Nashville Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 17

BWW Review: The Gaslight's IF THE SHOE FITS
by Jeffrey Ellis - February 05, 2016

No matter how hackneyed and corny the script, if you have an experienced ensemble of actors who are adept at physical comedy, who have perfected their timing through years onstage and who are relatively fearless in their approach to a script (any script, most likely), chances are you can deliver a s...

BWW Review: The Collective's SHOWSTOPPERS
by Jeffrey Ellis - January 30, 2016

There's nothing like a good musical revue - replete with well-chosen songs, performed by a talented coterie of professional performers who are ably supported by a cast of fresh-faced youngsters showing off their burgeoning talents in concert with their more seasoned counterparts - and The Collective...

BWW Review: Theater Bug's 7 WAYS TO SUNDAY
by Jeffrey Ellis - January 29, 2016

Dealing with the heretofore difficult to discuss subjects of teenaged depression and suicide, 7 Ways to Sunday opens up a necessary dialogue that is sure to save lives (regardless of how melodramatic that sounds, could one come to any other realization after experiencing the altogether life-changing...

BWW Review: MATILDA THE MUSICAL Dazzles in Nashville
by Jeffrey Ellis - January 28, 2016

Can there be a better way to capture Matilda's spirit so evocatively than in a sparkling new work for the musical theater? A musical journey through which we can chart her soulful, heartfelt ascent into a literary hierarchy in which readers can live vicariously? Matilda's forays into a fictional wor...

BWW Review: Circle Players' SISTER ACT, THE MUSICAL
by Jeffrey Ellis - January 20, 2016

LaToya Gardner adds yet another theatrical conquest to her already impressive resume: Sister Mary Clarence/Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act, the musical theater version of the Whoopi Goldberg film that has delighted audiences since its debut in 1992, inspiring one sequel (with maybe another on the ...

BWW Review: Chambers Stevens' IT'S WHO YOU KNOW
by Jeffrey Ellis - January 08, 2016

Tennesseans come from a long line of storytellers - it's in our collective DNA, it seems, what with the state being home to the National Storytelling Festival, among other things - and Chambers Stevens (the 2012 First Night Honoree who co-founded Nashville Shakespeare Festival) is no different. In f...

BWW Review: Keeton Theatre's 1940s RADIO CHRISTMAS CAROL
by Jeffrey Ellis - December 18, 2015

It's that thematic power of hope and reconciliation that plays out so evocatively on theater stages throughout the world at this time of year, urging each of us on to our revelry during this hectic, oftentimes trying and crazy time of the year. Nashville's Larry Keeton Theatre presents just such an ...

BWW Review: Mel O'Drama's COUSIN CLEETUS Plays Printers Alley
by Jeffrey Ellis - December 18, 2015

Just in time for the holiday season, the company's original 'musical comedy dinner show,' writer Curtis Reed's Cousin Cleetus' Country Christmas is onstage through the end of 2015, offering audiences a tuneful, if sometimes tone-deaf, holiday extravaganza not unlike a Christmastime television specia...

BWW Review: ACCC's A TUNA CHRISTMAS
by Jeffrey Ellis - December 12, 2015

But there are those Christmas-themed shows that we're delighted to see no matter the time or place. Case in point: A Tuna Christmas, the seasonal sojourn to the third smallest town in Texas, where the wacky denizens are up to all kinds of hijinks as they celebrate baby Jesus' birthday, complete with...

BWW Review: THE TWELVE DATES OF CHRISTMAS
by Jeffrey Ellis - December 12, 2015

Rebekah Durham is not Reese Witherspoon, so no one is paying her a million bucks to star in some holiday-themed rom com - but make no mistake about it, they damn well oughta be! But for now, Nashville theater-goers are the lucky ones; we get to see her onstage in Tennessee Women's Theater Project's ...

BWW Review: Actor's Bridge Ensemble's THE NETHER
by Jeffrey Ellis - December 11, 2015

Leave it to the ambitious and creative people of Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble to continue the celebration of the company's 20th anniversary season with the presentation of a new and compelling play – The Nether by Jennifer Haley – which ushers audiences into the dystopian world that has evolve...

BWW Review: Belmont University Musical Theatre's WHITE CHRISTMAS
by Jeffrey Ellis - December 10, 2015

All this yuletide revelry to which I am alluding comes courtesy of BUMT's latest production: Irving Berlin's White Christmas, the onstage updating of the 1954 film version that features a score of the master musician's finest songs as it tells the story of two song-and-dance men and their female cou...

BWW Review: Nashville Rep's A CHRISTMAS STORY
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 30, 2015

In a city like Nashville, where art and creativity thrives, there really is nothing more heartwarming and welcome at this time of year than the onstage theatrical traditions we have come to love, like Nashville Repertory Theatre's annual production of A Christmas Story, the stage iteration of the cl...

BWW Review: Gaslight's MR. JINGLE'S CHRISTMAS CLAUSE
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 23, 2015

Theater during the holiday season tends to be something of a mixed bag: multiple productions of A Christmas Carol, countless stagings of It's A Wonderful Life, numerous renditions of The Nutcracker and a sampling of original revues that include songs suitable for the season and heart-tugging and oft...

BWW Review: Bushfield's YULE, Y'ALL at Chaffin's Barn
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 21, 2015

You can be certain that during this time of year, I'm making my way to various and sundry theaters to witness the latest Christmaslike offerings from companies large and small, but after last season's A Country Christmas, Carol - playwright/actress Lydia Bushfield's uniquely fun take on the Charles ...

BWW Review: Springhouse Theatre's THE MARVELOUS WONDERETTES
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 14, 2015

How wonderful is it that a song can usher in all sorts of memories - perhaps of your first kiss, driving in a car along a dusty country road, or of people once-loved, still-loved, who are no longer a part of your life - to flood your mind, fill your heart and to transport you, as if by magic, to som...

BWW Review: BULLETS OVER BROADWAY is Boffo in Music City
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 11, 2015

Gimme a chorus line of gorgeous girls with gams up to here, a tap-dancing mob of darkly handsome wise guys, a serious lady of the theater whose teeth marks may be found all around a stage set - place them amid a whimsical and altogether unbelievable plot as thin as the best of the old-time movie mus...

BWW Review: ACT 1's AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 08, 2015

Might I offer some perhaps unsolicited advice? If you are dreading the upcoming holidays - Thanksgiving is just under three weeks away and Christmas is fast on its heels - and the typical upheaval precipitated by a trip 'over the river and through the woods' into the bosom of your family's particula...

BWW Review: Davis Shines as THE BELLE OF AMHERST
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 07, 2015

Caroline Davis' tour-de-force performance as American poet Emily Dickinson distinguishes the current production of William Luce's The Belle of Amherst - onstage through November 22 at The Filming Station Downtown, in a delightful revival helmed by veteran director Melissa Carrelli - and, clearly, is...

BWW Review: Circle Players' OF MICE AND MEN
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 01, 2015

In Of Mice and Men, writer John Steinbeck relates the tale of two lifelong friends whose hard-scrabble lives are played out against the backdrop of the Great Depression: two men whose bleak existence is made even more challenging by the cruel realities of the world at that time. Since its publicatio...

BWW Review: Lipscomb University's INTO THE WOODS
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 30, 2015

If you need something to prod you toward making reservations to see Lipscomb University's staging of the near-legendary Into the Woods - although we find it hard to believe anyone could not want to hear that wondrous score once more - we are happy to give you that prompt: Sarah Zanotti's performance...

BWW Review: Vasterling's DRACULA From Nashville Ballet
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 23, 2015

Darkly sensual and broodingly sexy, Paul Vasterling's balletic interpretation of Bram Stoker's legendary anti-hero Dracula (first presented in 1999 and revived in 2007) remains as potent and as stirring as ever, richly conceived and beautifully performed by the dancers of Nashville Ballet, who offer...

BWW Review: CINDERELLA Captivates in Music City Debut
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 21, 2015

Sumptuously designed, beautifully staged and wonderfully sung, Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella isn't the same show you may recall from childhood hours spent in front of a television or from scores of regional theater productions since, but with a new and refreshingly timely book by Douglas Carter...

BWW Review: Keeton Theatre's THE MUSIC MAN
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 11, 2015

If you were to ask me to list my five favorite musicals (or even my top ten), there is a very good chance I would not include Meredith Willson's The Music Man among my chosen favorites. But then I see another production of that particular Willson tribute to Americana that features a fast-talking sal...

BWW Review: Arts Center of Cannon County's 12 ANGRY MEN
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 11, 2015

Led by a pair of stellar performances from Aaron Solomon and Darryl Deason, Arts Center of Cannon County's production of Reginald Rose's 12 Angry Men retains its crackling intensity some 61 years after it premiered on television and 58 years since the acclaimed film version starring Henry Fonda and ...