Daron Bruce News

Theater-goers from our neck o' the woods have been quite spoiled already this year - and 2016 is barely three months old - and the hits, as they are wont to say, just keep on coming. In fact, there's so much great theater going on in the Nashville area right now, that you may be having a difficult time choosing among the bounteous offerings local companies are providing you.

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.

Halloween's all done in, there are still three weeks ahead before we officially give thanks, and Christmas - and all its accompanying frenzy and frivolity - is about seven weeks away! So what's there to do for all the theatrical types jonesing for a trip to make believe? Plenty! Theater companies all over middle Tennessee are showing off their best and brightest, with a number of eagerly anticipated shows opening this weekend and/or continuing from their earlier opening nights and next Tuesday there's a sparkling new Broadway musical swinging through Music City to entertain you…

Next up for Daron Bruce's students at Hume-Fogg Academic High School (one of the nation's highest rated secondary schools) is a much-anticipated production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, running November 5-7 at the iconic and historic high school - located on Broadway, naturally - in downtown Nashville. Taking on the challenge of portraying Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, is Andrew Forbes, who is in today's High School Drama spotlight.

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.

It's Halloween weekend and every dramatic personage and theatrical type we've ever encountered is caught up in the annual rush to find just the right costume for their holiday revelries (we confess we've never had the knack for coming up with Halloween get-ups - not since we went in drag to a party at the First Baptist Church as the age of 12…tongues were wagging, we are certain, but we lived to tell about it, so it couldn't have been that bad). In the meantime, there are all sorts of onstage happenings this weekend to keep you otherwise engaged should the difficulty of selecting your costume prove to be too much.

Next up for Daron Bruce's students involved in theater at Hume-Fogg Academic High Schools (one of the nation's highest rated secondary schools) is a much-anticipated production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, running November 5-7 at the iconic and historic high school, located on Broadway naturally - in downtown Nashville. Taking on the challenging role of Mrs. Lovett in the school edition of Sondheim's musical is Darby Kolwyck, a talented student with an already enviable resume: She's played Rusty in Act Too's Footloose and was part of HFA's acclaimed production of Cabaret.

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.

This will probably be an emotional weekend for Savannah Frazier as the curtain comes down on Amazing Grace, the Musical, the show in which the Nashville native made her Broadway debut. Closing after its final performance at the Nederlander Theatre on Sunday, Amazing Grace gave Frazier her biggest exposure to date in New York and with its closing she heads onward - and we daresay upward - in her pursuit of musical theater dreams.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

Elvis Presley – aka “The King,” Tupelo's most famous favorite son and Memphis' most revered musical icon – sure had a lot of music in his catalogue of hits, and it seems that almost  all of it is included in the score of All Shook Up, the jukebox musical now onstage at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre through August 30. There are so many songs, in fact, that opening night may have run longer than anticipated, yet those songs are so entertainingly performed and the show is so full of heart that you can't help but stick around until the end.

Rehearsals  are drawing to a close as the bright lights of opening night begin to heat up at Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, where the cast and crew of the company's big summer musical, All Shook Up, get ready for their big debut on Thursday. With a cast of Nashville theater veterans – joined by some of the region's brightest up-and-comers – it promises to be a grand theatrical affair. We've been sharing some of the backstage gossip for the past couple of weeks and as our preview coverage concludes, we share a special “by the numbers” look at the show, courtesy of Christen Heilman Runyon…

Rehearsals got under way last week for Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre's big musical for the summer of 2015: All Shook Up. With a cast of Nashville theater veterans - joined by some of the region's brightest up-and-comers - you can rest assured that the rehearsal process will be just as much fun as the show itself. Throughout the next couple of weeks we'll be sharing 'diaries' from members of the cast and crew in anticipation of opening night on July 23.

Rehearsals got under way this week for Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre's big musical for the summer of 2015: All Shook Up. With a cast of Nashville theater veterans -- joined by some of the region's brightest up-and-comers -- you can rest assured that the rehearsal process will be just as much fun as the show itself. Throughout the next couple of weeks we'll be sharing 'diaries' from members of the cast and crew in anticipation of opening night on July 23. Today, 2015 First Night Most Promising Actor Harley Seger (a rising senior at Christ Presbyterian Academy) and 2014 First Night Honoree Daron Bruce bring us up to speed...

Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre - Nashville's venerable entertainment center, which for 49 years has been the theater home to thousands of actors, directors, technicians and artists - has announced the creative team and cast for this summer's eagerly anticipated production of All Shook Up, slated to run July 23-August 30.