David R. Bayer

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! We wish you a wonderful start to your work week while posing the musical question: Are you as water-logged as we are? The rains in Tennessee over the weekend are, according to the Weather Channel, on their way out of the area and sunshine is just around the corner…just in time, we say! There's a lot of theater coming up this week and we've got shows to see and people to watch! Greetings to today's cover model Jordan Tudor Haggard who may or may not be enjoying a butterscotch sundae to kick off her day while she catches up on today's news of a theatrical bent.

With a cast filled with some of Nashville's most talented stage performers, director Paul J. Cook's version of Company-now onstage at The Keeton Theatre in a sparkling new production from Circle Players-is brimming over with theatrical riches. But if you had to pick just one from among this cadre of showstopping stars, I'd pick one Ms. Debbie Kraski, whose Joanne in as memorable as any you might have seen, and as heartbreakingly genuine as any you might ever have hoped to witness.

With a capacity crowd of 200 people on hand at The Keeton Theatre, First Night founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis, who covers theater, opera and dance throughout Tennessee for BroadwayWorld.com, unveiled his choices via First Night's Top 11 of 2011, while the winners of the BroadwayWorld.com Nashville and Tennessee Theatre Awards were announced by co-hosts Britt Byrd, Jamie Free, Katherine Sandoval Taylor and Lar'Juanette Williams.