Phil Perry

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…

The new musical PERFECT WORLD will get an invite-only, industry presentation on October 27 & 28. It features book and lyrics by Alan Edmunds, music & lyrics by Richard Winzeler, and will be directed by Karen Carpenter with music director & vocal arrangements by Laura Bergquist and choreography by Alexandra Beller.

Our next interview is with Broadway Bass player (Come From Away, Disaster, Holler if Ya Hear Me, and Bring it On), composer, and producer Carl Carter. 

The Palace Theater & ACT Jams Productions Present: 'An Evening of Jazz & Soul with Chris 'Big Dog' Davis & Friends on November 23 at 8:00pm. Tickets with fees included range from $51.50 - $81.50 and   can be purchased online at www.palacetheaterct.org, by phone at 203-346-2000, or in person at the Box Office, 100 East Main St.

Veteran keyboardist David Garfield entered the year with a single in the Billboard Top 10 (“Go Home”) before announcing the details of his ambitious recording project, “Outside the Box.” The multidisc, multi-genre series of albums trickling out over a multi-year span features high-wattage assemblages of Grammy winners, legends, hit-makers and prominent musicians including members of the Zac Brown Band, Steely Dan, Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, The Doors, Chicago, Toto, Tower of Power and The Meters.

When asked how he got Grammy-winning legends George Benson and David Sanborn to perform on his new single, “Stay,” keyboardist David Garfield responds dryly with a gleeful grin, “You ask them.” The third single from Garfield's forthcoming “Jammin' Outside the Box” album is a remake of the Rufus classic featuring the vintage R&B-funk band's former drummerMoon Calhoun singing lead on the song he wrote with Chaka Khan. “Stay” goes for radio adds on June 11 and drops digitally fromCreatchy Records on June 15.    

Good Morning, Theaterati! It's May Day: May 1, 2017, and we're asking the musical question…What if you have five members from two casts of Million Dollar Quartet together backstage after a performance of the show, might it more accurately be known as $1.25 Million Dollar Quartet?

Michael Frayn's classic farce Noises Off debuts at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater May 12, running through May 27, in a production helmed by Bradley Moore for ACT 1's 2016-17 season.

Just in time to lift your spirits in the wake of a bruising presidential election season, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre - the iconic theatrical venue, which for 50 years has delighted Nashville audiences on the chow-and-bow circuit - provides ample laughs and plenty of guffaws (along with a bountiful buffet) with their latest version of Red, White and Tuna, which transports audiences to the third smallest town in Texas for yet another down-home, Independence Day-flavored adventure.

Jiana Hunter journeyed from Motown to Memphis by way of Cincinnati, Ohio, and has performed with notable musical imprints such as Darmon Meader, Billy Hart, Bobby McFerrin, Pastor Marvin L. Winans (Perfecting Church), Michael F. Mack, Dorinda Clark Cole, Jonathan Dunn, Tamela Mann, Donnie McClurkin, Donald Lawrence, Phil Perry, Maysa, Anthony Hamilton, Eric Roberson and KEM.

Find out what's happening this month at NJPAC!

Recognized the world over not only by their bold-face names, but especially by their superb talents, the artists headlining New Jersey Performing Arts Center's 2016-17 season validate the Arts Center as the state's most diverse and artistically excellent presenter.

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.

Nashville actor and NFL Hall of Famer Eddie George, who makes his Broadway debut Tuesday night in the iconic musical Chicago, was named First Night's Outstanding Leading Actor in a Play for his searing portrayal of a former slave haunted by the spectre of abuse in Nashville Repertory Theatre's The Whipping Man. Rene Dunshee Copeland, producing artistic director of Nashville Rep, was named Outstanding Director of a Play, while her three-actor ensemble (which included James Rudolph and Matthew Rosenbaum) were awarded as First Night's Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Play for their rendition of the Matthew Lopez play.

Leave it to the ambitious and creative people of Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble to continue the celebration of the company's 20th anniversary season with the presentation of a new and compelling play – The Nether by Jennifer Haley – which ushers audiences into the dystopian world that has evolved in the not-too-distant future. It's an intriguing choice, to be sure, and one which could be fraught with failure and pretension were it not for the superb production concept and vision of director/producer Jessika Malone, given the wherewithal by ABE producing artistic director and co-founder Vali Forrister to challenge audiences in every way possible and to upend all conventional thought with a production that continues to haunt me almost a week after seeing it.

Jessika Malone directs Actors Bridge Ensemble's 20th Anniversary Season's upcoming production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, opening December 4 at the new Actors Bridge Studio at the Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue (entrance on 47th Avenue).

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.

ACT JAMS Productions presents 'An Up Close and Personal Event' with Connecticut's own music genius, two-time Grammy nominee writer and producer, Chris 'Big Dog' Davis, featuring vocalist and Grammy nominee Maysa and Friends, and recording artists Lamone Andrews and Dawn Tallman today, Nov. 27, at 8 p.m. at the Waterbury Palace Theater.

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.

Jessika Malone directs Actors Bridge Ensemble's 20th Anniversary Season's upcoming production of Jennifer Haley's The Nether, opening December 4 at the new Actors Bridge Studio at the Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue (entrance on 47th Avenue).