Liz Kalota 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.

Nine-time First Night Award-winner Martha Wilkinson directs Derek Whittaker, Debbie Kraski and a cast of Nashville's stage favorites in the Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof, opening Thursday, May 31, and running through July 8 at the theater in West Nashville.

In the coming weeks, we'll give you a sneak peek to what happens backstage as we presents photographs taken during intermission at some of the hottest shows to be mounted during these hot summer months (which always leads to mischief). Today, we continue our series with photos from Daron Bruce (our lensman at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre's Fiddler on the Roof) and Matthew Hayes Hunter (who's clicking away backstage at Arts Center of Cannon County's Arsenic and Old Lace).

Nine-time First Night Award-winner Martha Wilkinson directs Derek Whittaker, Debbie Kraski and a cast of Nashville's stage favorites in the Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof, opening tonight, May 31, and running through July 8 at the theater in West Nashville.

Nine-time First Night Award-winner Martha Wilkinson directs Derek Whittaker, Debbie Kraski and a cast of Nashville's stage favorites in the Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre production of Fiddler on the Roof, opening Thursday, May 31, and running through July 8 at the theater in West Nashville.

With the holiday season just around the corner, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre has a special gift all wrapped up for the Nashville theatre-going public with their production of Christmas Belles, opening November 19 and running through December 31. The hilarious Futrelle sisters and all the other denizens of fictional Fayro, Texas return in this holiday-themed sequel to the smash hit comedy, Dearly Beloved by the playwriting trio of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Directed by Nate Eppler, the cast features some of Nashville's best-loved actors and promises to be one of the hottest tickets in town this season.

Directed by Nate Eppler, Christmas Belles is staged in the round at Chaffin's Barn (as are all their shows), which works well for the play's hilariously overblown situations. Audiences have a birds-eye view of everything that's happening and that lends an even greater ring of authenticity to the hijinks unfolding onstage. By using every square foot of the Barn's playing area, Eppler involves the audience more intimately in the yuletide frivolities at the Tabernacle of the Lamb Church.

With the holiday season just around the corner, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre has a special gift all wrapped up for the Nashville theatre-going public with their production of Christmas Belles, opening November 19 and running through December 31. The hilarious Futrelle sisters and all the other denizens of fictional Fayro, Texas return in this holiday-themed sequel to the smash hit comedy, Dearly Beloved by the playwriting trio of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Directed by Nate Eppler, the cast features some of Nashville's best-loved actors and promises to be one of the hottest tickets in town this season.

With the holiday season just around the corner, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre has a special gift all wrapped up for the Nashville theatre-going public with their production of Christmas Belles, opening November 19 and running through December 31. The hilarious Futrelle sisters and all the other denizens of fictional Fayro, Texas return in this holiday-themed sequel to the smash hit comedy, Dearly Beloved by the playwriting trio of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Directed by Nate Eppler, the cast features some of Nashville's best-loved actors and promises to be one of the hottest tickets in town this season.