Jim Manning News

Nashville audiences this weekend find themselves with two concurrently running opportunities to bask in the warm glow of Miranda's heartfelt creation as Hume-Fogg Academic High School's Theatre presents In The Heights for a three-performance run (which premiered last night - on Broadway, naturally, Nashville's Broadway) and Street Theatre Company, which tonight opens its 11th season with its mounting of the show that will run for the next three weekends.

LaToya Gardner adds yet another theatrical conquest to her already impressive resume: Sister Mary Clarence/Deloris Van Cartier in Sister Act, the musical theater version of the Whoopi Goldberg film that has delighted audiences since its debut in 1992, inspiring one sequel (with maybe another on the way) in the process.

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.

Halloween's all done in, there are still three weeks ahead before we officially give thanks, and Christmas - and all its accompanying frenzy and frivolity - is about seven weeks away! So what's there to do for all the theatrical types jonesing for a trip to make believe? Plenty! Theater companies all over middle Tennessee are showing off their best and brightest, with a number of eagerly anticipated shows opening this weekend and/or continuing from their earlier opening nights and next Tuesday there's a sparkling new Broadway musical swinging through Music City to entertain you…

Next up for Daron Bruce's students at Hume-Fogg Academic High School (one of the nation's highest rated secondary schools) is a much-anticipated production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, running November 5-7 at the iconic and historic high school - located on Broadway, naturally - in downtown Nashville. Taking on the challenge of portraying Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, is Andrew Forbes, who is in today's High School Drama spotlight.

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.

It's Halloween weekend and every dramatic personage and theatrical type we've ever encountered is caught up in the annual rush to find just the right costume for their holiday revelries (we confess we've never had the knack for coming up with Halloween get-ups - not since we went in drag to a party at the First Baptist Church as the age of 12…tongues were wagging, we are certain, but we lived to tell about it, so it couldn't have been that bad). In the meantime, there are all sorts of onstage happenings this weekend to keep you otherwise engaged should the difficulty of selecting your costume prove to be too much.

Next up for Daron Bruce's students involved in theater at Hume-Fogg Academic High Schools (one of the nation's highest rated secondary schools) is a much-anticipated production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, running November 5-7 at the iconic and historic high school, located on Broadway naturally - in downtown Nashville. Taking on the challenging role of Mrs. Lovett in the school edition of Sondheim's musical is Darby Kolwyck, a talented student with an already enviable resume: She's played Rusty in Act Too's Footloose and was part of HFA's acclaimed production of Cabaret.

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.

If you were to ask me to list my five favorite musicals (or even my top ten), there is a very good chance I would not include Meredith Willson's The Music Man among my chosen favorites. But then I see another production of that particular Willson tribute to Americana that features a fast-talking salesman and a beautiful young librarian named Marian and I am suddenly reminded that I absolutely adore The Music Man and all 76 of its trombones - and I feel remiss in not listing it among the shows I love.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

With almost 400 people in the audience, the leading lights of Tennessee theater were heralded with the presentation of the 2015 First Night Honors Gala, Sunday night at the iconic and historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in Nashville. Hosted by Geoff Davin, Stephanie Jones-Benton and Erica Patterson, the event featured musical numbers by more than 100 performers in tribute to the Class of 2015 Honorees.

We pride ourselves on our bounteous Southern hospitality here in Nashville, so who's gonna explain this: On Thursday, as thousands of country music fans gathered downtown for CMA Fest and thousands more fans of every musical genre you can think of were headed southward for the Bonnaroo Music Festival - just another summer in Tennessee, mind you - a truck spilled its load all over Interstate 65-S, adding to the hot, humid atmosphere with a whole mess of fish parts. Yep, you heard it right: smelly, disgusting fish parts baking on the hot asphalt under the blazing sun.

It's another busy theater week in Tennessee, and in Nashville there are an extra 50,000 to 100,000 country music fans jamming up traffic and increasing wait times at local restaurants, thanks to CMA Music Fest, which natives and longtimers will remember as Fan Fair. So while you're steering clear of our version of Broadway in downtown Nashville, which will be teeming with more people than you can shake a stick at (as my mama would say),  you should instead make reservations to see some local talent onstage at some of the shows included in our Critic's Choice column today!

With an experienced hand guiding a production, you can rest assured that any show - no matter its theatrical lineage or how often it has been revived - will be filled with flashes of creativity and imagination. Case in point: director Jim Manning's mounting of Bert V. Royal's Dog Sees God, now onstage at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater as the season-ending production from ACT 1, the company predicated on presenting theater classics for contemporary audiences.

It's another busy weekend of new shows opening and many others continuing to delight audiences, with ACT 1's Dog Sees God and Street Theatre Company's Dogfight both opening tonight, while two shows that opened yesterday will continue to treat audiences to some especially wonderful music. Plus, there's a whole slate of shows being performed at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse, a revival of Osborne & Epplers' Southern Fried Nuptials down in Woodbury at the Arts Center of Cannon County, and John Chaffin's Cliffhanger enters its final weekend at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. Go to the theater, young man (and woman) and let yourself be transported to a whole new world of magic and enchantment!

Inspired by BroadwayWorld.com's Friday Six, welcome to BroadwayWorld Nashville's latest installment of The Friday Five: five questions designed to help you learn more about the talented people you'll find onstage throughout the Volunteer state. Today, in a special edition of The Friday Five (on Thursday), we introduce you to four young actors who will have you in stitches even before you see them in ACT 1's season-ending production of Dog Sees God.