But three other individuals are perhaps most responsible for the overall delight that is Tennessee Rep's 25th Anniversary season production: director Rene Dunshee Copeland, whose imaginative work helps to re-invent this musical on a basis that is at once more intimate while, somehow, is on a grander scale; music director Paul Carrol Binkley, whose concept for performing the work's music gives it the ideal down-home feel that only a band of expert Nashville players can give it; and design genius Gary Hoff, who transforms Johnson's black box space into something we've never seen in that venue before - the proscenium theatre you've only seen in your mind's eye - and who, in so doing, elevates Nashville theatrical design beyond its previous limits, fashioning it into something of opulently epic proportions.
The musical version of Mark Twain's classic tale sweeps audiences down the mighty Mississippi as the irrepressible Huck Finn helps his friend Jim, a slave, escape to freedom at the mouth of the Ohio River. Their adventures along the way are propelled by an award-winning score from Roger Miller, which provides a theatrical celebration of pure Americana.
'Proof is the kind of play directors live to work on: a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winner.,' says Tennessee Rep Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland. 'When a play wins both awards you can figure that not only is it of excellent quality as a script, but it has also been successful at winning over audiences. I love a smart, moving play that is also highly entertaining. The structure of it is clever, and it is one of those plays with many layers. The characters are fascinating; the dialogue is brilliant; the story is rich. This is a play that I have wanted to direct, and I am just delighted that the circumstances of the 25th anniversary have given me the opportunity to bring it back.'
Rene Dunshee Copeland is, perhaps, the best stage director in Nashville (competing with her husband, Scot Copeland, the heart and soul of Nashville Children's Theatre, for claim to the imagined title), having brought some of the most memorable works to local stages during her career . And with Tennessee Repertory Theatre (where she is producing artistic director) celebrating its 25th Anniversary Season this year, she has gone for broke, helming all four shows included in the silver season.
'Proof is the kind of play directors live to work on: a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winner.,' says Tennessee Rep Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland. 'When a play wins both awards you can figure that not only is it of excellent quality as a script, but it has also been successful at winning over audiences. I love a smart, moving play that is also highly entertaining. The structure of it is clever, and it is one of those plays with many layers. The characters are fascinating; the dialogue is brilliant; the story is rich. This is a play that I have wanted to direct, and I am just delighted that the circumstances of the 25th anniversary have given me the opportunity to bring it back.'
'Proof is the kind of play directors live to work on: a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winner.,' says Tennessee Rep Producing Artistic Director René D. Copeland. 'When a play wins both awards you can figure that not only is it of excellent quality as a script, but it has also been successful at winning over audiences. I love a smart, moving play that is also highly entertaining. The structure of it is clever, and it is one of those plays with many layers. The characters are fascinating; the dialogue is brilliant; the story is rich. This is a play that I have wanted to direct, and I am just delighted that the circumstances of the 25th anniversary have given me the opportunity to bring it back.'
If, indeed, 'it takes a village,' and if, as the poets say, 'no man is an island,' then perhaps no art form is more collaborative than live theatre. With a village of artists backstage and offstage assuring that each production is mounted, then coming to life during each performance, the collaborative effort is renewed. And what audiences see onstage is the collaboration of artists, the people who comprise the acting ensemble, the folks who bring the stagebound script to life, sending it soaring into our imaginations.
Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' is featured in the cast line up for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash Rent are available now.
Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' is featured in the cast line up for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash Rent are available now.
LONG BEACH, CA-Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' joins the cast line up for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash RENT. RENT will run December 11-20, 2009 at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center. MTW is the first professional regional theatre company to produce their own production of this groundbreaking musical.
LONG BEACH, CA-Just a little over two months after RENT's current Broadway National Tour made a tour stop in nearby Costa Mesa, Musical Theater West debuts the first L.A.-area professional regional production of RENT at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts. Their production of the multiple Tony Award-winning musical, which continues for two weeks until December 20, stars former Queer Eye for the Straight Guy 'culture vulture' Jai Rodriguez in the role of Angel, a role he also stepped into during the latter part of the groundbreaking, Pulitzer prize winning show's 12 year run on Broadway. The material (based loosely on Puccini's La Boheme) is extremely familiar to many of the show's rabid fans. And, as evidenced by the opening night's capacity audience, 'RENT-heads' (as fanatics of the show are lovingly called) come in droves to see and hear this popular musical (even in the pouring rain-a rarity here in Southern California).
LONG BEACH, CA-Just a little over two months after RENT's current Broadway National Tour made a tour stop in nearby Costa Mesa, Musical Theater West debuts the first L.A.-area professional regional production of RENT at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts. Their production of the multiple Tony Award-winning musical, which continues for two weeks until December 20, stars former Queer Eye for the Straight Guy 'culture vulture' Jai Rodriguez in the role of Angel, a role he also stepped into during the latter part of the groundbreaking, Pulitzer prize winning show's 12 year run on Broadway. The material (based loosely on Puccini's La Boheme) is extremely familiar to many of the show's rabid fans. And, as evidenced by the opening night's capacity audience, 'RENT-heads' (as fanatics of the show are lovingly called) come in droves to see and hear this popular musical (even in the pouring rain-a rarity here in Southern California).
Musical Theatre West's regional premiere of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash Rent, featuring Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' opens December 11 and runs for only 10 performances through December 20, 2009 at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center located at 6200 Atherton Street, Long Beach, CA 90815.
Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' is featured in the cast line up for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash Rent are available now.
Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' is featured in the cast line up for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash Rent are available now.
LONG BEACH, CA-Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' joins the cast line up for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash RENT. RENT will run December 11-20, 2009 at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center. MTW is the first professional regional theatre company to produce their own production of this groundbreaking musical.
Musical Theatre West's regional premiere of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash Rent, featuring Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' opens December 11 and runs for only 10 performances through December 20, 2009 at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center located at 6200 Atherton Street, Long Beach, CA 90815.
Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' is featured in the cast line up for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash Rent are available now.
LONG BEACH, CA-Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that Jai Rodriguez, star of Bravo TV's 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' joins the cast line up for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash RENT. RENT will run December 11-20, 2009 at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center. MTW is the first professional regional theatre company to produce their own production of this groundbreaking musical.
With Tennessee Repertory Theatre celebrating its 25th year as one of the nation's premier regional theatres, it's only appropriate that the season kicks off with a revival of Robert Harling's iconic Southern comedy Steel Magnolias, running October 3-24 at the Andrew Johnson Theatre at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
