Jessika Malone News

Tennessee's best and brightest theatrical stars will take to the stage of the Boiler Room Theatre -to celebrate The Tony Awards during First Night: The Tony Concert, presented by Keeping Scores Concerts on Monday, June 6 - and to perform an evening of songs from Broadway musicals that have won the Tony Award for best musical.

Nashville's Actors Bridge Ensemble, named as First Night's Outstanding Theatre Company of 2010, today announces the creation of SIDESHOW: An Immersion Training Program for Emerging Professional Theatre Artists. Interviews and auditions for entrance into the new training program will be held May 7, from 9 a.m. to noon and 4 to 8 p.m. by appointment.

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, a magical tale based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, continues Actors Bridge Ensemble's 2010-11 season, running February 18-27 at Belmont University's Troutt Theater. Directed by Jessika Malone, in Ruhl's critically acclaimed play, 'Eurydice is to marry her true love, a misstep sends her to the surreal depths of the Underworld, where she has a surprising reunion and ultimately must decide whether to follow Orpheus back to the land of the living.'

Playwright Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, her vibrant and provocative re-imagining of the classic Greek myth, is one of the most poignant theatrical treatises on love and loss, grief and redemption, that you're likely to witness. Brought to the stage of Belmont University's Troutt Theatre by the luminously gifted Jessika Malone - through a collaboration between Actors Bridge Ensemble and Belmont's Department of Theatre and Dance - Eurydice is certainly one of the most technically challenging productions we've seen of late on a Nashville stage.

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, a magical tale based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, continues Actors Bridge Ensemble's 2010-11 season, running February 18-27 at Belmont University's Troutt Theater.

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, a magical tale based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, continues Actors Bridge Ensemble's 2010-11 season, running February 18-27 at Belmont University's Troutt Theater. Directed by Jessika Malone, in Ruhl's critically acclaimed play, 'Eurydice is to marry her true love, a misstep sends her to the surreal depths of the Underworld, where she has a surprising reunion and ultimately must decide whether to follow Orpheus back to the land of the living.'

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, a magical tale based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, continues Actors Bridge Ensemble's 2010-11 season, running February 18-27 at Belmont University's Troutt Theater. Directed by Jessika Malone, in Ruhl's critically acclaimed play, 'Eurydice is to marry her true love, a misstep sends her to the surreal depths of the Underworld, where she has a surprising reunion and ultimately must decide whether to follow Orpheus back to the land of the living.'

Not all of the Top Ten Lists announced at Winter's First Night on Sunday, January 9, were serious, high-toned salutes to all that is special and spectacular about live theater in Nashville. Sure, most of them were heartfelt and memorable, but some were (how shall I put this?) off-kilter, tongue-in-cheek and just plain fun. And not all the lists were limited to only ten entries; in fact, some had many more than that. But, for your reading pleasure, we present them to you without any real explanation. You'll have to figure that all out for yourself!

Eight of the leading lights of Nashville theater were announced Monday night as the Class of 2010 Honorees for the First Night Nashville Theatre Honors, to be presented Sunday, September 19. The Hard Rock Cafe Nashville's Reverb Room was the setting for the preview party and announcement of honorees.

Craig Lucas' Reckless, directed by Jessika Malone, is next up in Actors Bridge Ensemble's 2010 season, opening Friday, July 23 at Belmont University's Black Box Theater. Curtain is at 7:30 p.m., except for Sunday matinees which are at 4:30 p.m.

Reckless - Craig Lucas' skewed vision of suburban life in contemporary America - is brought to life in an engaging and entertaining new production from Actors Bridge Ensemble. Directed with finesse by Jessika Malone and performed by a cast of talented actors who are supremely confident in interpreting Lucas' off-kilter comedy, it's a well-crafted show that fairly crackles with humor.

Craig Lucas' Reckless, directed by Jessika Malone, is next up in Actors Bridge Ensemble's 2010 season, opening Friday, July 23 at Belmont University's Black Box Theater. Curtain is at 7:30 p.m., except for Sunday matinees which are at 4:30 p.m.

One of this season's most beautifully acted productions, Vincent in Brixton is moving and emotional, funny and evocative. Thanks to Feehely's wealth of experience and his discerning eye, it is a lively affair, completely engaging the audience in the tale being told onstage. By turns immensely entertaining and thoroughly inspiring, Vincent in Brixton is also heart-wrenching in its candor and honesty and the multi-layered performances of Feehely's talented cast only gives the play deeper meaning and resonance.

Wright's play focuses on the time that Vincent Van Gogh spent in London and Brixton in the 1870s - a period before he drew his first sketch and one that changed him completely. The play depicts Van Gogh as a young man, someone full of life yet struggling to find his way and to walk the artist's path. Vincent develops a rapport with a widow twice his age, which blossoms into a full-blown love affair, only to be cruelly curtailed by the arrival of his fiercely puritan younger sister.

Wright's play focuses on the time that Vincent Van Gogh spent in London and Brixton in the 1870s - a period before he drew his first sketch and one that changed him completely. The play depicts Van Gogh as a young man, someone full of life yet struggling to find his way and to walk the artist's path. Vincent develops a rapport with a widow twice his age, which blossoms into a full-blown love affair, only to be cruelly curtailed by the arrival of his fiercely puritan younger sister.

Thanks to director Jessika Malone and her cast of talented actors, you'll find oh-so-much to identify with and relate to in Nashville's own version of My First Time, onstage at Darkhorse Theatre through this Saturday night. It's a funny, poignant, laugh-out-loud hour that flies by as Malone's six thespians relate some of the dozens of tales sampled in Davenport's script. Gleaned from the thousands of responses to the First Time website (some 40,000 responses, in fact) that was launched in 1998 during those halcyon pre-blogging, pre-social networking days when posting something online could still be kind of anonymous and somewhat safer than it is now.

Ken Davenport's My First Time, a collection of monologues about experiencing sex for the first time, is next on the season for Actor's Bridge Ensemble, opening Friday night, October 2 and continuing through October 10 at Darkhorse Theatre, 4610 Charlotte Avenue. Starring Jaclyn Johnson, Joy Tilley Perryman, Emily Fleming, Brandon Hirsch, Will McKinney and Chris Basso and directed by Jessika Malone, My First Time was described by The Village Voice as 'funny and touching to sweet, sexy and silly.'

To suggest that playwright Sarah Ruhl is obsessed with death and dying might be too much of a stretch, but it's clear that she has a rather unique view of the subject. Her earlier works, The Clean House, Eurydice and Passion Play, a Cycle, all focus on death and dying and the accompanying rituals, and in Dead Man's Cell Phone, she returns to that fertile ground once again-with satisfying results.