Curtis Reed News

There's nothing like a good musical revue - replete with well-chosen songs, performed by a talented coterie of professional performers who are ably supported by a cast of fresh-faced youngsters showing off their burgeoning talents in concert with their more seasoned counterparts - and The Collective (Nashville's newest theatrical endeavor aka The Music City Theatre Collective) certainly delivers the goods with the debut of Showstoppers, presented this weekend at St. Philip's Episcopal Church's Dimmick Hall in Donelson.

Music City Theatre Collective - the brainchild of Nashville artists Curtis Reed, Jenny Norris-Light, Chase Miller and Martha Wilkinson, among others - will launch its highly anticipated and rather unique company this weekend with a series of performances designed to highlight the Collective's upcoming endeavors.

Thus, we are happy to present one of our most popular features: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2016 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come.

Just in time for the holiday season, the company's original 'musical comedy dinner show,' writer Curtis Reed's Cousin Cleetus' Country Christmas is onstage through the end of 2015, offering audiences a tuneful, if sometimes tone-deaf, holiday extravaganza not unlike a Christmastime television special, the likes of which we haven't seen since the heyday of Hee Haw and other cornfed entertainment offerings. And like its predecessors, Cousin Cleetus' Country Christmas offers a good-hearted, if sometimes confusing, holiday parable that features some mighty talented people deserving of a far-better script.

In a city like Nashville, where art and creativity thrives, there really is nothing more heartwarming and welcome at this time of year than the onstage theatrical traditions we have come to love, like Nashville Repertory Theatre's annual production of A Christmas Story, the stage iteration of the classic film version of writer Jean Shepherd's nostalgic memoir of his boyhood holidays in Indiana. With all the iconic imagery of that “major award” lamp shown off in the living room window, A Christmas Story is vividly reimagined onstage, capturing the film's most memorable moments in clever ways that are at once new and familiar.

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.

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.

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.

Nashville Repertory Theatre provides its contribution to the holiday season with a production of their traditional, family comedy A Christmas Story, running November 27 - December 20, 2015 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. 

Reprising a Music City holiday tradition - while providing plenty of laughs for Black Friday - Nashville Repertory Theatre brightens the season with its A Christmas Story, opening November 27, at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center and running through December 20.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of A Very Merry Country Christmas Caper and Will Enos' The Flu Season. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse: go follow your dream!

That will also explain my rapturous response to the performance of A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline, a dramatized tribute to the country music superstar that opened at Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theater on Thursday, June 4, running for a much-too-short two weekends at what was once known as The Renaissance Center.

No matter what the calendar says, we're in early summer already - insofar as theater in Tennessee is concerned, at least - and there are four new shows opening this week that should command your attention. Along with a number of shows that are continuing their runs (like John Chaffin's Cliffhanger at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre), you have plenty of diverse and intriguing onstage offerings to keep you in the relative, air-conditioned comfort of a darkened theater. We've done the necessary research, made the calls to the people-in-the-know and have included the dates, the phone numbers and the websites to make it as easy as possible for you to buy tickets and go show some support for the arts while indulging in the magic of live theater…

Street Theatre Company has brought a little bit of Memphis to Music City with their production of Memphis: The Musical. The show opened Friday night at Street Theatre Company's new location, Bailey Middle School. This is the first regional production in Tennessee since the touring Broadway production ended.

Photographer Kenn Stilger and Heavnly Perspective Photography have captured some gorgeous photographic images of Street Theatre Company's production of Memphis the Musical, which opens at Bailey STEM Middle School in Nashville tonight.

This week the spotlight shines on Lauren Frances Johnson, who has made her mark in Music City, performing on stages all over town and sharing the remarkable talents that have won her legions of followers. Charming and gorgeous, she has stage presence to spare and tonight, as she opens as Felicia Farrell in Street Theatre Company's production of Memphis the Musical, she's destined to command the stage like nobody's business!

In its first regional Tennessee performance since its National tour, the Broadway smash hit MEMPHIS comes to Nashville. Street Theatre Company stages MEMPHIS as its premiere 2015 performance with its own edgy style.

In its first regional Tennessee performance since its National tour, the Broadway smash hit MEMPHIS comes to Nashville. Street Theatre Company stages MEMPHIS as its premiere 2015 performance with its own edgy style.