Eric Ventress News

There is a wonderful scene in act two of Aaron Posner's Stupid f**king Bird - the first production of ACT 1's 2018-19 season - during which actors Tamara Scott and Diego Gomez, playing mother and son, launch into a years-in-the-making confrontation that gives both actors an opportunity to prove their mettle in decidedly theatrical fashion. If only for that one scene in Posner's three-act play, audiences could walk away satisfied, but thanks to Mark Cabus' inspired direction of a particularly notable cast there are far more moments to entertain and, perhaps, to challenge audiences to think about the personal cost of creating art.

Verge Theater Company continues its trajectory as one of Nashville's leading and most adventurous theater companies with its wondrous production of David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo, featuring an astonishing and electrifying five-person cast under the superb direction of Laramie Hearn.  Kimberly and her eccentric family help the company inaugurate its own performance space, aka The Barbershop Theatre, located at 4003 Indiana Avenue, just a short jaunt from Charlotte Avenue and not too far from the iconic Darkhorse Theater.

At first blush, it would be easy to say that there's not much action packed into Annie Baker's The Flick - now onstage in a noteworthy production from Nashville's Verge Theater Company at Belmont's Black Box Theater - but that is, in fact, a pretty simplistic take on a story that is as complex and as diverting as real life itself. And just like life, Baker's Pulitzer Prize-winning script packs a whole lot of drama into its storyline, which is brought to life by a superb cast of actors under the direction of Jaclyn Jutting.

Bleak and darkly menacing, playwright Martin McDonagh's view of the world in his blackest of black comedies The Pillowman focuses on the investigation into a series of child murders in a fictional totalitarian state sometime in the near future - or, given the political climate in this real country in which we finds ourselves existing right now, it could well be representative of a parallel universe of which we will learn in the next few weeks or even moments.

Kurt Jarvis directs Stephen Adly Guirgis' The Motherf**ker With The Hat for a July 21-29 run at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater, marking the tenth anniversary summer production from Destiny Theatre Experience, founded by actor-playwright-director-producer Shawn Whitsell.

Nashville's Artist's Cooperative Theatre 1 (ACT 1) will kick off its 29th season this fall with a production of Delia Ephron and Nora Ephron's Love, Loss and What I Wore, playing the iconic Darkhorse Theater October 6-21. The five plays and their directors, which make up the new season, were revealed to the opening night audience of ACT 1's 2016-17 season closing production of Reefer Madness the Musical, which runs through June 24.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Wednesday, June 7, 2017! Kathie Lee and Hoda are in town today to show their Today show audience what's happening in Nashville, which prompts the musical question: What's sights are on your list of places to go when newbies turn to you for advice? Let us know and we'll feature you in an upcoming story!

Shawn Knight's stunning and transformative performance as the 600-pound protagonist in Samuel D. Hunter's The Whale - now onstage in a new production from Verge Theater Company to launch its third season - elevates the script beyond its stage-bound limitations, guaranteeing two hours of reflection and thought while the story is told onstage and engendering far more time given over to the consideration of the script's themes once the show's final curtain has fallen.

Michael Frayn's classic farce Noises Off debuts at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater May 12, running through May 27, in a production helmed by Bradley Moore for ACT 1's 2016-17 season.

Make no bones about it: the mind and imagination of playwright Tony Kushner (whose Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is playing at Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre, in a new production of from ACT 1) is nothing like yours or mine or that guy sitting at the table by the window at your neighborhood Starbucks, tip-tap-typing away at his laptop in hopes of capturing lightning in a bottle with his words or that woman waxing philosophical about the current political climate in this country while recapping the latest happenings on her favorite TV series for some obscure website.

In the quarter century since Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes first exploded upon the theatrical scene, much has changed about society's response to AIDS, homosexuality, politics and life in general. But, perhaps most startling has been the way in which things have remained the same during the 25-plus years since its 1991 debut on a stage in California.

Dave McGinnis directs Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind, opening this Friday night at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater, as ACT 1 continues its 2016-17 season.

Who knew that a whimsical, magical play - Philip Dawkins' evocatively written Failure: A Love Story, now onstage at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater in a thoroughly engaging production from Actors Bridge Ensemble in its 20th Anniversary Season - would speak so eloquently to that sense of pervasive loss brought on by the inevitable passage of time? Certainly, not I.

ACT 1's 2016-17 season officially opens with the Daniel DeVault-directed production of Joseph Kesselring's classic comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre October 7-22, and starring Debbie Kraski and Linda Speir as the daffy yet dastardly Brewster sisters.

Melissa Williams, longtime Nashville theater veteran, directs the final show of ACT 1's 2015-16 season – Ed Graczyk's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean – running at Darkhorse Theater May 6-21.

Bradley Moore directs his own adaptation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, as ACT 1 readies its fourth show of the 2015/2016 season, featuring a cast of respected Nashville actors. 

Shows are opening, shows are closing and the newly reimagined national tour of The Phantom of the Opera continues its run at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center this weekend. Theater in Tennessee continues its fast-paced run through 2016 with a number of new openings this week, thanks to Bongo After Hours Theatre, Nashville Rep, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, Circle Players and more - and Cumberland County Playhouse, Arts Center of Cannon County, Street Theatre Company, Lakewood Theatre Company and ACT 1 continue runs of their latest shows - to give you even more opportunities to celebrate the magic of live theater in the Volunteer State! And on Monday night, The Chicago Talking Machine Company premieres its first Nashville show at the Centennial Black Box Theatre.

Winter's apparently over - it's in the mid-70s, balmy and windy, as we write this - and even before Spring pops up all over, there's an amazing amount of good theater to be found in the Nashville area. In fact, there's so much to choose from that you have absolutely no excuse staying alone in your room. Instead, in the wise and wonderful words of Sally Bowles, life is a cabaret and you're far more likely to find that out in the darkened confines of a theater, where magic and mayhem is bound to happen.

Today, three of the folks most closely associated with the production - director Moore is joined by cast members Sarah Shepherd and Maggie Pitt - fall under our Friday 5 spotlight, allowing us to get to know more about what makes them tick and why each of them believe audiences should flock to Darkhorse Theatre to see their racy rendition of Aristophanes' Lysistrata.

Bradley Moore directs his own adaptation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, as ACT 1 readies its fourth show of the 2015/2016 season, featuring a cast of respected Nashville actors.