Martha Wilkinson News

Martha Wilkinson directs a cast of Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre favorites in the upcoming Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, the latest installment of the Sanders Family trilogy, conceived by Alan Bailey and written by Connie Ray. With Tim Fudge (who directed the last installment - Sanders Family Christmas - during the holiday season) as music director, the show runs July 22-August 28.

Martha Wilkinson directs a cast of Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre favorites in the upcoming Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, the latest installment of the Sanders Family trilogy, conceived by Alan Bailey and written by Connie Ray. With Tim Fudge (who directed the last installment - Sanders Family Christmas - during the holiday season) as music director, the show runs July 22-August 28.

First Night season in Nashville kicked into high gear on Monday night, August 16, as some of Nashville's best-loved actors released their 'inner Tyra' during the First Night Fashion Extravaganza at Macy's Green Hills. Some of the season's hottest Red Carpet Fashions were featured in the fashion show in advance of The First Night Nashville Theatre Honors, slated for Sunday, September 19, at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre.

There comes a moment late in act two of the Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre production of Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming when now-married, about-to-give-birth daughter June Sanders Oglethorpe delivers a beautiful monologue in which she talks about her love for her family, her excitement at being a new mother, her devotion to her preacher husband's work and what it means to leave home and family for a new life adventure.

First Night season in Nashville kicked into high gear on Monday night, August 16, as some of Nashville's best-loved actors showed off their 'inner Tyra' during the First Night Fashion Extravaganza at Macy's Green Hills. Some of the season's hottest Red Carpet Fashions were featured in the fashion show in advance of The First Night Nashville Theatre Honors, slated for Sunday, September 19, at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre.

All the hottest Red Carpet Fashions from Macy's Green Hills, modeled by some of your favorite Nashville actors, will be in the spotlight just in time for you to pick out your own Red Carpet Look for the return of Nashville's favorite theatrical event: THE FIRST NIGHT NASHVILLE THEATRE HONORS (Sunday, September 19 at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre).

All the hottest Red Carpet Fashions from Macy's Green Hills, modeled by some of your favorite Nashville actors, will be in the spotlight just in time for you to pick out your own Red Carpet Look for the return of Nashville's favorite theatrical event: THE FIRST NIGHT NASHVILLE THEATRE HONORS (Sunday, September 19 at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre).

Eight of the leading lights of Nashville theater were announced Monday night as the Class of 2010 Honorees for the First Night Nashville Theatre Honors, to be presented Sunday, September 19. The Hard Rock Cafe Nashville's Reverb Room was the setting for the preview party and announcement of honorees.

Martha Wilkinson directs a cast of Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre favorites in the upcoming Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, the latest installment of the Sanders Family trilogy, conceived by Alan Bailey and written by Connie Ray. With Tim Fudge (who directed the last installment - Sanders Family Christmas - during the holiday season) as music director, the show runs July 22-August 28.

Martha Wilkinson directs a cast of Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre favorites in the upcoming Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, the latest installment of the Sanders Family trilogy, conceived by Alan Bailey and written by Connie Ray. With Tim Fudge (who directed the last installment - Sanders Family Christmas - during the holiday season) as music director, the show runs July 22-August 28.

As Nashville's summer theater season continues to heat up, anticipation continues to grow for September's First Night Nashville Theatre Honors, the revival of the Music City theater gala that will benefit Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and sponsored by Macy's and BroadwayWorld.com. Set for Sunday, September 19, at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre, First Night 2010 will honor eight individuals for their sustained and continued commitment to theater in Nashville.

In Chaffin's comedy, an inept private detective (whose car breaks down on a lonely stretch of country road late at night in a rain storm) seeks shelter in a secluded country mansion, only to be greeted at the door by a beautiful yet strange young woman - and a corpse lying on the foyer floor. It's the butler and hes been stabbed to death!

Starring a whole slew of Barn regulars hamming it up, The Butler Done It is cliche-filled romp -- and while it covers no new ground, Chaffin, Wilkinson and company are clearly in on the joke and make certain to include their audience in the fun. That's an essential part of the show's hard-won success: Some of the situations are groan-inducing, some of the lines are cringe-worthy and the plot is, well, predictable. But Wilkinson's keen eye for what works onstage and what's really funny, coupled with the estimable efforts of her hard-working cast result in a pleasantly diverting night of theatre. They get it - and they make sure you (the audience member) get it too!

Although the aftermath of devastating floods in the Nashville area resulted in a one-night postponement for the opening of 3Ps Production's Mixed Nuts, directed by Johnny Peppers, the cast will host a fundraiser at Friday night's performance -- Friday, May 7, the show's new opening night -- to benefit those people directly affected by the tragic events of the week.

In Chaffin's comedy, an inept private detective (whose car breaks down on a lonely stretch of country road late at night in a rain storm) seeks shelter in a secluded country mansion, only to be greeted at the door by a beautiful yet strange young woman - and a corpse lying on the foyer floor. It's the butler and hes been stabbed to death!

In Chaffin's comedy, an inept private detective (whose car breaks down on a lonely stretch of country road late at night in a rain storm) seeks shelter in a secluded country mansion, only to be greeted at the door by a beautiful yet strange young woman - and a corpse lying on the foyer floor. It's the butler and hes been stabbed to death!

The time is 1939 and Selznick has already begun filming Gone With the Wind, but needs a new script. There's only one writer up to the task - the legendary Ben Hecht. The only problem is that Hecht has never read the book and there's only one week to re-write the script. Selznick locks himself, Hecht and director Victor Fleming (pulled off the set of The Wizard of Oz, which he is also directing) in his office to get the job done.

It's 1939 and producer David O. Selznick (played by Derek Whittaker) finds himself under the gun: He only has seven days to fashion a shooting script for his epic film version of Margaret Mitchell's worldwide bestseller. Virtually every writer of note (including Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald) has submitted a treatment of the novel only to have Selznick - whose reputation as a controlling perfectionist remains intact in this play - reject every one of them

The time is 1939 and Selznick has already begun filming Gone With the Wind, but needs a new script. There's only one writer up to the task - the legendary Ben Hecht. The only problem is that Hecht has never read the book and there's only one week to re-write the script. Selznick locks himself, Hecht and director Victor Fleming (pulled off the set of The Wizard of Oz, which he is also directing) in his office to get the job done.

There may be actors who could give better performances as john and jen than Patrick Waller and Martha Wilkinson but they would have to be some sort of imaginary, dream-like apparitions to even come close to the stunningly brave and thoroughly focused interpretations given by these two exemplary Nashville artists. Consider it an ideal marriage of actors and characters, the perfect confluence of artists at their creative best coming together to breathe life and renewed vitality into their fictional counterparts, who are so richly drawn and evocatively written by Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald in their chamber musical now onstage at Chaffin's Backstage at the Barn in the debut production of Johnny Peppers' 3Ps Productions.