Vicki White

Somewhere among the cards and letters, photographs and souvenirs from my misspent youth is a picture (circa 1978) of me clad in a powder blue tuxedo, with a ruffled-front shirt edged in the same hue, all capped off by an impossibly wide bow tie to match a?" my costume to serve as a groomsman in the wedding of two friends. That image has been prominent in my mind for the past 12 hours after experiencing déjà vu of a particular sort, thanks to a rousing, rollicking and downright rocking production of The Wedding Singer, the latest offering at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, which opened last night and continues through October 19 at the venerable Nashville venue.

If there is a more perfect pooch to portray Annie's Sandy than Rufus Stewart, then his humans should produce said canine for an upcoming production of the beloved Broadway musical post-haste. Until such time as that occurs, we are simply going to claim Rufus as the quintessential canine co-star for any number of red-headed moppets singing about "Tomorrow" while palling around with FDR, Frances Perkins, Harold Ickes and others of their political ilk.

It's another busy weekend in Nashville - but when is Music City not packed with events, festivals, affairs? - and we're back with our Critic's Choice recommendations to have you cut through the theatrical flotsam and jetsam and find a cultural opening that's a good fit for your harried lifestyle. Nashville Opera opens its staging of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock at Noah Liff Opera Center, Way Off Broadway Productions unveils its version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Music Valley Event Center, Street Theatre Company invites you to the see their staging of Lynn Nottage's Sweat at their new venue on Elm Hill Pike and Nashville Rep continues its celebration of 10 years of The Ingram New Works Festival at Nashville Children's Theatre.

As the magical floating stage descends from the upper recesses of Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, anticipation grows and attention is directed to the half dozen actors seated upon the stage, their chairs as unique as the performers themselves. Gathered together by director Joy Tilley Perryman, the dozen actors who will be seen and heard in the company's performance of Listen to Your Mother, a collection of monologues on the subject of parenthood and the myriad relationships to be found among parents and children, were each cast for his or her particular strengths, whether it's their ability to tell a story or to engage an audience.

Today, in our final installment, our spotlight falls upon three Nashville actors - Mileah Milstead, Vicki White and Shelena Walden - who join their castmates for the show at Chaffin's Barn, located at 8204 Highway 100 in Nashville. For ticket information or reservations, call (615) 646-9977 or go to www.chaffinsbarntheatre.com.

Throughout the past year, I've written quite often about Nashville's Chase Miller and his tremendous talents, remarkable stage presence and startling ability to successfully morph from one character to another completely unlike the first (or any to follow). Miller is rather insanely talented and any director worth her or his salt would be deliriously happy to have the serious triple threat in any show on their drawing board.

Nashville's iconic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre is back and better than ever! After some six months - and 50 or more years since its debut - the newly renovated and gorgeously appointed Chaffin's Barn has reopened with a rousing production of Sister Act, the habit-forming musical that played to sold-out audiences last summer.

Meggan Utech and Gracie McGraw will make their Chaffin's Barn debuts this summer, joining Barn favorite Martha Wilkinson in Sister Act, the hilarious, five-time Tony Award-nominated musical, opening June 8 and running through July 22.

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer.

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Back in the day, theatrically speaking, there was something you could always count on in Nashville: some of the very best (if not the best) summer musicals could be found at one venue - Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. All manner of classic stage musicals were staged at the Barn over the years, ranging from Oklahoma! and Camelot to The Robber Bridegroom and Singin' in the Rain, and they remain vividly etched in memory, images of well-respected actors plying their trade in iconic shows and performing legendary musical scores we still revere as some of the best shows we've ever seen.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to Friday, June 9, 2017 - we're awfully glad to have you here! It's a big weekend in Nashville, maybe the biggest ever, thanks to the perfect storm of events and celebrations all across the region. It's CMA Music Festival weekend, Bonnaroo is pulsating some miles down the road (taking most of the attendees through Music City on their way to Manchester) and the Nashville Predators take on a team from Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup Final's sixth game on Sunday night at Bridgestone Arena.

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

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.

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!