gay men living in New York, The Boys in the Band offers an interesting perspective to modern audiences of the many issues which tend to plague a group of people who are seen as “different”, and h...

BWW Review: Spectacular Cast Gives Chaffin's Barn's NEWSIES A Fresh Appeal
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 22, 2018

For plenty of fast-paced action, along with some stellar performances by a fresh-faced cast of eager young theatrical triple threats and a coterie of Nashville stage favorites, one need look no further than Disney's Newsies, the latest onstage offering from Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, the iconic ...

BWW Review: Life Springs Eternal in Nashville Children's Theatre's TUCK EVERLASTING
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 19, 2018

Ernie Nolan and his stellar crew of theatrical collaborators at Nashville Children's Theatre once again prove their mettle with a production worthy of adulation and acclaim, thanks to their world premiere of the TYA (theater for young audiences) version of the recent Broadway musical Tuck Everlastin...

BWW Review: CFTA's HEATHERS: Who Knew High School Could Be So Much Fun?
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 16, 2018

Heathers, the off-Broadway musical by Laurence O'Keefe and Kevin Murphy based on the 1989 cult classic film of the same name, wraps up its sold-out run today at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts, offering audiences an outrageously fun and on-target treatise on mean girls and caught up in the gravit...

BWW Review: Springhouse Theatre's MARY POPPINS Features Strong Leading Performances
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 15, 2018

Despite some opening night technical problems, inconsistent sound issues and a lack of confidence performing Elizabeth Krebs' choreography, Mary Poppins - the musical theater version of the Disney film that was inspired by P.L. Travers' stories which, in turn, were loosely inspired by her own childh...

BWW Review: Music City Falls in Love With Lloyd-Webber's SCHOOL OF ROCK
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 12, 2018

Make no mistake about it: School of Rock isn't your mum's - nor your nan's - Andrew Lloyd Webber musical extravaganza. There are no massive chandeliers to come crashing into the orchestra, no fascist dictators to fear, no silent screen divas yearning for a comeback, nor are there are any human-sized...

BWW Review: Nashville Rep's Outrageously Fun AVENUE Q Leaves Audiences Wanting More
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 09, 2018

Never before have audiences responded with such startling enthusiasm and thunderous applause to a Nashville Repertory Theatre opening night - at least in my memory and I've been reviewing shows at the Rep for 30 years now - than what I witnessed last night as Avenue Q kicked off the company's 2018-1...

BWW Review: Country Comic Legend Minnie Pearl Comes to Life at Chaffin's Barn
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 08, 2018

Country comedy legend Minnie Pearl is brought to life thanks to Minnie Pearl: All The News From Grinder's Switch, a musical comedy revue making its debut this weekend at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in a very limited, four performance engagement through September 13. Directed with obvio...

BWW Review: Nashville Shakespeare Festival's Magical MIDSUMMER Heralds a 30th Anniversary
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 04, 2018

In her welcoming note to audiences at the 2018 version of Nashville Shakespeare Festival's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream - the 30th anniversary of the company's annual Shakespeare in the Park festivities at Centennial Park (which now is without question the place to be on a midsummer's nig...

BWW Review: Studio Tenn's New FRANKENSTEIN Is Mesmerizing and Startling
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 04, 2018

Remaining faithful to the original story conceived and written by Mary Shelley, Studio Tenn takes its audiences on an epic gothic - and highly theatrical - journey with Frankenstein, newly adapted by playwright A.S. Peterson and onstage at Jamison Theater through September 9. Mesmerizing and startli...

BWW Review: Way Off Broadway Productions' Chilling and Stunning UNIDENTIFIED HUMAN REMAINS...
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 26, 2018

On first consideration, Brad Fraser's 1989 play Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love is a darkly comical look at a group of disaffected young Canadians hurtling toward their 30s with no real sense of purpose or identity guiding them on their way. But if you look more closely - even...

BWW Review: Stellar Performances Highlight Street Theatre Company's THE BURNT PART BOYS
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 24, 2018

Stellar performances from a superb ensemble cast have come to exemplify productions from Nashville's Street Theatre Company and, make no mistake about it, the company's latest musical - The Burnt Part Boys, with book by Mariana Elder, music by Chris Miller and lyrics by Nathan Tysen - delivers that ...

BWW Review: Leaving STEEL MAGNOLIAS' Chinquapin on a Very High Note at The Keeton
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 21, 2018

My heart is full for many reasons, not the least of which is that I can say, henceforth, that the last production of Steel Magnolias that I reviewed - this one at The Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson through Saturday, September 1 - was almost as good as that very first production I saw in Chicago in...

BWW Review: Arts Center of Cannon County's Stunning and Sumptuous TITANIC Sets Sail in Woodbury
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 20, 2018

Now onstage through August 25 at Woodbury's Arts Center of Cannon County, in a sumptuously mounted production helmed by director Kim Powers, with producer Brittany Goodwin, musical direction by Allison Hall and choreography by Julie Wilcox, Titanic takes its audience on an intriguing, emotional jour...

BWW Review: NEWSIES Makes Headlines for Start of Circle Players' 69th Season
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 17, 2018

High-spirited, energetic and enormously entertaining, Circle Players' Newsies is a certified hit - thanks in large part to the focused direction of Jim Manning, the athletic and challenging choreography of Tosha Pendergrast and the superb musical direction of DaJuana Hammonds - performed by an impre...

BWW Review: CFTA Sells All The Tickets for Harling's STEEL MAGNOLIAS
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 16, 2018

There's probably no title in the contemporary theater repertoire guaranteed to spark more debate than Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias. Particularly among southern companies, Harling's story of six women who gather every Saturday morning in a small-town Louisiana beauty shop has legions of fans who ...

BWW Review: Metzler's CRY IT OUT Engagingly Traverses the Many Challenges of Motherhood
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 15, 2018

Sharply written dialogue and an engaging story as relevant as any you are likely to see onstage nowadays are the hallmarks of Molly Smith Metzler's Cry It Out, now onstage through August 18 at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater in a superbly acted production from SistaStyle Productions and Three in a Tre...

BWW Review: Chaffin's Barn Re-opens With Habit-Forming SISTER ACT
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 06, 2018

Nashville's iconic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre is back and better than ever! After some six months - and 50 or more years since its debut - the newly renovated and gorgeously appointed Chaffin's Barn has reopened with a rousing production of Sister Act, the habit-forming musical that played to sol...

BWW Review: Arts Center of Cannon County's GREASE is Fun, But Out of Step With The Times
by Jeffrey Ellis - July 13, 2018

It's fun, perhaps even joyful, and audiences are clearly delighted to reward director Matthew Hayes Hunter's youthful cast with riotous applause at the appropriate moments, but do they really endorse the message of the timeworn Jacobs and Casey script? Heck, do they even think about it?...

BWW Review: Adam Szymkowicz's MARIAN, OR THE TRUE TALE OF ROBIN HOOD is Truly Legendary
by Jeffrey Ellis - July 05, 2018

The legend of Robin Hood is subject to personal interpretation and, given the times in which we now live, it only makes sense that playwright Adam Szymkowicz would devise his own treatment of the legend in ways both provocative and traditional. In Marian, Or The True Tale of Robin Hood, Szymkowicz p...

BWW Review: Keenan-Zelt's TRUTH/DARE Gives Four Young Actors A Chance to Shine
by Jeffrey Ellis - July 03, 2018

Playwright Tori Keenan-Zelt's emergence as a force in contemporary theater seems assured with her newest play, Truth/Dare, an incisive, on-target treatment of the pitfalls of adolescence and the frailty of relationships during a time in which everything seems in a constant state of flux. Directed by...

BWW Review: LOVE NEVER DIES Closes Out TPAC's 2017-18 Season
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 20, 2018

We cannot help but wonder: Do peacock feathers foretell of something far more sinister and portentous than what we've seen already in both Love Never Dies and The Phantom of the Opera await our heroine in the moments to follow? We won't spoil the outcome for you, of course, but suffice it to say tha...

BWW Review: Murfreesboro's Best Ever? THE LITTLE MERMAID Stakes A Claim for the Title
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 20, 2018

There's absolutely no need to equivocate, make comparisons or to otherwise water down this particularly judgmental opinion: The Little Mermaid - the stage version of the Disney musical about a gamine sea creature who longs to become human which is now onstage at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts th...

BWW Review: Noah Rice-led ANNIE Brings Spirit to The Keeton's Summer Show
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 19, 2018

Annie, the Broadway musical by Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan, is something of a community theater warhorse - a show that is sure to bring in throngs of theater-goers despite the oftentimes scornful dismay of the theaterati - along the same lines as Steel Magnolias, Grease and, we...

BWW Review: Radical Arts' BARE Features Strong Performances from Rising Actors
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 14, 2018

Without a doubt, an individual's teenage years can be fraught with tension and riddled with despair and even when that is leavened by the joy of self-discovery and the constant gaining of knowledge that accompanies adolescence, there's a steep learning curve that some are unable to embrace gracefull...