Andrew Jackson News

The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (Davis McCallum, Artistic Director) presents the touring production of Where We Belong by Madeline Sayet, directed by Mei Ann Teo and produced with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, in association with Folger Shakespeare Library. Where We Belong began performances on Saturday, August 13 and will run through Monday, August 22. Check out photos of her in action!

It’s been a while since Liz Callaway last performed on a Nashville stage – it was a performance of “The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber” with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra – and longer still since the time she auditioned for Opryland USA while still a high school student (she wasn’t cast, but more about that later…), so sharing the stage of Andrew Jackson Hall with her longtime pal and confidant Jason Graae on Saturday, August 20, is something she eagerly anticipates.

Even after a brief telephone conversation – which covers as many subjects as time will allow – it’s quite clear that Jason Graae is not only an acclaimed actor, entertainer and stage/film/tv performer. He is, at his very core, a raconteur (which is a fancy French way of saying he can tell a great story).

But beloved as it may be, why in the ever-loving hell has it taken so long for To Kill A Mockingbird to become a theatrical play that is actually worthy of its literary heritage? Sure, there’s been a 1990 (?!) version by Christopher Sergel that’s made it way through every high school auditorium, community theater playhouse and reginal theater over the intervening three decades that we are, quite frankly, sick to death of it. In fact, if we never see it again, we’ve seen it far too often: a warmed over, treacly and maudlin rehash that’s far too dependent on the title’s movie roots to really emerge from a darkened theater to become a consummate American play.

When Lin-Manuel Miranda’s epic masterpiece Hamilton was last in residence at Nashville’s Tennessee Performing Arts Center – where it is now ensconced for an as equally anticipated, if briefer, two-week run through August 7 – the world was a far different place than that in which we live today. Yet somehow, due in very large part to the Covid-19 pandemic, the January 6th insurrection at our nation’s Capitol, and the repercussions and reverberations of those two cataclysmic events that have followed in the intervening two-and-a-half years, Hamilton seems to be more resonant, its story more relevant and its presentation more heartrending and current than ever before.

A Noise Within will present George Orwell’s savage satire, Animal Farm, directed by ANW co-artistic director Julia Rodriguez-Elliott. The acclaimed stage adaptation opens A Noise Within’s 2022-23 season on September 3. Performances continue through October 2, with previews beginning August 28.

Six middle schoolers vie for the glory of being the undisputed Spelling Bee Champion in the outrageous and fun musical comedy, THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE, with book by Rachel Sheinkin and music and lyrics by William Finn.

Fox & Friends co-host, leading nationally syndicated radio host, and New York Times bestselling author Brian Kilmeade brings his well-known humor and commentary to New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) on Saturday, August 27, 2022 at 8PM. 

Grace Davies has unveiled the official music video for her triumphant new single, ‘Wolves’, a rip-roaring power-punch to the past and a life-affirming ode to owning your mistakes. Along with the release, Grace has announced her first ever headline show at St. Pancras Old Church, London, taking place on 18th August 2022.

This July 4th, enjoy songs from shows like: Hamilton, Allegiance, 1776, Ragtime, Hello, Dolly!, Assassins, Rent, Holiday Inn, Songs for a New World, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, The Music Man, West Side Story, Rags, George M, Giant, Anyone Can Whistle, American Idiot, In the Heights, Hair, Working, and many more!

Thanks to the successful and continuing partnership of Studio Tenn and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Sam Harris returns to Nashville this Saturday night for an evening of Cabaret On Stage, the kick-off of the second season of such offerings on the stage of TPAC’s Andrew Jackson Hall.

PIPPIN, written by Roger O. Hirson, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, will run at Playhouse on Park July 6 - August 21, 2022. This will be the final production in Playhouse on Park’s 13th Main Stage Season.

The Spy Ninjas announced they will take their detective, martial arts, and hacking skills from the screen to the stage with the all new Spy Ninjas Live. Find out how to get tickets and more. 

DavJasFran Entertainment announced its inaugural production of ENDS by local Chicago playwright David Alex. The production runs July 14 - July 31 at Dreamers YOLO, 5419 N. Lincoln Ave, press opening, July 14 at 7:30 PM. 

Sam is holding on to the past. He’s had the same job, lived in the same house, even ordered the same coffee for a decade now. This one weekend could change all of that. Come see the world premiere of Ten Year – a new musical by Wesley King and Jacob Henz, running through June 4 at Nashville’s Darkhorse Theater.

Songwriting team Will Reynolds and Eric Price, winners of the Fred Ebb Award for Musical Theatre Writing, have released of a music video for their song “Getting Closer” from their forthcoming musical Radioactive, performed by Hannah Corneau (Wicked).

Tony Award-winning director and writer Alex Timbers has released his first book, a children's picture book, titled Broadway Bird, a charming, irreverent, heartfelt story set in an all-animal version of Broadway.

Long Wharf Theatre yesterday announced the launch of its 2022/2023 season, “Everywhere for Everyone.” Under its new model, audiences will see programming radiating out from the institution's storied home at 222 Sargent Drive and into communities across Greater New Haven.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins popular comedy APPROPRIATE gets its first Greenville production on June 10th.  The dark, family comedy is being produced by The Warehouse Theatre after originally being scheduled during the initial pandemic shutdown.  

Yet perhaps at no time during its vaunted and venerated history has Oklahoma! been so polarizing as it has become now, thanks to the 2019 Broadway revival directed by Daniel Fish which is touring the provinces. Read our critic's review.