Barry Green News

Apparently, it is Elvis Week in Nashville (at least according to the fine folks at Loveless Cafe), so before we head out to the theater for a full weekend of show openings and the like, a trip to West Nashville for a slice of the Loveless' Elvis pie is in order (for the uninitiated, that's peanut butter, banana, bacon and homemade whipped cream-the four basic food groups, according to The King.), so before we slip into a diabetic coma, here's installment #7 of Music City Confidential, all the news that's fit to print from onstage, offstage, backstage and beyond…

Throughout the day, company members had taken to social media to express their shock and grief at the news of Hamlisch's death. Hamlisch, one of the most honored music composers in history, had been scheduled to fly to Nashville this week to see the show for the first time. He was last in Nashville at the start of the company's rehearsals in Music City.

Kummer, who has a lengthy resume of Nashville productions he's either music directed or conducted, leads the band onstage when they are assembled on the bandstand for The Nutty Professor's pep rally production number that closes the show. Clad in sparkly purple vests and green ties (the school colors of fictional Korwin University) designed by Tony Award-winning costumer Ann Hould-Ward, it's a rousing moment when the musicians take the stage. Suffice it to say, Nashville audiences have been vocal and expressive in their reactions since the show's first preview performance on July 24.

Danny Young grew up in the small Wisconsin town of Viola (population 500), the son of a band director, so it should come as absolutely no surprise that he's now plying his trade as a professional musician-a drummer, to be exact-and he's part of the blue-ribbon orchestra playing a brand-new Marvin Hamlisch score every night during performances of The Nutty Professor, A New Musical now onstage at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Last week we launched The Nutty Five as our way of welcoming all these talented people into our midst-even the ones who have Nashville connections, like today's star of the show Danny Young, who is the drummer for The Nutty Professor band (who may be just as jazzed up about his new drum set for the show as he is working with Jerry Lewis).

On Thursday, March 1, Sophia Salveson-at 19, a college student (at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and an aspiring actress-suffered a massive stroke that left her with little to no movement on the right side of her body and major damage to the speech and comprehension center of her brain. Taking her family and friends completely unawares, Salveson's sudden and unexpected medical dilemma sent feelings of shock, dismay and disbelief throughout the country, with its reverberations felt most resoundingly in her hometown of Nashville, where word quickly spread around town and among members of the city's music and theater communities that she had been stricken.

The 2011 edition of the Amelia Island Jazz Festival, scheduled for October 2-9, will showcase an all-new setting for its major concerts and feature more venues to add wider variety to its shows.

The 2011 edition of the Amelia Island Jazz Festival, scheduled for October 2-9, will showcase an all-new setting for its major concerts and feature more venues to add wider variety to its shows.

Shelean Newman, known to Nashville audiences from her storied performances on area stages in productions of such musicals as The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Evita and more, has recently released her second CD for GrandVista Music entitled Snowfall, a collection of some of the season's most apropos songs, along with some surprising selections that fit perfectly into our idea of what the winter holiday season is all about. Snowfall is a follow-up, if you will, to Newman's exquisitely sung first collection for the record label, titled appropriately enough Anything Goes, a collection of standards and showtunes from such composers as Cole Porter, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer and George and Ira Gershwins.

Kathleen Clark's Southern Comforts, co-starring Tony-nominee Penny Fuller and Larry Keith runs from September 19th through October 29th at Primary Stages