Justin Burr News

After captivating audiences in London’s West End, here is a first look at Maddie: A New Musical, making its Off-Broadway debut at The Players Theatre in NYC through June 8, 2025.

After captivating audiences in London’s West End, MADDIE: A New Musical will make its Off-Broadway debut, offering a new life for a ghostly leading lady who's back for a second chance at fulfilling her dreams.  

After captivating audiences in London’s West End, MADDIE: A New Musical will make its Off-Broadway debut beginning next month. Check out all new rehearsal photos here!

The cast of Off-Broadway's MADDIE: A New Musical has been revealed! After running in London’s West End, MADDIE makes its Off-Broadway debut, with Twenty-five performances to be staged at The Players Theatre. Learn more!

Next month, an invited reading will be presented of Chocolatier, a new musical with book, music, and lyrics by Colby Thompson. Learn more about the upcoming musical.

Who'd have ever thought a seven-foot-tall, dark, handsome and green chap a?' crafted from the bits and pieces of various fellows gone home to meet their maker, as it were a?' could prove to be so likable, charming and, we daresay, sexy? But leave it to Mel Brooks (and Gene Wilder, his co-writer on the 1974 film) to create such a protagonist and to surround him with memorable characters in a story set to music that's a wonderful homage to the very best of classic Broadway and silver screen musicals!

Powerhouse vocals from its two leading players (Anthony Lazzaro and Cassie Donegan), along with focused direction, spirited choreography, effusive music coming from the pit and an eye-popping visual design aesthetic combine to make Cumberland County Playhouse's most recent iteration of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat another in a long line of onstage hits sure to attract audiences eager to escape the sultry heat of a Tennessee summer.

Now, through August 18, audiences at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse have the opportunity to fall in love with Matilda and her ragtag and inspiring band of schoolmates as they take on an adventure that is certain to delight and to engage. Directed by Jess Griffin and featuring a cast of fresh and energetic performers who bring Matilda The Musical to glorious life onstage, CCP has another resounding hit to its credit, which might be quite unlike anything that's come before it and heralds even more technical and design innovation that sets the company apart from all others in the region.

It's that time of the week, theater lovers! With the weekend set to kick off at any moment - personally, we like to consider Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. the official start of the weekend (that's directed primarily to the Dowager Countess of Grantham who quite clearly didn't understand what actually constitutes a 'weekend') - so we are back with a few suggestions of our own to help make your job easier. There are some new shows opening, others which are continuing their runs and still more which will be winding up their slate of performances this weekend!

It's another busy weekend in Nashville - but when is Music City not packed with events, festivals, affairs? - and we're back with our Critic's Choice recommendations to have you cut through the theatrical flotsam and jetsam and find a cultural opening that's a good fit for your harried lifestyle. Nashville Opera opens its staging of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock at Noah Liff Opera Center, Way Off Broadway Productions unveils its version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Music Valley Event Center, Street Theatre Company invites you to the see their staging of Lynn Nottage's Sweat at their new venue on Elm Hill Pike and Nashville Rep continues its celebration of 10 years of The Ingram New Works Festival at Nashville Children's Theatre.

Certainly, if you're lucky enough to spend a scant two hours in the company of Cumberland County Playhouse's Forever Plaid - comprised of Chris Hallowes, Ross Griffin, Paul Gary and Justin Burr - you'll feel like you've been good, thanks to their heavenly harmonies, delightful performances and all-around good-guy affability.

'Based on a true incident' seems a phrase best reserved for a hardboiled television detective series, circa 1954 - perhaps followed by a title card reading, 'A Quinn Martin Production' (if you're of a certain vintage, you'll get my meaning) - but in the case of Bright Star, the Tony Award-nominated musical by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell now onstage at Cumberland County Playhouse through June 6, it's definitely fitting.

Bright Star - the five-time Tony Award-nominated musical with "a glorious score and moving story," according to Cumberland County Playhouse's producing director Bryce McDonald - opens in Crossville this Friday night, April 26 and continuing through June 6.

CCP artistic director Britt Hancock directs the cast of four, which includes Justin Burr, Paul Gary, Ross Griffin and Chris Hallowes, who found time this week during the hustle and bustle of tech week to respond to our queries and to tell us why they think you should come see their show in the latest installment of our Friday 5 (+1)…

Relive an era when doo-wop was king, big hairdos were in, cars had enormous fins, and the harmonizing boy bands of the 1950s were all the rage as Forever Plaid opens at Cumberland County Playhouse this Friday night, March 29, running through May 24.

?The Wedding Singer marks the premier of Blackfriars Theatre's Summer Intensive-BTSI (BITSY). Geared towards rising high school juniors through newly graduated college seniors, BTSI allows students to experience a complete rehearsal through performance process in a professionally run community theatre, with the goal of training the next generation of artists.