Kim Justis News

Theatre Memphis announces exciting new season with a variety of productions and performances. Get ready for a thrilling lineup of shows!

What did our critic think of SILENT SKY at Theatre Memphis? Can anything make a person feel more insignificant than to look up to the heavens to try and count the stars? How many are up there? What makes them shine? Just how far away are they anyway? So many questions. Perhaps the only feeling more insignificant than being a man asking these “big” questions, is being a woman told she’s not allowed to even ask them. Henrietta Leavitt was a real woman living in America at the turn of the 20th century who sought to, not only ask, but answer the questions of what is truly “out there,” not only in this universe, but beyond. She is credited with discovering Cepheid variables (a type of star that pulsates radially). Her life as an astronomer at a time when women weren’t encouraged to venture far from home, let alone to the cosmos, is on display currently in SILENT SKY at Theatre Memphis. Under the direction of Ceclia Wingate, Levitt’s world of wonder spins (figuratively and literally) in a lyrical fashion that supersedes the understanding of most mortals while still pulsating amongst the stardust. In a word, it shimmers.

After 100 years of producing musicals, comedies and dramas, Theatre Memphis has (like any other theatre lucky enough to be around this long) produced its fair share of 'clunkers' and 'classics.' Some of them were 'classics' which turned out to be 'clunkers,' but many of them, as of late, have turned out to be 'classics' that have been made to feel fresh and relatable (which is no small feat). Most community theatres across America pull out well-known titles as they rely more on the title of the show to fill the seats rather than on the actual people pulling the show together.

Theatre Memphis’ newest production (CICADA) which opened this past weekend and runs through April 16th explores the difference between a memory and a ghost and what it means to be haunted by both. Memories, like ghosts, are just manifestations (internal versus external) of the people in our lives (often family) who shaped, loved, and inspired us. Or they’re recollections (real or imagined) of kinfolk who sometimes shamed, tormented, and frightened us. Perhaps they’re both. There’s an argument to be made (generally speaking) when people utter the phrase, “Family is forever,” it’s supposed to be a good thing, but what if it’s not? What if your family offers nothing but a long lineage of misery and pain? What to do? Where to go?

Playhouse on the Square, in partnership with Athens Paper and super sponsor Dr. Thomas Ratliff will produce a new work by America's most produced living playwright, Lauren Gunderson.

Playhouse on the Square, in partnership with Grayson Smith Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning and super sponsor, Dr. Thomas Ratliff, bring the multi-award winning story, originally produced at the Royal National Theatre in London, to the Mid-South.

What happened all around our Broadway World this week?  We're featuring the best stories in Raleigh, Sacramento, China, and more. Check out our top 10 list, which includes NCT's GREASE, HAIRSPRAY in Sacramento, and STUPID F***ING BIRD in Albuquerque, just to name a few.

Throughout Sunday's matinee of Sharr White's intensely watchable THE OTHER PLACE at Circuit, for some reason I kept thinking of Edgar Allan Poe's 'A Dream Within a Dream' and, particularly, of these lines: 'All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream. / I stand amid the roar / Of a surf-tormented shore, / And I hold within my hand / Grains of the golden sand -- / How few! yet how they creep / Through my fingers to the deep, / While I weep -- while I weep.' THE OTHER PLACE, ably directed by the always dependable Dave Landis, is somewhat constructed like a Chinese puzzle box. Like the main character, a drug company scientist named 'Juliana Smithton' (who, in turn, is married to 'Ian,' an oncologist), the audience is continually challenged with questions of what is real and what is not.

?Playhouse on the Square presents the regional premiere of Sharr White's haunting drama, The Other Place. Juliana Smithon, a successful drug company scientist, finds her life falling to pieces. Her husband is filing for divorce, her daughter has eloped with a much older man, and her own health hangs in a dangerous limbo. Piece by piece, the mystery around Juliana unravels as fact blurs with fiction, and the past and the present collide with devastating results.

Tolstoy wrote that, 'Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Playwright Jon Robin Baitz extrapolated on that theory in his drama, Other Desert Cities, a 2012 Tony Award nominee for Best Play. It's an intricate script and the regional premiere at The Circuit Playhouse does it justice.

In this funny and searing family drama, Brooke Wyeth, a once promising novelist, returns home after a six-year absence to celebrate Christmas in Palm Springs with her parents, former Reagan inner circle, her brother, and her aunt. When Brooke announces she is about to publish a memoir focusing on an explosive chapter in the family's history, the holiday reunion is thrown into turmoil as the Wyeths struggle to come to terms with their past. A 2012 Tony Award nominee for Best Play.

In this funny and searing family drama, Brooke Wyeth, a once promising novelist, returns home after a six-year absence to celebrate Christmas in Palm Springs with her parents, former Reagan inner circle, her brother, and her aunt. When Brooke announces she is about to publish a memoir focusing on an explosive chapter in the family's history, the holiday reunion is thrown into turmoil as the Wyeths struggle to come to terms with their past. A 2012 Tony Award nominee for Best Play.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company (TSC), the Mid-South's professional classical theatre, presents the joyous stage version of It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play inside Dixon Gallery & Garden's Winegardner Auditorium, opening tonight, December 7, and running through December 16 in Memphis. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the production in the photos below!

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Rabbit Hole comes 'a humorous and poignant look at what it really means to be down on your luck. Margie Walsh is a single mother living in South Boston. Having lost her job and facing eviction, she's scrambling to catch a break. So when an old flame from the neighborhood who is now very successful moves back to town, Margie hopes he can help turn her life around. Their reunion unlocks decades of memories and resentments that neither has been able to truly put to rest.'

Noises Off is presented on Theatre Memphis's Lohrey Stage tonight April 27 - May 3, 2012. The plot 'spotlights a crew of B-list actors who rehearse a British bedroom farce to tour small towns across Britain. The director of this motley crew must battle egos, incompetence, and backstage romance to mount an increasingly chaotic play.'

Noises Off will be presented on Theatre Memphis's Lohrey Stage April 27 - May 3, 2012. The plot 'spotlights a crew of B-list actors who rehearse a British bedroom farce to tour small towns across Britain. The director of this motley crew must battle egos, incompetence, and backstage romance to mount an increasingly chaotic play.'

A playground scuffle between two boys brings their parents together for a friendly meeting to deal with the incident. The evening begins with all on their best behavior but tensions mount, the liquor flows, and fuses blow as the couples pick apart each other's marriages, and their own, with enough name-calling and chaos to suggest they have more in common with their children than they might suspect. 2009 Tony Award Winner for Best Play.

A playground scuffle between two boys brings their parents together for a friendly meeting to deal with the incident. The evening begins with all on their best behavior but tensions mount, the liquor flows, and fuses blow as the couples pick apart each other's marriages, and their own, with enough name-calling and chaos to suggest they have more in common with their children than they might suspect. 2009 Tony Award Winner for Best Play.

A playground scuffle between two boys brings their parents together for a friendly meeting to deal with the incident. The evening begins with all on their best behavior but tensions mount, the liquor flows, and fuses blow as the couples pick apart each other's marriages, and their own, with enough name-calling and chaos to suggest they have more in common with their children than they might suspect. 2009 Tony Award Winner for Best Play.