Megan Murphy News

Reprising a Music City holiday tradition - while providing plenty of laughs for Black Friday - Nashville Repertory Theatre brightens the season with its A Christmas Story, opening November 27, at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center and running through December 20.

Today in a Friday Five (on Thursday!) feature, we shine our spotlight on Catherine Birdsong Broyles and Darci Wantiez, who offer some insight into their theater lives and give us some terrific answers to our five (well, six really) questions. Once you've gotten to know them better, you'll probably want to make sure you have tickets to see the incredible quartet over the next two weekends.

Nashville Repertory Theatre (The Rep) will perform a staged reading of GOOD MONSTERS today, November 3 at 7 pm. This play is presently being workshopped in preparation of a fully staged production by The Rep in February 2016. It contains adult themes and language.

It's Halloween weekend and every dramatic personage and theatrical type we've ever encountered is caught up in the annual rush to find just the right costume for their holiday revelries (we confess we've never had the knack for coming up with Halloween get-ups - not since we went in drag to a party at the First Baptist Church as the age of 12…tongues were wagging, we are certain, but we lived to tell about it, so it couldn't have been that bad). In the meantime, there are all sorts of onstage happenings this weekend to keep you otherwise engaged should the difficulty of selecting your costume prove to be too much.

Today, Eric Butler (who plays Curlie) and Tony Nappo take on our Friday Five questions, to give you some insight into the two actors. Here's your chance to get to know them before seeing the show which runs for three weekends, through November 15.

Good Monsters tells the story of Frank, a Gulf War veteran and police officer who moonlights as a security guard to make ends meet. Safira was a shoplifter. It was dark. Frank thought she had a gun. She didn't. Now Frank's the guy who shot an unarmed teenager, with ramifications for his wife, his best friend, Safira's father, and a media spin doctor looking for a story. While he waits for the grand jury, Safira haunts Frank every night and soon she begins to make terrifying demands of him.

Nashville Repertory Theatre (The Rep) will perform a staged reading of GOOD MONSTERS on Tuesday, November 3 at 7 pm. This play is presently being workshopped in preparation of a fully staged production by The Rep in February 2016. It contains adult themes and language.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show. Thus, we are happy to present a new feature: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come. Something's missing? That's an easy fix: just send us a message here, on Facebook, or by email at jeffreyellis37215@att.com.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

There are certain things audiences have come to expect in a new production from Studio Tenn, the Franklin-based, Nashville-nurtured professional theater company headed up by Matt Logan and Jake Speck: You know it will be beautifully designed, sumptuously mounted and impeccably cast.

After wrapping up the highly-acclaimed JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT tour, which she co-starred in alongside husband Ace Young, Diana DeGarmo will lead the cast of Studio Tenn's upcoming production of THE WIZARD OF OZ June 13 and 14. Check out a sneak peek behind the scenes below!

It's already heating up in Nashville and it's not even summer yet! But Nashville area theater companies are hard at work to ensure that audiences have a lot to choose from in the way of live theater presented in cool, darkened theaters. Here are our suggestions for the most eagerly anticipated shows of the sultry summer season…

We pride ourselves on our bounteous Southern hospitality here in Nashville, so who's gonna explain this: On Thursday, as thousands of country music fans gathered downtown for CMA Fest and thousands more fans of every musical genre you can think of were headed southward for the Bonnaroo Music Festival - just another summer in Tennessee, mind you - a truck spilled its load all over Interstate 65-S, adding to the hot, humid atmosphere with a whole mess of fish parts. Yep, you heard it right: smelly, disgusting fish parts baking on the hot asphalt under the blazing sun.

To know Megan Murphy Chambers is to love her: Make no mistake about it, she's as beloved among Nashville's theater community as anyone you could possibly imagine. Her stage appearances are noteworthy and memorable, to be certain, but it's her offstage personality that proves how much everyone loves her. She's thoughtful and kind, funny and charming, sweet and entertaining.

Despite being a veteran of five Studio Tenn productions already, Patrick Waller - who's clearly one of Nashville theater's favorite thespians - admits being a bit terrified by taking on a new role in the company's upcoming rendition of the iconic musical The Wizard of Oz, playing the Schermerhorn Symphony Center this weekend.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show. Thus, we are happy to present a new feature: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come.