There is an embarrassment of riches on display in Tennessee Repertory Theatre's production of The 39 Steps - not the least of which is the cumulative effort of four of Nashville's finest actors showing off everything in their estimable bag of tricks to bring this enormously entertaining play to life. Add to those efforts another stunning set by Gary Hoff, Trish Clark's period-perfect costumes, Michael Barnett's gorgeous lighting and Paul Carrol Binkley's stellar sound design and you clearly have one of the season's most successful offerings, technically and artistically delivered.
For audience members wondering how the memorable, albeit short, tale can possibly be translated to musical theater, NCT producing artistic director Scot Copeland has some succinct pre-curtain advice: 'Just wait and see.' You'll be so glad you did. Its brevity notwithstanding, the story is winsomely engaging, using the text of Brown's book as a springboard to take younger audiences deeper into a wonderland of imaginative, inspirational fun - and there are some quietly expressed lessons conveyed in the process.
If theater audiences in Nashville and Middle Tennessee owe a huge debt of gratitude to the directors who helm the year's finest productions, you can only imagine how the actors lucky enough to work with those insightful, creative men and women must be! The Top Ten Directors of 2010 have resumes anyone would be proud to claim as their own and when you consider that they - year after year - excel at what they do, then you cannot help but be impressed by the breadth and depth of their abilities. Frankly, it boggles the mind. These are Nashville's best directors of 2010...
If you find yourself venturing outside of New York, and you want to see some really good musical theater, what should you do? Allow me to suggest a visit to my neck o' the woods: A trip to Nashville might provide you with exactly what you seek. After all, in a city perhaps best known throughout the world as Music City USA, what else could you expect but some exceedingly well-cast, well-produced, well-played and well-sung musical theater? We're lousy with exceptional singers and musicians and, as a result, musical theater is alive and well - and thriving - in Nashville. And here's my list of the Best Musicals of 2010...
On Sunday, October 17th at 2pm, the French-based Zodiac Trio will perform on the Schneider Series at the New School School's Tishman Auditorium, making it the first clarinet-violin-piano ensemble to be presented by the series in its 54-year history.
On Sunday, October 17th at 2pm, the French-based Zodiac Trio will perform on the Schneider Series at the New School School's Tishman Auditorium, making it the first clarinet-violin-piano ensemble to be presented by the series in its 54-year history.
Nashville theater audiences owe a huge debt of gratitude to Tennessee Repertory Theatre's creative team - led by producing artistic director Rene Dunshee Copeland, scenic and properties designer Gary Hoff, costume designer Trish Clark, lighting designer Phillip Franck and technical director Tyler Axt - for the exceptional production of To Kill A Mockingbird, now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre, extended through October 30.
The musical version of Mark Twain's classic tale sweeps audiences down the mighty Mississippi as the irrepressible Huck Finn helps his friend Jim, a slave, escape to freedom at the mouth of the Ohio River. Their adventures along the way are propelled by an award-winning score from Roger Miller, which provides a theatrical celebration of pure Americana.
But three other individuals are perhaps most responsible for the overall delight that is Tennessee Rep's 25th Anniversary season production: director Rene Dunshee Copeland, whose imaginative work helps to re-invent this musical on a basis that is at once more intimate while, somehow, is on a grander scale; music director Paul Carrol Binkley, whose concept for performing the work's music gives it the ideal down-home feel that only a band of expert Nashville players can give it; and design genius Gary Hoff, who transforms Johnson's black box space into something we've never seen in that venue before - the proscenium theatre you've only seen in your mind's eye - and who, in so doing, elevates Nashville theatrical design beyond its previous limits, fashioning it into something of opulently epic proportions.
It's 1939 and producer David O. Selznick (played by Derek Whittaker) finds himself under the gun: He only has seven days to fashion a shooting script for his epic film version of Margaret Mitchell's worldwide bestseller. Virtually every writer of note (including Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) has submitted a treatment of the novel only to have Selznick - whose reputation as a controlling perfectionist remains intact in this play - reject every one of them
The musical version of Mark Twain's classic tale sweeps audiences down the mighty Mississippi as the irrepressible Huck Finn helps his friend Jim, a slave, escape to freedom at the mouth of the Ohio River. Their adventures along the way are propelled by an award-winning score from Roger Miller, which provides a theatrical celebration of pure Americana.
Tennessee Repertory Theatre will present Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with music and lyrics by Nashville legend Roger Miller. Like Tennessee Rep, Big River-winner of seven Tony Awards--celebrates its 25th anniversary this season. Big River runs March 20 - April 10 at TPAC's Johnson Theater.
The musical version of Mark Twain's classic tale sweeps audiences down the mighty Mississippi as the irrepressible Huck Finn helps his friend Jim, a slave, escape to freedom at the mouth of the Ohio River. Their adventures along the way are propelled by an award-winning score from Roger Miller, which provides a theatrical celebration of pure Americana.
Tennessee Repertory Theatre will present Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with music and lyrics by Nashville legend Roger Miller. Like Tennessee Rep, Big River-winner of seven Tony Awards--celebrates its 25th anniversary this season. Big River runs March 20 - April 10 at TPAC's Johnson Theater.
If, indeed, 'it takes a village,' and if, as the poets say, 'no man is an island,' then perhaps no art form is more collaborative than live theatre. With a village of artists backstage and offstage assuring that each production is mounted, then coming to life during each performance, the collaborative effort is renewed. And what audiences see onstage is the collaboration of artists, the people who comprise the acting ensemble, the folks who bring the stagebound script to life, sending it soaring into our imaginations.
Tennessee Rep's A Christmas Story may be as good as it gets this holiday season. Wrapped up in a spectacularly designed package by Gary Hoff and featuring the cleverly imaginative direction of Rene Dunshee Copeland, it's the one Christmas gift you owe yourself this year. And it's a surefire way to lift your spirits and make you forget all the bad news that inundates your everyday life.
