Barbara Karen

In the scorching heat of an Oklahoma summer, the Weston family has come together due to the disappearance of their patriarch, a world-class poet and alcoholic.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Turkeys are on-sale at your local supermarket, so there's no better way to know Thanksgiving is just around the corner - yep, less than two weeks away! - which means that local theater companies will be unleashing their holiday season productions with enough productions of A Christmas Story (both the musical and the play), It's A Wonderful Life and Ebenezer Scrooge-led shows that you could shake a stick at!

Thus, we are happy to present the return of one our most popular features: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come. Something's missing? That's an easy fix: just send us a message here, on Facebook, or by email at jeffreyellis37215@att.com.

Leading the cast are three stage veterans who have been delighting local audiences for years: Debbie Kraski, Dietz Osborne and Layne Sasser, three names that are sure to attract the attention of theater-goers in the Nashville area. They agreed to take on our Friday Five questions in anticipation of tonight's opening, giving answers we feel certain will encourage you to go see them in their latest onstage adventure.

Halloween's all done in, there are still three weeks ahead before we officially give thanks, and Christmas - and all its accompanying frenzy and frivolity - is about seven weeks away! So what's there to do for all the theatrical types jonesing for a trip to make believe? Plenty! Theater companies all over middle Tennessee are showing off their best and brightest, with a number of eagerly anticipated shows opening this weekend and/or continuing from their earlier opening nights and next Tuesday there's a sparkling new Broadway musical swinging through Music City to entertain you…

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Tracy Letts' acclaimed play about a dysfunctional family coming to terms with one another - August: Osage County - opens at Nashville's iconic Darkhorse Theater on November 6, directed by Bradley Moore and featuring a veritable who's who of Nashville actors. August: Osage County, running through November 21, is presented by ACT 1 as its second show of the 2015-16 season.

Center Stage at Southampton Cultural Center will present the Long Island premiere of Tracy Letts', Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning August: Osage County, from Thursday, March 20 through April 6,, 2014 at SCC's Levitas Center for the Arts.

'The set needs a couch! This actor needs a wig.' These, and countless others, are the requests directors have given to stage-managers, since the relationship between the two entities had been formed to create stirring, surprising and entertaining theatre. Sarah Dryer, the Stage-Manager for August: Osage County at the Ritz Theatre Company does not fall short of ensuring that the thirteen actors and countless talented creators have the means to do what they do best.

'The set needs a couch! This actor needs a wig.' These, and countless others, are the requests directors have given to stage-managers, since the relationship between the two entities had been formed to create stirring, surprising and entertaining theatre. Sarah Dryer, the Stage-Manager for August: Osage County at the Ritz Theatre Company does not fall short of ensuring that the thirteen actors and countless talented creators have the means to do what they do best.

August: Osage County, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that tells the bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, is coming to Boston's Colonial Theatre May 4 - 16 for two weeks only.

The national tour of August: Osage County, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston Family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, will come to an at Boston's Colonial Theatre from May 5th through May 16th.

August: Osage County, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that tells the bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, is coming to Boston's Colonial Theatre May 4 - 16 for two weeks only.

The national tour of August: Osage County, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston Family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, will come to an at Boston's Colonial Theatre from May 5th through May 16th.

Estelle Parsons, star of the national tour of the Tony Award winning AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, recently sat down with the Boston Globe to discuss her career and her work as Violet in the tour.

August: Osage County, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that tells the bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma will end its Philadelphia premiere at the Forrest Theatre on May 2, part of the Broadway Series, a cooperative effort between the Kimmel Center and the Shubert Organization.

August: Osage County, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that tells the bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma will make its Philadelphia premiere at the Forrest Theatre on April 27 through May 2, part of the Broadway Series, a cooperative effort between the Kimmel Center and the Shubert Organization.

August: Osage County, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that tells the bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, is coming to CLEVELAND from APRIL 13 - 25 for 16 performances only.

August: Osage County, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play that tells the bitingly funny and sensationally entertaining tale of the Weston family of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, is coming to Boston's Colonial Theatre May 4 - 16 for two weeks only.