Jef Ellis

With the season of Thanksgiving at hand, we celebrate Denice Hicks with A Nashville Theater Tribute: Giving Thanks for Denice, a multi-part retrospective of some of our favorite stories and interviews with her from over the years. We begin our special season of giving thanks for her theatrical legacy, abiding love and continuing presence in our lives with some thoughts from some of her closest friends and artistic collaborators…

Don't Look Black was developed during Crowder's Fellowship with TPS in 2020.

a?oeWhat the hell did I just sit through?a?? was my visceral reaction upon leaving the opening night performance of A.D. Timms' Tall Tales a?" the original a?oequeer horror storya?? presented by Woven Theatre Company at The Barbershop Theatre through October 20. Now, some 96 hours later as I sit down to compose my review of the piece, I find myself continuing to ponder that question.

In recent years, Center for the Arts has certainly upped the ante with musical productions which have, consistently, been better than the one before, raising the bar for all the shows still to come. Case in point: Disney's Newsies, which closed its sold-out run in Murfreesboro on Sunday.

One of the silver screen's most popular musicals, Singin' in the Rain comes to the stage of Woodbury's Arts Center of Cannon County with all the trappings of a box office smash: memorable score, talented actors and enough technical razzle-dazzle to delight even the most discerning of theater-goers. Opening February 8 (and continuing through February 23) at ACCC, the stage musical stars Austin Jeffrey Smith, Lindsey Mapes Duggin and Daxton Patrick in the film roles immortalized by Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor in the award-winning 1952 film version.

It's the day of the show, y'all: The Nashville premiere of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band is tonight - at The Barbershop Theatre, 4003 Indiana Avenue in The Nations - and six of the actors portraying Crowley's now-iconic characters took time from tech week to answer questions about their processes and to offer their reasons for why you should come see the show.

Nine Nashville area actors have been cast in the upcoming production of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, which will play six performances at The Barbershop Theatre, 4003 Indiana Avenue, in a production helmed by veteran director Jeffrey Ellis, who is known throughout Tennessee as a leading theater journalist and critic.

Nine Nashville area actors have been cast in the upcoming production of Mart Crowley's The Boys in the Band, which will play six performances at The Barbershop Theatre, 4003 Indiana Avenue, in a production helmed by veteran director Jeffrey Ellis, who is known throughout Tennessee as a leading theater journalist and critic.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Thursday, June 1, 2017 - or, as we like to call it #TheaterThursday, 'June is busting out all over…' as a song from Carousel reminds us, and there's no better way to kick off a new month than by planning our theater outings for the weekend! Tomorrow night at Cumberland County Playhouse, the company, cast and crew unveil the 2017 model of Smoke on the Mountain, which marks the 24th year of the musical playing in Crossville. Weslie Webster directs and her cast includes Daniel W. Black and Lauren Marshall as Sanders family father and mother Burl and Vera.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! According to the non-clock thing hanging on the wall - what's it called? Oh, yeah, a calendar (yeah, like we'd ever allow a calendar to hang on any wall under our control - today is May 31, 2017! It's another day to allow yourself to live life dramatically and to gain ownership of your own schedule for the rest of the week so you can be certain to get to the theater. Yesterday, in our never-ending quest to enlist all of you to write our daily column for us, we posted TODAY'S QUERY on Facebook, asking our gentle readers to weigh in or whether or not 'dressing for the theater' is de rigueur or is it more of a 'come as you are' nature. Little did we know that such a question could engender such passionate responses and we daresay rather passionate defenses of the wear-whatever-the-hell-you-want school of thought.

Veteran Nashville actress Linda Speir will make her Larry Keeton Theatre debut as the matriarch in Del Shores' Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will, the next production on the stage of the Donelson theater, running April 20-May 6.

Veteran Nashville actress Linda Speir will make her Larry Keeton Theatre debut as the matriarch in Del Shores' Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will, the next production on the stage of the Donelson theater, running April 20-May 6.

In three weeks POP Montreal 2016 will be celebrating 15 years in show business. 15 years of presenting amazing music,art and bringing people together in Montreal for a pretty damn good MEGA PARTY! This year's festival will be fun, fresh and exciting.

Once again, it's that time of year: a period of reflection and introspection that gives us all the perfect opportunity to express our gratitude for the things in our lives that have meant the most to us in 2015. We reached out to members of our theater community, to inquire about that which they are thankful for and we got some very heartfelt, considered romances that, leavened by the humor injected from some of our favorite people, gives us added insight into the psyche of the artistic and creative-minded people who make theatrical magic every day…

As members of the Nashville theater community join with members of the theaterati far-flung across the world to celebrate the 20th birthday of Actors Bridge Ensemble - the cutting-edge, forward-thinking, boundary-pushing, status quo-challenging theater company that has helped to make Music City USA somehow more creative and more welcoming to artisans who flock here to pursue their dreams - we are reminded of the company's early days and the days even before that when we first came to know of a young woman named Vali Forrister.

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.

To give credit where credit is indeed due: Wes Driver and Greg Greene, with the creation of Blackbird Theatre, have given Nashville audiences some of the finest theater of the past five years, consistently providing thoughtful and provocative drama and music to a public clamoring for more intellectual pursuits amid the confines of a darkened theater. From their first production - Twilight of the Gods, an original comedy/drama/fantasy that has proven a favorite of theater companies all over the country - to their most recent project, they have continued to push the creative envelope and to challenge viewers to think. On top of those lofty aspirations, Messrs. Driver and Green are good men, gentlemen to a fault, warm and friendly, clever and quick.

Today, the spotlight shines on Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva, Sue Fabisch, Jaclyn Lisenby Brown and Corrie Miller, the cast of director Kim Nygren's ensemble for Motherhood the Musical, opening tonight at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre. Fabisch created the show, so let's hope she's happy with the way things are going…

Initial artwork for Circle Players' upcoming production of William Inge's Picnic, with art by Arthur Henry Kirkby IV and graphic design by David Arnold, has been released just as rehearsals get under way for the show's March 26-April 4 run at Nashville's Hillsboro High School.