Jillian Barron

It's that most wonderful time of the year, and Opera Memphis teams up with Dixon Gallery & Gardens to bring back A Victorian Holiday for Memphis families and friends. This unique theatrical experience transports party-goers back to 19th-Century Memphis where they are invited to immerse themselves in Victorian-era music, costumes, characters, and more! The full-evening event will include operatic performances, live carolers, Victorian-themed activities and games, dancing, and all new interactive Victorian characters! A Victorian Holiday runs two weekends, December 13 - 14 and 20 - 21, at Dixon Gallery & Gardens. Tickets are $25 general admission, $20 for Dixon members, and can be purchased at www.operamemphis.org or by calling 901.257.3100.

30 Days of Opera returns September 1-30, 2019, putting Memphis and the Mid-South on the national stage with dozens of free opera performances, the OPERA America Civic Action Regional Meeting, and the Opera & Race Symposium hosted by Rhodes College and Opera Memphis. This year will include performances at iconic locations like the Cooper-Young Festival, Germantown Festival, Memphis Pride Festival, and many more! Back by popular demand, Opera Memphis will perform at the Levitt Shell on Friday, September 13 as part of the Orion Free Music Concert Series in Overton Park.

Director Aliza Moran calls Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief 'a fun, humorous, and poignant play. I fell in love with the play in college and am so excited to be able to direct it now. Paula Vogel takes three well-known female characters from Shakespeare's Othello (Desdemona, Emilia, and Bianca) and breaks their Shakespearean mold by adding depth to their wants, needs, desires, and relationships in this modern language retelling; each character desires to break free from their present circumstances and live lives of their own making.' 

Tennessee Shakespeare Company officially launches its tenth anniversary season this week when it brings Romeo and Juliet to the historic outdoor train depot and platform in Collierville Town Square on Saturday, October 7 at 4:00 pm.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company, the Mid-South's professional, classical theatre and education organization, today announced its Tenth Anniversary Performance and Education Season.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company, in partnership with the University of Memphis' Department of Theatre & Dance, presents William Shakespeare's madcap, joyous The Comedy of Errors on the U of M's Theatre Mainstage from June 8-18.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company (TSC), the Mid-South's professional classical theatre, continues its popular Southern Literary Salon on April 21 with one of the more shocking American voices of the 20th Century - Flannery O'Connor.

The evening features fun Southern food, conversation, thirty minutes or so of readings from Welty's works, and a mixed spirit of the author's liking.  Tickets for the Welty Salon only are $55 and include all of the above.  

Tennessee Shakespeare Company (TSC), the Mid-South's professional classical theatre, returns to its popular Southern Literary Salon for a look at the ever-changing vision of the Pulitzer Prize-winning, life-long daughter of Jackson, Mississippi.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company, the Mid-South's professional, classical theatre, will perform William Shakespeare's elegant romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing from December 8-18, directed by founder and Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company, the Mid-South's professional, classical theatre, will perform William Shakespeare's elegant romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing from December 8-18, directed by founder and Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary.

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, with book by Jeffery Lane and music & lyrics by David Yazbek, will open this March at Germantown Community Theatre, running March 11-26, 2016. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, with book by Jeffery Lane and music & lyrics by David Yazbek, will open this March at Germantown Community Theatre, running March 11-26, 2016. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Evan Linder's BYHALIA, MS, a winner of the 2014 NewWorks@The Works Playwriting Competition, came about at an interesting time. I had recently heard an interview on NPR featuring Alabama-born Walton Goggins, currently co-starring in Quintin Tarantino's THE HATEFUL EIGHT. Goggins, a gifted actor, made the point that he did not wish to perpetuate the tired old 'let's paint Southerners as uneducated rednecks' point of view that all too often emerges in Hollywood films about the subject; having appreciated his point, I was initially wary of a work about racism entitled BYHALIA, MS. The South, and Mississippi in particular, are easy 'punching bags' for liberals; and yes, the historical past can surely produce numerous examples. There's no way, I thought, that Evan Linder should ever run for Mayor of Byhalia, a small Mississippi town not far from Memphis. However, after seeing the play, I realized that I was guilty of preconceived notions and misconceptions -- a shortcoming shared by black and white characters alike in Mr. Linder's probing, ambitious work.

Jim and Laurel Parker are about to become new parents. When Laurel finally gives birth to their overdue child, she and Jim are faced with the biggest challenge of their lives when their baby boy is black, the result of Laurel's affair the previous year. The lives of their families and friends are thrown into turmoil in Byhalia, Mississippi, a town with a racially-charged past that still very much affects it's present. Byhalia, Misissippi is a winner of the 2014 NewWorks@TheWorks playwriting competition. This will mark the second time that TheatreWorks has played host to the work of Byhalia, Mississippi playwright Evan Linder. Playhouse on the Square audiences might remember his work from the 2013 production of the comedy Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche. 

Tennessee Shakespeare Company, in partnership with the University of Memphis' Department of Theatre & Dance, presents its second developing musical reading on the U of M mainstage with Midsummer Night by Valerie Vigoda and Brendan Milburn on June 27 at 7:00 pm.

A 2013 Pulitzer Prize finalist fresh from off-Broadway, the regional premiere of Rapture, Blister, Burn, by Gina Gionfriddoushers into the Next Stage at Theatre Memphis and runs April 3 - 19, 2105.

While watching the Next Stage production of Gina Gionfriddo's RAPTURE, BLISTER, BURN at Theatre Memphis, I was reminded of John Van Druten's screenplay for the 1943 Warner Brothers film OLD ACQUAINTANCE. It was one of those 'women pictures' which provided thespic opportunities for the likes of actresses like Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins, who, in fact, were the lead players in this particular film. In their youth, the two women had been friends, but as their paths parted in life, the Davis character, brittle and alone, became a critically acclaimed (if financially challenged) author, while the Hopkins character, finally penning a bestseller (trash that it is, it rakes in the 'big bucks'), jealously desires what Davis has. I couldn't help thinking, if Gionfriddo's RAPTURE had fallen into the hands of a director like Vincent Sherman, I could see Davis as the 'Catherine Croll' character, who, despite national recognition and an evidently fulfilling career, begins to have doubts about her life choices. (If you've ever seen the famous car scene in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's ALL ABOUT EVE, also starring Davis, you'll hear the character of stage actress 'Margo Channing' lament what a woman gives up when she devotes herself entirely to a career: I wonder if this very scene influenced Ms. Gionfriddo in her characterizations.) The other character, 'Gwen,' would obviously have been given over to Hopkins, who would have shone as the once promising woman who jettisoned her own burgeoning promise to marry 'Don Harper,' who once had been Catherine's intended (George Brent, anyone?).

?A 2013 Pulitzer Prize finalist fresh from off-Broadway, the regional premiere of Rapture, Blister, Burn, by Gina Gionfriddo ushers into the Next Stage at Theatre Memphis and runs tonight, April 3 - 19, 2105.

?A 2013 Pulitzer Prize finalist fresh from off-Broadway, the regional premiere of Rapture, Blister, Burn, by Gina Gionfriddo ushers into the Next Stage at Theatre Memphis and runs April 3 - 19, 2105.