Linda Speir News

It's another busy weekend in Nashville - but when is Music City not packed with events, festivals, affairs? - and we're back with our Critic's Choice recommendations to have you cut through the theatrical flotsam and jetsam and find a cultural opening that's a good fit for your harried lifestyle. Nashville Opera opens its staging of Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock at Noah Liff Opera Center, Way Off Broadway Productions unveils its version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Music Valley Event Center, Street Theatre Company invites you to the see their staging of Lynn Nottage's Sweat at their new venue on Elm Hill Pike and Nashville Rep continues its celebration of 10 years of The Ingram New Works Festival at Nashville Children's Theatre.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Christopher Hampton's acclaimed 1985 play based on the 1782 novel of the same name by Pierre Cholderlos de Laclos - opens as the latest offering from Nashville's Way Off Broadway Productions, running May 10-June 2 at Music Valley Event Center.

My heart is full for many reasons, not the least of which is that I can say, henceforth, that the last production of Steel Magnolias that I reviewed - this one at The Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson through Saturday, September 1 - was almost as good as that very first production I saw in Chicago in the summer of 1988. In fact, direct Donna Driver and her cast deliver a reading of Steel Magnolias that is as close to what Robert Harling wrote more than 30 years ago as any I've ever seen.

We Southerners take our literary history seriously, whether it's a book, a poem, a novel or a play - no matter the genre, we are proud to read about our way of life and the things that we believe make us so very special. Such is the case with Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias, which debuted in 1987 to near unanimous acclaim only to gain in popularity and adulation in the intervening three decades. Whether it's a feature film, a made-for-TV movie or live onstage, Harling's tale of six Louisiana women and their shared experiences captured in a series of snapshots from their lives is beloved and somewhat revered.

Nothing seems to spark so much debate among the theaterati than the announcement of an upcoming production of a show considered overdone, old-fashioned or somehow hackneyed and quasi-provincial. Take for example, Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias - the somewhat nostalgic and Southern-fried seriocomic tale of six women who gather every Saturday morning in a Louisiana beauty shop to have their bouffants teased, their shags trimmed, popular recipes swapped and the lives of their neighbors vivisected in the relative sanctity of a women-only establishment - that has been a part of contemporary literature since its 1987 premiere at off-Broadway's WPA Theatre 'up north' in New York.

This summer, beat the heat and come on down to Truvy's beauty shop, where the motto is 'there is no such thing as natural beauty' and all the ladies who are 'anybody' come to have their hair done. The Roxy Regional Theatre presents Robert Harling's stage hit STEEL MAGNOLIAS, July 28 through August 19.

This summer, beat the heat and come on down to Truvy's beauty shop, where the motto is 'there is no such thing as natural beauty' and all the ladies who are 'anybody' come to have their hair done. 

This summer, beat the heat and come on down to Truvy's beauty shop, where the motto is 'there is no such thing as natural beauty' and all the ladies who are 'anybody' come to have their hair done. 

This summer, beat the heat and come on down to Truvy's beauty shop, where the motto is 'there is no such thing as natural beauty' and all the ladies who are 'anybody' come to have their hair done. The Roxy Regional Theatre presents Robert Harling's stage hit STEEL MAGNOLIAS, July 28 through August 19.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI: Welcome to Friday, June 2, 2017! The weekend is upon us (thank you, very much) and we cannot conceive of a better way to live life dramatically than by catching a first night performance of a show? It's opening night for several new shows and we send out warm wishes of "break a leg"...

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Tuesday, May 30, 2017 - and we hope you've sufficiently recovered from Memorial Day Weekend so that you're able to face the rest of the week with the necessary intent to achieve all that's possible in a world where white pants and white shoes are acceptable (it's summer, after all…well, unofficially, from a social standpoint)! All of this prompts us to ask the musical question: What did you do this holiday weekend? Social media was fairly abuzz with all manner of outings and adventures perpetrated by the theaterati, including both Amy Prough Stumpfl and Nancy Allen attending a performance of Hamilton in Chicago, where Belmont University Musical Theatre alumni Candace Quarrels and Chris Lee are starring!

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!

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.

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.

Joseph Kesselring's Arsenic and Old Lace, a genteel and sometimes beguiling 'suspense comedy,' is a favorite among the nation's various and sundry community theater companies. And for good reason: It's slyly amusing, despite its age, and it features some genuinely engaging (if somewhat despicable, depending upon your perspective) characters who have entertained audiences for 75 years (it bowed on Broadway in 1941).

ACT 1's 2016-17 season officially opens with the Daniel DeVault-directed production of Joseph Kesselring's classic comedy Arsenic and Old Lace, playing Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre October 7-22, and starring Debbie Kraski and Linda Speir as the daffy yet dastardly Brewster sisters.

Summertime is here, what with Memorial Day and all that it encompasses, and we can think of no better seasonal activity than taking in some local theater. No matter where you are in the Volunteer State, Tennessee theater companies are ready and willing to help transport you to a different world, another time and place where your life can be is transformed magically on a stage very near you!

Is it just me or is everyone else amazed by how quickly 2016 seems to be moving - in a theatrical sense, at least - and what with Memorial Day Weekend upon us, we're gobsmacked (gobsmacked, I tell ya!) by the wide range of productions offered up by Tennessee theater companies this weekend. Included are Street Theatre Company's Assassins, Center for the Arts' 42nd Street down in Murfreesboro, Rumors out at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre and the final performance of The Sparkley Clean Funeral Singers at Cumberland County Playhouse.

'Spring is here! Why doesn't my heart go dancing?' - or at least to the theater to be transported to a different world, another time and place where life is transformed and magic happens before your very eyes...