Allison Hall News

Passionate and captivating, The Hunchback of Notre Dame - the stage musical based on the Disney animated classic, featuring music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Peter Parnell - is given a superb production at Woodbury's Arts Center of Cannon County and discerning theater patrons in Middle Tennessee have but two performances left to experience the show under the direction of Darryl Deason and Rachel Jones.

Ragtime, the stirring Lynn Ahrens-Stephen Flaherty-Terrance McNally musical about American society at the turn of the 20th century - based on the E. L. Doctorow novel of the same name - premieres on the Murfreesboro stage of the Center for the Arts, directed by Rachel Jones and starring a cast of Middle Tennessee's favorite performers.

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.

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.

Turkeys are on-sale at your local supermarket, so there's no better way to know Thanksgiving is just around the corner - yep, less than two weeks away! - which means that local theater companies will be unleashing their holiday season productions with enough productions of A Christmas Story (both the musical and the play), It's A Wonderful Life and Ebenezer Scrooge-led shows that you could shake a stick at!

Thus, we are happy to present the return of one our most popular features: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come. Something's missing? That's an easy fix: just send us a message here, on Facebook, or by email at jeffreyellis37215@att.com.

Things are sure to be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious this weekend, as Mary Poppins - the practically perfect in every way nanny - flies over the housetops of London, lading in Woodbury at The Arts Center of Cannon County. Directed by Allison Hall, the award-winning musical runs for three weekends at ACCC, starring Alice Matlock Clements as Mary Poppins and Scott Willis as Bert, the nimble-footed chimney sweep.

Halloween's all done in, there are still three weeks ahead before we officially give thanks, and Christmas - and all its accompanying frenzy and frivolity - is about seven weeks away! So what's there to do for all the theatrical types jonesing for a trip to make believe? Plenty! Theater companies all over middle Tennessee are showing off their best and brightest, with a number of eagerly anticipated shows opening this weekend and/or continuing from their earlier opening nights and next Tuesday there's a sparkling new Broadway musical swinging through Music City to entertain you…

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.

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.

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.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of Mary Poppins, Bat Boy, August: Osage County and First Baptist of Ivy Gap - and producers are seeking cast members for The Music Man at the Keeton Theatre. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse!

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of Steel Magnolias, Cheaper by The Dozen and First Baptist of Ivy Gap - and producers are seeking cast members for a touring production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse!

More than 150 people gathered at Nashville's venerable Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre Monday night for the announcement of honorees and award winners for the 2015 First Night Honors. Preview Party celebrants were treated to a bountiful buffet of entertainment as cast members from several musicals currently on the boards or upcoming on Middle Tennessee stages performed numbers from their shows

More than 150 people gathered at Nashville's venerable Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre Monday night for the announcement of honorees and award winners for the 2015 First Night Honors. Preview Party celebrants were treated to a bountiful buffet of entertainment as cast members from several musicals currently on the boards or upcoming on Middle Tennessee stages performed numbers from their shows.

Theater in Tennessee has never been busier nor has it been more diverse than what you'll find onstage this weekend throughout the Volunteer State. From frothy and fun summer musicals that are sure to make you think - like All Shook Up at Chaffin's Barn and A Chorus Line at Cumberland County Playhouse - to new plays from Shawn Whitsell (his latest, Songs For Our Sons, premieres at Darkhorse Theatre on Friday night) and emerging playwright Che Pieper (his new script based on the book The Man With the Light in His Window debuts at The Theater Bug this weekend)…the magic of live theater is all around you…even in this heat and humidity! So pull your seersucker suits and sundresses out of the closet, get all gussied up and make your way to the relative cool of a darkened theater for some midsummer magic!

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of The Mousetrap, Manuscript, Cheaper by The Dozen and First Baptist of Ivy Gap - and producers are seeking cast members for a touring production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. There's even a haunted house in Auburtown seeking performers for a paying gig. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse!

The First Night Honors' Class of 2015 will be revealed next Monday night, July 27, as Nashville Theater's Big Reveal: The First Night Preview Party gets under way at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre at 6 p.m., featuring entertainment by the casts of some of the summer's biggest musicals throughout Tennessee.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of Harvey and Deathtrap - and producers are seeking cast members for a touring production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse!

Truth be told, one of my favorite movies is Bring It On, the story of competitive cheerleading starring Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, Jesse Bradford and Gabrielle Union - and if I had a dollar for every time I've uttered the phrase 'Brrr…it's cold in here, there must be some Toros in the atmosphere' to my dog following a particularly frigid winter stroll at nighttime...well, I'd be rich. That should give you some indication of how much I love the movie, which has gone on to inspire several sequels and one Broadway musical.