Greg Frey News

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 notebooks, datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

The regional premiere of Ken Ludwig's comedic take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of The Baskerville - Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery - continues the 16th anniversary season of Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theatre as the company's 74th show debuts March 31, running through April 9

Here's a question you may have asked yourself about Tosha Pendergrast: When does she sleep? Mundane, perhaps - but it's a question that comes to mind when you realize that she's always working, whether she's teaching students at Lauri Gregoire's Bellevue Dance Center, choreographing her latest show (Dreamgirls opened just last week at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts, Street Theatre Company's production of In The Heights opens in a couple of weeks), performing onstage (she was among the cavalcade of stars in the Music City Theatre Collective's debut production Showstoppers), doing television appearances (The Dance Network is calling) or just living life with her handsome and charming husband Benjamin Pendergrast (together they are the perfect couple, each devoted to the other)…

Directors and producers throughout Middle Tennessee are seeking actors for upcoming productions of David Mamet's November (from BWW Nashville Award-winning KB Productions), Gruesome Playground Injuries (coming up as this year's production from Nashville Repertory Theatre's interns) and Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theater is looking for someone to play the iconic Sherlock Holmes in the regional premiere of Baskerville, a new Ken Ludwig comedy. We've gathered the details together here to make your planning easier. So now you have no excuse: go follow your dream!

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.

No matter how hackneyed and corny the script, if you have an experienced ensemble of actors who are adept at physical comedy, who have perfected their timing through years onstage and who are relatively fearless in their approach to a script (any script, most likely), chances are you can deliver a show that audiences will find delightful. That's certainly the case with If The Shoe Fits, the comedy now onstage through February 13 at Gaslight Dinner Theatre, the company in residence at Freed Hardeman University's Renaissance Center in Dickson.

Nashville actor and NFL Hall of Famer Eddie George, who makes his Broadway debut Tuesday night in the iconic musical Chicago, was named First Night's Outstanding Leading Actor in a Play for his searing portrayal of a former slave haunted by the spectre of abuse in Nashville Repertory Theatre's The Whipping Man. Rene Dunshee Copeland, producing artistic director of Nashville Rep, was named Outstanding Director of a Play, while her three-actor ensemble (which included James Rudolph and Matthew Rosenbaum) were awarded as First Night's Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Play for their rendition of the Matthew Lopez play.

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.

Theater during the holiday season tends to be something of a mixed bag: multiple productions of A Christmas Carol, countless stagings of It's A Wonderful Life, numerous renditions of The Nutcracker and a sampling of original revues that include songs suitable for the season and heart-tugging and oftentimes cloyingly sweet reminiscences of home and hearth, all of which is designed to put you in the holiday spirit.

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.

Gaslight Dinner Theatre continues its 15th Anniversary Season with its 72nd show - the regional premiere of Mr. Jingle's Christmas Clause, written and created by artistic director Greg Frey, running November 19-December 19 in Dickson at Freed-Hardeman University's Renaissance Center.

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 the return of one 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 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.

Directors and producers in the Nashville region are seeking actors for upcoming productions of The Larry Keeton Theatre's upcoming production of Sunset Boulevard, Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts' Dreamgirls, Arts Center of Cannon County's Memphis the Musical and ACT 1's production of 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!

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.

Theater in Tennessee has never been busier nor has it been more diverse than what you'll find onstage this weekend throughout the Volunteer State. From frothy and fun summer musicals that are sure to make you think - like All Shook Up at Chaffin's Barn and A Chorus Line at Cumberland County Playhouse - to new plays from Shawn Whitsell (his latest, Songs For Our Sons, premieres at Darkhorse Theatre on Friday night) and emerging playwright Che Pieper (his new script based on the book The Man With the Light in His Window debuts at The Theater Bug this weekend)…the magic of live theater is all around you…even in this heat and humidity! So pull your seersucker suits and sundresses out of the closet, get all gussied up and make your way to the relative cool of a darkened theater for some midsummer magic!

Here's some unsolicited career advice for those of you who might be considering relocating to Tuna, the third smallest town in Texas:  Tunanians - or Tunaites or however they refer to themselves - are sorely in need of a good beauty operator to help them keep their unruly wigs in shipshape, Bristol fashion. What with all the civic events, out-of-town trips and local affairs, every woman in Tuna should want their coiffures to be dazzling creations of the beauticians' trade.

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.

Today, in a special edition of The Friday Five (on Wednesday), we introduce two actors from The Gaslight Dinner Theatre's upcoming production of A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline: Linda Sue Simmons (my favorite Miss Chattanooga of all time) and Curtis LeMoine-Reed. Directed by Greg Frey, the musical - filled with some of Patsy Cline's best-loved hits that will transport you back to her starry heyday in the 1960s - opens Thursday afternoon at The Renaissance Center in Dickson.

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…