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.
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. Thus, we are happy to present a new feature: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come.
Inspired by all the seasonal festivities that abound, we asked people in the theater community to share their favorite things to see onstage during the run-up to Christmas…
Ah, Halloween...the theaterati's favorite holiday (right after Tony Awards Day and, in Tennessee of course, First Night Day!)...gives everyone the opportunity to show off their inner characters and unknown doppelgangers. So how did Tennessee's theater types celebrate the day? Dress up with some place to go...
Six of the leading lights of the theater world in Tennessee will be recognized as members of the 2011 Class of First Night Honorees August 27-September 4 as First Night, the Nashville Theatre Honors hosts a series of theatrical events to celebrate their achievements and accomplishments.
First Night: The Honors Gala is set for Sunday, September 4, at the Troutt Theatre at Belmont University, which kicks off at 5:30 p.m. with the Red Carpet Event, hosted by Jennifer Richmond and Trey Palmer, with fashion commentary by Cary Street, Joshua Waldrep and Lisa Garner Harrison. Impresario Johnny Delarocco (aka John Pyka) will produce a special Red Carpet performance by his company just for First Night.
Six of the leading lights of the theater world in Tennessee will be recognized as members of the 2011 Class of First Night Honorees August 27-September 4 as First Night, the Nashville Theatre Honors hosts a series of theatrical events to celebrate their achievements and accomplishments.
In recognition of the centennial of Williams' birth, I conducted a very unscientific survey among Nashville theater folk to determine which of his plays are the most popular and the best loved. Perhaps surprisingly, the top vote-getters in our informal survey were A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and Summer and Smoke, shows that have been given memorable (so memorable, in fact, that people continue to talk about them) productions in Music City in the last century. Members of the Nashville theaterati have definite ideas where Williams' plays are concerned.
'There are no small parts, only small actors,' goes the old theatrical saw that's tossed about willy-nilly to encourage budding thespians to take on roles they suspect might be beneath them and their lofty stature. But, of course, there's much truth to be found in the axiom and you will certainly see it brought to life in the efforts of the members of many acting ensembles, particularly those considered among the best in Nashville's 2010 theater season:
You really must give credit to Kaine Riggan: the man has recreated one of downtown Nashville's best-known nightspots into a beautifully appointed live theater venue, somehow doing a thriving business in an economy that, at best, may be described as 'dire.' Add to that noteworthy achievement the fact that his A Scattered, Smothered and Covered Christmas is a delightful holiday-season repast, a down-home good time that even the most cynical audience member can enjoy.
David Williams and Cat Eberwine give such winning performances as Seymour and Audrey in the Senior Center for the Arts' production of Little Shop of Horrors, now onstage at Nashville Dinner Theatre through November 15, that it's easy to overlook some of the production's other, more obvious, shortcomings. Williams and Eberwine are sublimely off-kilter as the oddest of couples in the Alan Menken-Howard Ashman musical, with an onstage chemistry that makes them completely believable and altogether lovable in their cartoonish roles.
AUDREY II, the people-eating plant who stars in Little Shop Of Horrors, the frightfully freaky rock musical, has invaded Donelson's Senior Center for the Arts (SCA), for a run through November 15 at Nashville Dinner Theatre. Directed by veteran Nashville director Tim Larson, Little Shop introduces audiences to Seymour, an ill-fated florist shop worker who pines for fortune, fame and his flame, comely co-worker, Audrey. He later discovers an alien plant with a hankering for human blood and a dastardly desire to overtake the world. A perilous pact is made between the two, and mayhem ensues.
David Williams and Cat Eberwine give such winning performances as Seymour and Audrey in the Senior Center for the Arts' production of Little Shop of Horrors, now onstage at Nashville Dinner Theatre through November 15, that it's easy to overlook some of the production's other, more obvious, shortcomings. Williams and Eberwine are sublimely off-kilter as the oddest of couples in the Alan Menken-Howard Ashman musical, with an onstage chemistry that makes them completely believable and altogether lovable in their cartoonish roles.
AUDREY II, the people-eating plant who stars in Little Shop Of Horrors, the frightfully freaky rock musical, has invaded Donelson's Senior Center for the Arts (SCA), for a run through November 15 at Nashville Dinner Theatre. Directed by veteran Nashville director Tim Larson, Little Shop introduces audiences to Seymour, an ill-fated florist shop worker who pines for fortune, fame and his flame, comely co-worker, Audrey. He later discovers an alien plant with a hankering for human blood and a dastardly desire to overtake the world. A perilous pact is made between the two, and mayhem ensues.
If you ever needed any evidence that musical theatre is alive and well in Music City USA, you need look no further than Nashville Dinner Theatre's production of Disney's Beauty and the Beast, which this weekend wraps up its run at the Senior Center for the Arts. It is superbly acted, beautifully sung and confidently staged. It remains a compelling piece of theatre, as moving as any I've ever seen.
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