GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's May 17, 2017, and summer - or a reasonable facsimile thereof - has arrived in Nashville, with temperatures already climbing toward the 90s! When prompts the musical question: What's on your agenda for the summer of 2017? Anything we should know about and, more importantly, write about?
GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Tuesday, May 16, 2017, and while the whole worlds goes to hell in a handbasket, what with the latest news coming out of Washington about highly classified secrets being passed on to the Russians, Nashville theater companies are still striving to prevent people from finding out what shows they plan to do next season…
GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to Wednesday, May 10, 2017…which prompts us to ask the musical question: Who remembers the Saturday Night Massacre back in the 1970s, during which Richard Nixon fired the special Watergate prosecutor and all hell seemed to break loose (even more than it had already) in Washington, D.C.?
GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to Thursday, May 4, 2017 - can you believe it's already this far along in the year - and that it's another #TheatreThursday? Today, we're posing the musical question: Are all our artistic efforts worth it during these oh-so-trying times? The answer, most certainly, is a resounding "YES!" You see, gentle readers, it's during times like these that the spirit of creativity, the expression of our collective imagination and the ability to transform and to transport become even more vital to the continued existence of humankind. We implore you to continue to live life dramatically!
GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Wednesday, May 3, the day of THE BIG PAYBACK, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee's annual initiative to help local non-profits add to their coffers during a 24-hour online fundraising/giving event that has arts organizations coming up with new and clever ways to get their supporters to take part: We urge you to show your support throughout the day for your favorite arts non-profits and to help keep the lights on, the curtains up and your friends gainfully employed.
GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI for May 2, 2017 - we hope you're ready for the Tony Awards nominations being announced this morning at 7:30 a.m. God's time (which is also Nashville's time, aka daylight saving time) and pondering the musical question: What the hell goes into picking a season's worth of shows for local theatre companies? Sure, we presume it has something to do with selling tickets, enlightening their audiences and testing their artistic limits, but we sometimes fear it's for reason for too pedestrian for us to consider and far too plebeian for our tender psyches to even ponder…
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?
Join the lovely and talented - and completely off-her-rocker, but in a completely entertaining and intriguing way - Sara Kistner as she takes you backstage, onstage, offstage and beyond with the cast and crew of The Larry Keeton Theatre's Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Effin' Will? today as part of her Takeover of @BWW_Nashville Twitter. As we understand it, there's a dream ballet sequence that cannot be missed!
GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! This morning (which according to our watch is Friday, April 28) we come to you to pose this musical question: What have they done to poor Heather Morris on Dancing With the Stars? Seriously, what did they do? We don't watch that show but have picked up some rumblings on the mean streets of Music City that intrigue is afoot among the over-teased and body-glittered cast of the ABC Monday night juggernaut - please fill us in, theaterati. Inquiring minds want to know.
The Takeover of @BWW_Nashville's Twitter account continues unabated. Today, Matthew Hayes Hunter, the 2012 First Night Most Promising Actor who tonight takes to the stage of Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts to play Seymour Krelbourn, the geeky shopboy who brings the monstrous Audrey II to life in the musical Little Shop of Horrors, wrests control from Lipscomb University's Hunter Martin who kept things moving on Thursday in anticipation of LU's Senior Theatre Showcase on Saturday.
While everyone up in Crossville, it seems, is getting ready for Friday night's opening of Million Dollar Quartet at Cumberland County Playhouse, we were able to convince Molly Dobbs, who plays Dyanne (that's Elvis' main squeeze in the show), to give us an insider's look at what goes on to make the big night as big as it could very possibly be!
Look up the term "multi-hyphenate" in the dictionary and right beside it you will see a photograph of young Ryan Bowie (go ahead, look it up, we've got all the time in the world for you to question our veracity), the actor-director-artistic director-arts administrator-all-around-good-guy, who through no fault of our own has seized control of @BWW_Nashville's Twitter account.
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.
GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! We wish you a wonderful start to your work week while posing the musical question: Are you as water-logged as we are? The rains in Tennessee over the weekend are, according to the Weather Channel, on their way out of the area and sunshine is just around the corner…just in time, we say! There's a lot of theater coming up this week and we've got shows to see and people to watch! Greetings to today's cover model Jordan Tudor Haggard who may or may not be enjoying a butterscotch sundae to kick off her day while she catches up on today's news of a theatrical bent.
A big GOOD MORNING shout-out to today's eye-poppingly gorgeous cover models - the beautiful and talented Tosha Pendergrast and her equally dreamy husband Benjamin Pendergrast, who start off their morning by catching up on the latest theatrical dish while listening to the score of Legally Blonde, Tosha's next choreographic assignment for Pull-Tight Players before she heads off to teach dance, among other things, at Christ Presbyterian Academy.
Those wacky denizens of Lowake, Texas - members of the Turnover clan - return to the stage tonight in search of their daddy's last will and testament in The Larry Keeton Theatre's production of Del Shore's chicken-fried comedy Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will? Running through May 6, the raucous, downhome comedy features a cast of Nashville favorites including Tonya Pewitt, Memory Strong-Smith, Natalie Royal Herb, Jonathan Hunter, Benny Jones, Linda Speir, Drew Dunlop and Natalie Lewis.
GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's a glorious new day - #TheatreThursday, in fact - there's a bright golden haze on the meadow and today we're posing this question: What's your favorite stage comedy? And why does it tickle your funny bone (and we don't mean that in a dirty way, so get your freakin' minds outta the gutter!)? Greetings to our two cover models: the always entertaining and intriguing Daron Bruce and Jennifer Richmond, all dressed up in their Easter finery to get their daily dose of theater chatter!
Spring is here! Why doesn't my heart go dancing? Well, Mr. Lorenz Hart, personally, we are too damn busy with creating the magic of live theater: We're directing a show (Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will? opens next week - April 20 - at The Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson, thank you very much) and trying to make it out to see as much theater in Nashville as possible before old age takes its toll - it's tough out there for a theater critic!
Veteran Nashville actress Linda Speir will make her Larry Keeton Theatre debut as the matriarch in Del Shores' Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will, the next production on the stage of the Donelson theater, running April 20-May 6.
Veteran Nashville actress Linda Speir will make her Larry Keeton Theatre debut as the matriarch in Del Shores' Daddy's Dyin'…Who's Got the Will, the next production on the stage of the Donelson theater, running April 20-May 6.