Jim Manning News

Directed by Kate Adams-with musical direction by Ginger Newman-The Larry Keeton Theatre will present Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim's musical retelling of classic fairy tales, July 12- 28 at the Donelson venue. Nashville photographer (and drummer!) Rick Malkin captured the show's all-star cast in some great promotional shots.

Directed by Kate Adams-with musical direction by Ginger Newman-The Larry Keeton Theatre will present Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim's musical retelling of classic fairy tales, July 12- 28 at the Donelson venue. Appearing in the Keeton Theatre production are an all-star group of actors and actresses including Mallory Gleason as The Witch, Janette Bruce as The Baker's Wife, Anthony Just as The Baker, Laura Crockarell as Cinderella and Jonathan Perry as Jack.

Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it's difficult to know who's playing whom-hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known-or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin' world-thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We're gonna tell ya…Today's actor/subject/model is the beautiful, talented and very busy Angela Gimlin, photographed by Jim Manning.

After that huge success, BroadwayWorld.com announces two awards presentations for Tennessee theater this year, with awards to be presented for Nashville productions and for Tennessee productions outside Music City USA. You may make nominations throughout the month of October, with voting for the awards starting in November, and the announcement of winners set for Sunday, January 8, during Midwinter's First Night at The Keeton Theatre in Donelson. Details about that event will be announced in the coming weeks.

When the last performers had sung the final song and the late honoree had been feted, the crowds at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre for the presentation of First Night, the Nashville Theatre Honors' 2011 Gala Concert, headed downtown to Cummins Station for the After-Party at The Listening Room Cafe.

Danny Proctor, Helen Shute-Pettaway, Layne Sasser, Pam Atha, Dan Brewer and Gary Hoff were introduced Monday night as the six members of the 2011 Class of First Night Honorees during the First Night Preview Party, hosted by founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis at The Listening Room Cafe in downtown Nashville.

Celebrating their company's 61st season - which makes them the oldest community theater in Middle Tennessee - Nashville's Circle Players recognized outstanding achievement during the 2010-2011 season with the presentation of the Circle Awards on Sunday, June 19.

N. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker has been a part of our collective pop culture and theatrical canon for years and is probably best known because of the 1956 film version that starred Katharine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster, which has cast its indelible shadow on every intervening stage production since its initial release. That being said, who could have everexpected the emotional wallop packed by the superb revival now onstage at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, directed by Sam Whited? Quietly and gracefully, the impact of The Rainmaker remains as potent as it has ever been and it is performed by a thoroughly committed cast of Barn veterans and newcomers all focused on the task at hand.

Nashville's Circle Players, now in its 61st season and the oldest community theatre in Middle Tennessee, has scored one of its biggest hits ever with the current production of Jason Robert Brown's 13. Who'd have ever thought that the musical tale of a 13-year-old Jewish boy from NYC who is transplanted to Indiana could be so enormously entertaining or - perhaps more importantly and more significantly - acted and sung so amazingly well? Seriously, who knew?

A favorite of theater audiences since its debut at the 1979 Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Crimes of the Heart is given a faithful and elegantly staged revival at Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre. The play moves along at a languid pace befitting its setting and time period - and the story told by the playwright is as engrossing and as richly drawn as it ever was. Moreover, you are struck by the notion that Crimes of the Heart is, indeed, a timeless piece of Southern literature, claiming its rightful place among our region's most memorable prose.

With the strong, focused direction of Clay Hillwig and the uniformly consistent and superb performances of an exceptional cast, Circle Players starts off 2011 with its impressively mounted revival of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. With a story that is as potent and as relevant today as it was at the time of the play's 1959 Broadway debut, A Raisin in the Sun follows the struggling but proud Younger family as they strive to make their lives better on Chicago's South Side.

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!

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...

Nashville theater audiences were treated to a wide range of dramatic offerings in 2010, with the revival of some of the best-known American plays of the past half-century, along with productions of some amazing original works by a group of talented homegrown playwrights, whose subjects ranged from what goes on in the intimate confines of the ladies' room to a murder mystery comedy with a film noir ambience. Clearly, if 2010 is any indication, the new 2011 season now under way is going to be filled with even more surprises and delights.

Despite portentous warnings of an approaching snowmageddon across the South, more than 150 members of the Nashville and Middle Tennessee theater community gathered at Street Theatre Company in Nashville Sunday night, January 9, for the announcement of the BroadwayWorld.com Nashville Theatre Award winners and the presentation of First Night's Top Ten of Twenty-Ten.

One of the best things about living in Nashville - known throughout the world as Music City USA - is that even when you're mounting a high school production, you have the opportunity to draw inspiration from the wealth of talent found in the city. That certainly was the case this week when Daron Bruce, director of theater at Hume-Fogg Academic High School welcomed country music superstar and Broadway veteran Gary Morris to conduct a workshop for the cast his upcoming production of Les Miserables.

Photographer Stacy Battles, one of Nashville's best known celebrity photographers, was on hand to shoot the red carpet arrivals that heralded the return of First Night, after an absence of some 14 years. First Night is presented by Jeffrey Ellis, who covers Nashville theater for BroadwayWorld.com, and who is the founder of the awards celebration that was first held on September 17, 1989.

Circle Players opens its 2010-2011 season at The Keeton Theatre with Frank Galati's adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, running August 13-29.

Circle Players opens its 2010-2011 season at The Keeton Theatre with Frank Galati's adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, running August 13-29.

Circle Players opens its 2010-2011 season at The Keeton Theatre with Frank Galati's adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, running August 13-29.