Denice Hicks

Tennessee Shakespeare Company hosts the “Belle of Amherst” on its Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage as she shares her poetic relationship to isolation, nature, literature, and love, in the world premiere of I Dwell in Possibility: Emily Dickinson Emerges. 

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival has hired Isabel Tipton-Krispin as their new Executive Managing Director. Isabel Tipton-Krispin will begin with the Festival on October 17, 2022.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company announced its 15th performance season in Memphis featuring expansions of its on-stage productions, educational programming, and outreach initiatives projected to create a record 40,000 points of contact in the coming year.

After more than two years since its original opening night was set in 2020, Nashville Repertory Theatre’s eagerly anticipated production of Disney’s Mary Poppins – the stage musicalization of P.L. Travers’ tales of the acerbic British nanny and her oft-misbehaving charges – has finally landed on the stage of the James K. Polk Theatre at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

The Williamson County Performing Arts Center (WCPAC) at Academy Park and the Williamson County Parks and Recreation Department (WCPR) have announced upcoming events for March and April 2022.

The result is Outside of Here – a work that has evolved from conversations among Lee, Sternberg, Melinda Sewak and Claudia Barnett – which will premiere this Saturday, October 2, on NECAT, Nashville’s Education, Community and Arts Television Network. For 12 hours, one performer (Sternberg plays “Her”) will experience one story dozens of times with more than 30 different actors, who comprise a veritable who’s who of Nashville’s theater community.

Though hard to believe it may be, Studio Tenn artistic director Patrick Cassidy and his wife Melissa Hurley Cassidy have been Tennesseans for well over a year now – he took the reins at Studio Tenn, the Franklin-based professional theater company that has gained critical acclaim and national notoriety during its existence for its unique blend of musicals and original plays – but only now, as theater re-emerges from the dark days of a pandemic-related shutdown, have we managed to get the peripatetic Mr. Cassidy to take time out from his hectic schedule to answer our questions and give BroadwayWorld readers a chance to get to know him better.

Nashville Shakespeare Festival is joining forces with Kennie Playhouse Theatre, a company that has focused on producing the works of Black playwrights and hiring Black artists for the past 15 years. Summer Shakespeare 2021 will include KPT's production of August Wilson's JITNEY alongside NSF's production of Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT.

a?oeNow is the winter of our discontent made silent summer by this darned pandemic.a??

As the lights came up in Nashville Children's Theatre's Ann Stahlman Hill Theatre at the conclusion of Return to Sender a?" the world premiere production of Marisela Trevino Orta's adaptation of Julia Alvarez's novel of the same name, now onstage at NCT through October 27 a?" the familiar a?oedinga?? of an alert emanated from my iPhone: A judge had ruled against a Trump administration initiative to refuse entry to immigrants who might find themselves dependent upon public assistance while they pursue their own version of the American dream.

Nashville theater has always been progressive. There have always been people and companies focused on the cutting edge, delivering productions that challenge and compel their audiences to think and to consider where they are now and where they will go in the future, and there is no question that such forward-thinking creative types will continue to wield influence in the theater community for as long as theater is to be created here, there and everywhere.

Celebrating an opening night is always exciting, if exhausting, nerve-wracking and exhilarating, but when it's the very first production of a new theater company you've co-founded, odds are it's even more so. Just ask Emily Faith who is directing the premiere production of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Dallas-based Lily & Joan theater company she co-founded in 2018 with Erika Larsen.

Actors Bridge Ensemble's acclaimed production of Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves and Cumberland County Playhouse's rendition of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street were named as the top shows of the year during Midwinter's First Night, the annual tribute to theater in Tennessee, held at Nashville's The Larry Keeton Theatre last Sunday night, January 13. Photographer Rae Lynn Whetzel-Stickney captured many of the night's biggest moments with her camera, which are shared on BroadwayWorld Nashville today.

Actors Bridge Ensemble's critically acclaimed production of Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves and Cumberland County Playhouse's stunning mounting of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street were named as the top shows of the year during Midwinter's First Night, the annual tribute to theater in Tennessee, held at Nashville's The Larry Keeton Theatre Sunday night, January 13.

NASHVILLE STORY GARDEN an incubator of original theatre, film and new media projects will be presenting SHE/HER/HERS: 5 One-Act World Premiere plays featuring female leads on THURSDAY, JANUARY 17th at THE CORDELLE (45 Lindsley Ave, Downtown). The evening will also be accompanied with performances by singer/actor MEGAN MURPHY CHAMBERS, making SHE/HER/HERS a special night celebrating the community and artistry of women in Music City.

In anticipation of the gala 30th anniversary celebration of The First Night Awards, Tennessee's best and brightest in live theater were revealed tonight as First Night's Top Ten of 2018 - reviewer and critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual recognition for theater in the Volunteer State - were announced during a Facebook Live presentation from Nashville.

Bradley Brown has been named managing editor of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival and will be responsible for the administrative and operational management of NSF and will oversee the its marketing, development and accounting.

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 night in Music City, all other artistic offerings that abound notwithstanding) - executive artistic director Denice Hicks takes a fanciful look ahead to 2048, and suggests that she'll either be in the audience or, quite possibly, in the cast of whatever show happens to be onstage some 30 years hence. Let me just make this prediction by way of critical pronouncement: Denice Hicks, then 88, will once again be playing the ethereal Puck in NSF's then-current Midsummer and I, who will be a spry 91-year-old at the time (or possibly a critical hologram), will be in the audience once again to marvel at her ageless skills and timeless artistry.

Helen Olaketi Mariah Shute-Pettaway, a 2011 First Night Honoree and one of Nashville's most revered actresses, will take on the iconic role of Regina Giddens in the ACT 1 production of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. Directed by 2014 First Night Honoree Jeffrey Ellis, senior contributing editor for BroadwayWorld.com, The Little Foxes runs at Darkhorse Theatre May 4-19.

All of Nashville is a stage - or will be at some point - as Nashville Shakespeare Festival's celebration of its 30th anniversary continues at venues both expected and unexpected during the coming months.