Liam Searcy News

Remaining faithful to the original story conceived and written by Mary Shelley, Studio Tenn takes its audiences on an epic gothic - and highly theatrical - journey with Frankenstein, newly adapted by playwright A.S. Peterson and onstage at Jamison Theater through September 9. Mesmerizing and startling, it's a masterpiece of design and imagination.

Grease has been a part of the American musical theater vernacular for so long - it opened in Chicago some 47 years ago in the halcyon days of 1971 - that it's easy to overlook the show's impact on theater, in general, and audiences, in particular. Its multiple revivals on Broadway, in regional theater and in various community theater and high school drama settings probably makes you believe you've seen in far more often than you actually have (unless, of course, you watch the film treatment with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John over and over).

There's really nothing better than a musical theater-inspired epiphany: On opening night of Belmont University Musical Theatre's altogether invigorating and exhilarating On The Town (which plays Belmont's Troutt Theatre through this Sunday, March 25) I was struck by the similarities - both structurally and musically - to the Gershwin masterpiece An American in Paris.