David Compton News

Nan Gurley's stunning performance of Mama Rose is reason enough to see Studio Tenn's 2015-16 season opening production of Gypsy - the legendary backstage musical about the rise to stardom of Gypsy Rose Lee - but there is so much more to be found in director Matt Logan's sumptuously appointed show than her career-crowning portrayal of the near-mythical character.

When word spread quickly among Nashville's theater community that Nan Gurley had been cast as Mama Rose in Studio Tenn's 2015-16 season opening production of Gypsy, the response was universal: artistic director Matt Logan once again had proven his brilliance. Simply put, Nan Gurley - a member of Nashville theater's first family - was the perfect choice to play the overpowering and flawed mother of stripper/entertainer/author/raconteur Gypsy Rose Lee.

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. Thus, we are happy to present a new feature: 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 2015/16 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. Something's missing? That's an easy fix: just send us a message here, on Facebook, or by email at jeffreyellis37215@att.com.

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.

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 already heating up in Nashville and it's not even summer yet! But Nashville area theater companies are hard at work to ensure that audiences have a lot to choose from in the way of live theater presented in cool, darkened theaters. Here are our suggestions for the most eagerly anticipated shows of the sultry summer season…

Hitting perhaps too close to home for some and harkening back to memories best left unrecalled, while challenging audiences to examine their own lives, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman remains an emotional, visceral theatrical masterpiece. Now, through March 28, it is vividly recaptured, like so much lightening in a bottle, in a deeply affecting production from Nashville Rep, directed with finesse by Rene D. Copeland and acted by an all-star cast of Nashville performers who together create a stunningly specific place in time that somehow is timeless and universal.

Nashville Repertory Theatre will present its newest production Death of a Salesman, the classic, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. Death of a Salesman runs tonight, March 12-28, 2015 at Andrew Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Nashville Repertory Theatre will present its newest production Death of a Salesman, the classic, Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning drama. Death of a Salesman runs March 12-28, 2015 at Andrew Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Nashville Repertory Theatre's REPaloud (Reading Excellent Plays Aloud) series continues with a special staged reading of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Dinner with Friends on January 13 and today, the 14th, 2015, including a talkback with playwright and 2014-15 Ingram New Works Fellow Donald Margulies today, January 14.

Nashville Repertory Theatre's REPaloud (Reading Excellent Plays Aloud) series continues with a special staged reading of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Dinner with Friends on January 13 and 14, 2015, including a talkback with playwright and 2014-15 Ingram New Works Fellow Donald Margulies on January 14.

Nashville Repertory Theatre's REPaloud (Reading Excellent Plays Aloud) series continues with a special staged reading of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Dinner with Friends on January 13 and 14, 2015, including a talkback with playwright and 2014-15 Ingram New Works Fellow Donald Margulies on January 14.

This holiday season, Nashville Repertory Theatre will once again present Nashville's All-American Holiday Tradition A Christmas Story adapted by Phillip Grecian and based on the motion picture by Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown, and Bob Clark. A Christmas Story runs tonight, November 29 - December 21 at TPAC's Johnson Theater (with preview performance on November 28).

This holiday season, Nashville Repertory Theatre will once again present Nashville's All-American Holiday Tradition A Christmas Story adapted by Phillip Grecian and based on the motion picture by Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown, and Bob Clark. A Christmas Story runs November 29 - December 21 at TPAC's Johnson Theater (with preview performance on November 28).

Tennessee Repertory Theatre has worked with Pulitzer Prize-winners, Tony Award-winners, and Oscar Award-winners (largely through its burgeoning Ingram New Works Project). And now Nashville's flagship professional theatre can add a Heisman Trophy-winner to that list: Eddie George. The former Tennessee Titan will headline the February production of The Whipping Man.