Julia Mitchell News

As difficult as it may be to comprehend, Nashville's Nutcracker - Paul Vasterling's beautiful and evocative holiday gift to his adopted hometown - first debuted in 2008 and its return in 2018 only enhances the already stellar reputation of Nashville Ballet as the city's leading arts entity and adds more luster to the glittering resume of its artistic director, who this season celebrates his 20th anniversary leading the company.

Always finding unique ways to tell the stories of the world, the Nashville Ballet offered the SEVEN DEADLY SINS for the second year in a row, artistically exploring the darkest depths of our souls.

Some 90 captivating minutes of creative, imaginative movement, Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project features the superb dancers of Nashville Ballet at their finest, bringing to life history in such a way that left their audiences rapt, riveted to the smallest of moments and the largest of themes as they are conveyed onstage to a stunning, stirring musical score.

Pride. Greed. Envy. Sloth. Gluttony. Lust. Wrath. Collectively, they are the seven deadly sins - the cardinal sins, the antitheses of the seven virtues. Creatively, they are the inspiration for choreographer Christopher Stuart's most recent work, 7 Deadly Sins featuring music by the Nashville-based collective known as Ten Out of Tenn, and now brought to life by Nashville Ballet in a twin-bill that closes out the company's 2016-17 season on a resounding note of artistic achievement.

Since its debut in 2008, Nashville's Nutcracker – choreographer Paul Vasterling's holiday-scented love letter to his adopted hometown – has delighted thousands of audience members eager to experience this particularly rapturous paean to this most wonderful time of the year. Eager to set off on a journey of wonder and delight, to be swept away to a fanciful world of dashing princes and beautiful fairy princesses brought to life vivdly by the accomplished dancers of Nashville Ballet's various companies, audiences for nine successive years now have allowed themselves to be caught up in the spectacle of the production which never fails to enthrall and to entertain.

From the very first moment - when principal guest conductor Nathan Fifield raises his baton and the musicians of the Nashville Symphony play the very first notes of Prokofiev's lush score - it becomes apparent that Nashville Ballet's Cinderella is going to be something very special. And so it goes for the next two-and-one-half-hours: All the way to the final tableau in which the lovely young woman (danced with power and grace by the always-superb Kayla Rowser) finds herself upon a swing in an altogether bucolic setting, with the comforting and loving arm of her dashing prince (Judson Veach, handsome and steadfast) gently caressing her.

Nashville Ballet brings its 30th anniversary season to a close with two works choreographed by artistic director and CEO Paul Vasterlling:  a dazzlingly intricate and grand revival of Carmina Burana, set to the timeless music of Carl Orff, and the world premiere of Layla & The Majnun, which features the music of composer Richard Danielpour, which recreates one of the world's oldest love stories from Persian culture.

Without doubt, excessive exaggeration or hyperbole, Nashville is a veritable 'city of dreams,' a place where creativity thrives and collaboration is a way of life. Perhaps in no other way is this synergy expressed more artfully than in Nashville Ballet's Attitude series - playing through Valentine's Day at TPAC's James K. Polk Theatre - which captures the very essence of Music City, encapsulating it in the music of local songwriters and then translating it for an audience via the ephemeral nature of dance.

Darkly sensual and broodingly sexy, Paul Vasterling's balletic interpretation of Bram Stoker's legendary anti-hero Dracula (first presented in 1999 and revived in 2007) remains as potent and as stirring as ever, richly conceived and beautifully performed by the dancers of Nashville Ballet, who offer  audiences a spine-tingling seasonal adventure.

Warmth and merriment abound inside The Heritage Center Theatre in Morrisville, Pennsylvania from tonight, March 6 - 22 as ActorsNET stages the magical mayhem of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the cast!

Warmth and merriment abound inside The Heritage Center Theatre in Morrisville, Pennsylvania from March 6 - 22 as ActorsNET stages the magical mayhem of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the cast!

William Shakespeare's famed 'Merchant of Venice' brings love, greed, revenge and a plea for tolerance to The Heritage Center stage in Morrisville - all wrapped up in the classic tale of three couples seeking love as a vengeful money lender seeks his 'pound of flesh.'

William Shakespeare's masterwork The Merchant of Venice - one of the Bard's most popular yet trickiest plays - will be interpreted and illuminated May 31 - June 16 on the intimate Heritage Center stage. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

William Shakespeare's famed 'Merchant of Venice' brings love, greed, revenge and a plea for tolerance to The Heritage Center stage in Morrisville - all wrapped up in the classic tale of three couples seeking love as a vengeful money lender seeks his 'pound of flesh.'

Let's face it: You have to give Paul Vasterling, the grand poobah (as both artistic director and CEO of Nashville Ballet, what other title suits him best?) of all things musical/dancical/theatrical in Music City, a whole bunch of credit for the imaginative-heretofore unexperienced-heights he has helped his company achieve and his city to claim as its own. The man has redefined the idea of collaboration while giving human form to the term "synergy" with his continuing efforts to push the creative envelope in a city filled with artistic types and their sometimes conflicting sensibilities.

Actors' NET of Bucks County will present William Shakespeare's AS YOU LIKE IT from April 20 - May 13, 2012 at The Heritage Center.

Actors' NET of Bucks County will present William Shakespeare's AS YOU LIKE IT from April 20 - May 13, 2012 at The Heritage Center.

Twenty Minutes to Curtain Productions presents the family musical 'Hansel and Gretel' for two more weekends, Sept. 10, 11, 12, 18 and 19, at Kelsey Theatre, located on the West Windsor campus of Mercer County Community College, 1200 Old Trenton Road.

Making good on its promise to return annually, Twenty Minutes to Curtain Productions, under the wing of legendary costume designer and show producer Arthur Gerold, presents an original adaptation of the classic fairytale, 'Hansel and Gretel' as the opening show of the 2010-11 season at Mercer County Community College's Kelsey Theatre.