Bakari King News

Theater audiences in Nashville will be treated to something new this weekend as the new musical Punchinello, based on the writings of Max Lucado, will be presented in a staged reading at Wallace Chapel at Christ Church Nashville this Friday and Saturday nights.

Smokey Joe's Cafe is a show features nine performers, who take audiences back to the 1950s and 1960s with their renditions of many wonderful hits of the rock and roll era. Four of the male singers come together to form a group reminiscent of the two famous quartets Leiber and Stoller wrote for-the Drifters and the Coasters-while other cast members deliver songs made famous by some of the most powerful figures in the world of music, including Elvis Presley, Dion and Big Mama Thornton.

The Act Too Players (ATP), Williamson County's premier training program for all youths interested in the performing arts have now added several new classes including some that are open for adults.

This celebration of the mating game takes on the truths and myths behind that contemporary conundrum know as 'the relationship.' This hilarious revue pays tribute to those who have loved and lost, to those who have fallen on their face at the portal of romance, to those who have dared to ask, 'Say, what are you doing Saturday night?' It's everything you have ever secretly thought about dating, romance, marriage, lovers, husbands, wives and in-laws, but were afraid to admit.

The Act Too Players (ATP), Williamson County's premier training program for all youths interested in the performing arts have now added several new classes including some that are open for adults.

With the start of a new year, things are really heating up for the Franklin-based Act Too Players, the training program for younger actors that's affiliated with Boiler Room Theatre, the First Night Award-winning Outstanding Theatre Company of 2011, and run by Sondra Morton (who does double duty as operations manager at BRT). Already, Morton and her team of actors, artisans, designers and all manner of creative types are hard at work on a trio of productions that usher in 2012 and looking ahead to so much more on the horizon in the new year.

This celebration of the mating game takes on the truths and myths behind that contemporary conundrum know as 'the relationship.' This hilarious revue pays tribute to those who have loved and lost, to those who have fallen on their face at the portal of romance, to those who have dared to ask, 'Say, what are you doing Saturday night?' It's everything you have ever secretly thought about dating, romance, marriage, lovers, husbands, wives and in-laws, but were afraid to admit.

There's just 4 weeks left to go in voting for the 2011 Nashville Awards and here is the latest update! Have you voted yet, and helped to spread the word to support your favorites in the hopes that they will be the recipients of a 2011 BroadwayWorld Nashville Award? There is no time to waste, click on the voting link and make your opinion count! Below are the stats so far as of Tuesday November 29, 2011.

Voting is now well underway for the 2011 Nashville Awards and here is the latest update! Now, it's time for you to get out and vote for your favorites in the hopes that they will be the recipients of a 2011 BroadwayWorld Nashville Award. No time to waste, click on the voting link and make your opinion count! Below are the stats so far as of Monday November 21, 2011.

More to the point, Ragtime in Concert at Street Theatre Company is not to be missed. It is an awe-inspiring night of theater, staged with confidence and a practiced eye for what works visually by Cathy Street and Jane Kelley (who also conducts the 30-some member ensemble) and featuring the always significant contributions of music director Rollie Mains, this production obviously emphasizes the extraordinary musical score that, without danger of exaggeration, should be included in the pantheon of musical theater's greatest accomplishments. I defy you to hear the title tune, 'New Music,' and 'Wheels of a Dream' (or any number of other songs from the score, to be honest) and not to find your heart soaring - they are finely crafted works of art.

Following the sold-out success of Street Theatre Company's local premiere of Chess in Concert this past February, November brings the award-winning Broadway musical, Ragtime, for an In Concert performance.

Although she is loath to admit it, Cathy Street (the eponymous artistic force behind the acclaimed Street Theatre Company) says only time will tell if the 'In Concert' series at STC truly will become a theatrical phenomenon - even if evidence already suggests that it is.

Voting is now open for the 2011 Nashville Awards! Now it's time for you to get out and vote for your favorites in the hopes that they will be the recipients of a 2011 BroadwayWorld Nashville Award. No time to waste, click on the voting link and make your opinion count! Below are the stats so far as of Monday November 14, 2011.

Following the sold-out success of Street Theatre Company's local premiere of Chess in Concert this past February, November brings the award-winning Broadway musical, Ragtime, for an In Concert performance.

Street Theatre Company scores yet another great big hit with its inspired production of Altar Boyz - the musical tale of four devout young Catholics and one very talented Jew, on a divine path toward pop music superstardom. Impressively sung and acted, STC's Altar Boyz is great fun from start to finish, as the earnest young men attest to their faith while delivering a fast-moving concert that sends up every boy band group ever to be created by some Machiavellian agent on the make.

When the last performers had sung the final song and the late honoree had been feted, the crowds at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre for the presentation of First Night, the Nashville Theatre Honors' 2011 Gala Concert, headed downtown to Cummins Station for the After-Party at The Listening Room Cafe.

Street Theatre Company's ALTAR BOYZ - aka Michael Holder, Taylor Casey, Bakari King, Humberto Figueroa and Alan Smith - made a special video appearance at First Night 2011, opening the show with their introduction of host David Compton.

Annie, the irrepressible orphan of newspaper comics-fame who has been delighting audiences onstage since the 1970s, makes her return to Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre this summer, running July 28-September 3, in a new production of Annie directed by Martha Wilkinson, with music direction by Jaclyn Brown and choreography by Bakari King.

The musical comedy and critically-acclaimed hit of the New York Musical Theatre Festival, ALTAR BOYZ, is a hilarious musical comedy about a fictitious Christian boy-band (with one nice Jewish boy) on the last night of their national 'Raise the Praise' tour. The Boyz are five all-singing, all-dancing heartthrobs from Ohio: Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan and Abraham. With their tight harmonies and spectacular choreography, the ALTAR BOYZ will delight audiences.