Cori Laemmel News

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.

Dealing with the heretofore difficult to discuss subjects of teenaged depression and suicide, 7 Ways to Sunday opens up a necessary dialogue that is sure to save lives (regardless of how melodramatic that sounds, could one come to any other realization after experiencing the altogether life-changing events depicted in the musical?) thanks to the brutal - yet somehow funny, moving and totally affecting - truths expressed in the latest work from Laemmel, Fritsch and the other artists who call The Theater Bug home.

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!

There are certain things audiences have come to expect in a new production from Studio Tenn, the Franklin-based, Nashville-nurtured professional theater company headed up by Matt Logan and Jake Speck: You know it will be beautifully designed, sumptuously mounted and impeccably cast.

To know Megan Murphy Chambers is to love her: Make no mistake about it, she's as beloved among Nashville's theater community as anyone you could possibly imagine. Her stage appearances are noteworthy and memorable, to be certain, but it's her offstage personality that proves how much everyone loves her. She's thoughtful and kind, funny and charming, sweet and entertaining.

With a new year comes a lot of new theater in Nashville and in 2015, area theater companies are heating up winter with some of the most compelling and challenging productions to grace local stages in quite some time. Already, Circle Players and Nashville Shakespeare Festival have upped the ante with their respective productions of Ragtime the Musical and Twelfth Night (NSF traditionally kicks off the dramatics with their winter production at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre), and in the coming weeks theater-goers will be treated to even more, top-notch, high-quality theatrics.

MAS, aka Erin Parker, Cori Laemmel, Melodie Madden Adams, Laura Matula and Megan Murphy Chambers will take to the Belcourt stage to present their latest holiday cabaret, which follows in a series of critically acclaimed and audience lauded cabaret shows from the five-woman group.

Nashville audiences that embraced Playhouse Nashville's inaugural season of fully produced original plays by local writers will have even more to experience this year beginning in April with Garret Schneider's ULTRASOUND starring Cori Anne Laemmel, Rebekah Durham, and Laura Crockarell.

Directed by Lauren Shouse, Street Theatre Company's production is unique in its casting: Cori and Tyson Laemmel play Cathy and Jamie for the final two weekends of the run, while Kacie Phillips and Ryan Greenawalt opened, to essentially unanimous and deserved acclaim, in the roles for the first two weekends. But here's an intriguing thought: How different would the show be if Cori Laemmel were paired with Ryan Greenawalt and Kacie Phillips played opposite Tyson Laemmel? It's staggering, isn't it?

Today's spotlight falls upon Cori Laemmel, who opens tonight in the reboot of Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years opposite her real-life husband Tyson Laemmel (following the critically acclaimed version that starred Ryan Greenawalt and Kacie Phillips for the first two weeks of the run) at Street Theatre Company.

The Last Five Years runs through May 27. Tickets are only $16 for adults and $14 for students and seniors, with specials including Talk-Back nights, Student nights, and Starving Artist nights. For specific show information, and to purchase tickets, visitwww.streettheatrecompany.org. Performances are at Street Theatre, 1933 Elm Hill Pike, just off the Briley Parkway. For more information, call 615-554-7414.

THE LAST FIVE YEARS is a contemporary musical that chronicles the five year life of a marriage, from meeting to break-up. As the story begins, Cathy is at the beginning of the relationship and Jamie is at the end. With inter-cutting scenes, the audience watches Jamie move forward in time as Cathy moves backward throughout the show. THE LAST FIVE YEARS is a look at the relationship between a writer and an actress told from both points of view.

THE LAST FIVE YEARS is a contemporary musical that chronicles the five year life of a marriage, from meeting to break-up. As the story begins, Cathy is at the beginning of the relationship and Jamie is at the end. With inter-cutting scenes, the audience watches Jamie move forward in time as Cathy moves backward throughout the show. THE LAST FIVE YEARS is a look at the relationship between a writer and an actress told from both points of view.

Nashville audiences-and chattering, anticipatory theater critics-will be given the opportunity to weigh in with their own impressions of Pacific Overtures, thanks to an ambitious production from Blackbird Theater, the acclaimed company now in its sophomore season at David Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theatre.

Beautifully conceived by an ambitious, driven director and artfully brought to life by a stellar cast of actors, Pacific Overtures-the musical by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman-seems, at first, an unlikely choice for the sophomore season of Nashville's Blackbird Theater. Yet when you consider the company's prior offerings (which include Twilight of the Gods, an original play by Wes Driver and Greg Greene, the company's co-founders; Tom Stoppard's intellectually compelling Arcadia; and G.K. Chesterton's rarely produced Magic), it fits perfectly into the Blackbird canon. And, like those earlier productions, Pacific Overtures is another artistic triumph, the realization of a long-held dream by director Greene to bring his favorite work for musical theater to the stage.

Nashville audiences-and chattering, anticipatory theater critics-will be given the opportunity to weigh in with their own impressions of Pacific Overtures, thanks to an ambitious production from Blackbird Theater, the acclaimed company now in its sophomore season at David Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theatre.

Nashville audiences-and chattering, anticipatory theater critics-will be given the opportunity to weigh in with their own impressions of Pacific Overtures, thanks to an ambitious production from Blackbird Theater, the acclaimed company now in its sophomore season at David Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theatre.

Named as First Night's Outstanding Musical of 2011 was Lipscomb University Theatre's production of Hairspray, directed and choreographed by Justin Boccitto. ACT 1's production of American Buffalo, directed by Ryan Williams, claimed top honors as First Night's Oustanding Play of 2011, and the national touring company's Memphis, the Musical, which played Andrew Jackson Hall at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, was named as First Night's Outstanding Touring Production of 2011, besting productions of Spring Awakening, In The Heights, Wicked and Les Miserables.

With a capacity crowd of 200 people on hand at The Keeton Theatre, First Night founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis, who covers theater, opera and dance throughout Tennessee for BroadwayWorld.com, unveiled his choices via First Night's Top 11 of 2011, while the winners of the BroadwayWorld.com Nashville and Tennessee Theatre Awards were announced by co-hosts Britt Byrd, Jamie Free, Katherine Sandoval Taylor and Lar'Juanette Williams.