Kim Bretton News

What better way to spend a Saturday night - or any other night of the week, for that matter - than at Abigail's Party, the latest theatrical offering from Verge Theater Company? Featuring a wonderfully engaging ensemble of actors, Abigail's Party is now onstage through February 17 at The Barbershop Theater.

All of Nashville is a stage - or will be at some point - as Nashville Shakespeare Festival's celebration of its 30th anniversary continues at venues both expected and unexpected during the coming months.

First Night's Top Ten for 2018 - critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual review of the best in Tennessee theater were revealed last night during a live Facebook broadcast, with the hosts of Midwinter's First Night (Ashley Wolfe, J. Robert Lindsay, Tosha Pendergrast and Ben Pendergrast) announcing the productions and performances recognized among the best of 2017.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to Thursday, May 18, 2017…It's #TheatreThursday! which begs the question: How do you propose to live life dramatically? And, while we're on the subject, what shows are on your agenda this weekend? Let us know what you plan to see and what led you to make your choice! We'll pass the word along to the powers-that-be!

Whether it's seeing Matt Logan as King Arthur galumphing around onstage, as if astride a horse with Garris Wimmer not far behind providing the necessary sound effects with two halves of one empty coconut shell, or watching Jake Speck, as a feckless wannabe Knight of the Round Table, crap his pants anytime he hears a threatening sound or encounters the menacing Black Knight (or anyone else who might say 'boo' to the goose who is Sir Robin), or any other manner of zany characters who find themselves right smack in the middle of the most ridiculous of situations - Monty Python's Spamalot, now in an altogether splendid production from Studio Tenn, will supply you with plenty of laughs and/or the fodder to keep you amusingly sated until the next time you need a good guffaw or two.

Good Morning, Theaterati! It's May Day: May 1, 2017, and we're asking the musical question…What if you have five members from two casts of Million Dollar Quartet together backstage after a performance of the show, might it more accurately be known as $1.25 Million Dollar Quartet?

Meanwhile, you can cast your eyes toward today's photogenic cover models, the lovely and talented Cooper and his human, Nashville actress/designer Ashley Wolfe - both of them are pretty swell, in our estimation (even deserving of a Tony Award), and while we worry about them taking selfies while driving and while catching up on the theatrical news every morning, we are assured they were at a full stop when this photo was snapped. In fact, according to the human member of the duo she hadn't yet turned her key to the on position.

In Ara Vito's Southern Gothic-inspired treatment of Sophocles' Antigone, the bond between two sisters is challenged by the tragedies of national and familial conflict. Against the backdrop of a decaying home in middle-of-nowhere country, the air is imbued with history and spirits walk the earth. Tragedy is yesterday and tomorrow and now - uncovered by love, betrayal, death, and hope. Summer Shack directs.

Nashville mayor Megan Barry will join Actors Bridge Ensemble (ABE) for its V-Day Nashville 2017 benefit performance of Eve Ensler's award-winning The Vagina Monologues on Friday, February 17, at City Winery, 609 Lafayette Street.

First Night's Top Ten of 2017 - critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual review of the best in Tennessee theater - were revealed tonight during a live Facebook broadcast at 7:30 p.m. (CST), with Actor's Bridge Ensemble and Studio Tenn/TPAC leading the nods in this year's listing of categories.

Hand to God is a ballsy, brassy and in-your-face consideration of life in a Southern church and its impact on the lives of its congregants, exposing the hypocrisy of small-town convention and social mores that continue to evolve at a glacial pace. You'll be singing hosannas in the show's aftermath, reveling in the knowledge that you've seen some very talented people doing what God - or any other higher power or reverential deity - must have intended from the very beginning, as in '…in the beginning…' Who knew a church's puppet ministry could be so intriguingly facile yet uproariously entertaining?

Actors Bridge Ensemble's 21st season continues with the Nashville premiere of smash hit Broadway comedy, HAND TO GOD by Robert Askins, directed by Mitch Massaro, December 9-18 at the Actors Bridge Studio at Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue, Nashville, 37209. The entrance to the Chapel is on 47th Avenue.

Actors Bridge Ensemble's 21st season continues with the Nashville premiere of smash hit Broadway comedy, HAND TO GOD by Robert Askins, directed by Mitch Massaro, December 9-18 at the Actors Bridge Studio at Darkhorse Chapel, 4610 Charlotte Avenue, Nashville, 37209. The entrance to the Chapel is on 47th Avenue.

For two nights only, on April 17 and 18, they will speak, sing, dance, and shape-shift their stories to life as part of GRRRLS NIGHT OUT: an all-star fundraising performance for GRRRL scholarships, to be held at the Darkhorse Theater, 4610 Charlotte Avenue in Nashville.

Studio Tenn's season finale production of the operatic epic 'Les Miserables' will celebrate Claude-Michel Schonburg's stirring, masterful score: the core of this sweeping contemporary phenomenon. Made into a major Hollywood motion picture in 2012, 'Les Mis' is the theatre title currently on everyone's lips. In Studio Tenn's production, the music, foremost, will triumph-its full majesty aptly showcased amid the grandeur of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center's acoustically unparalleled Laura Turner Hall on May 3 and 4, 2014.

Studio Tenn's season finale production of the operatic epic 'Les Miserables' will celebrate Claude-Michel Schonburg's stirring, masterful score: the core of this sweeping contemporary phenomenon. Made into a major Hollywood motion picture in 2012, 'Les Mis' is the theatre title currently on everyone's lips. In Studio Tenn's production, the music, foremost, will triumph-its full majesty aptly showcased amid the grandeur of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center's acoustically unparalleled Laura Turner Hall on May 3 and 4, 2014.

The world premiere of a brand-spanking new musical with Broadway in its sights, a relatively young but awe-inspiring theater company and a sparkling, witty new play about Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald led the list of Tennessee's outstanding theatrical achievements in 2012 that was revealed Sunday night at Midwinter's First Night.

Thanks to the exquisitely crafted and wonderfully creative Outside Paradise, a new play written by Bill Feehely and given an opulent world premiere production from Actors Bridge Ensemble, the story of these two tragic figures is brought to life onstage.

Kim Bretton, easily one of the best actors to be found anywhere, makes an auspicious Nashville debut as a director-that places her firmly among the upper echelons of that particular field of endeavor-with her thoughtful and intriguing mounting of Donald Margulies' Time Stands Still for Actors Bridge Ensemble.