Memory Strong News

Opening tonight at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts is 9 to 5: The Musical, the Broadway musical by Dolly Parton and Patricia Resnick, based upon the hit movie in which Parton played Doralee, a buxom, down-home kind of gal. Directed by Matthew Hayes Hunter, with choreography by Kate Adams-Kramer and musical direction by Emily Dennis, the show features a stunning trio of leading ladies - played by Katie Hahn, Mary Ellen Smith and Memory Strong-Smith - and an ensemble filled with local favorites, including two Matt Smiths...

Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts presents Dolly Parton's hit Broadway musical - 9 to 5, The Musical - running February 10-26, during which they will recognize local women who have made a difference in the workforce with the presentation of "9 to 5 Change It!" Awards.

Gracie McGraw, Molly Balsam and Jenna Pryor opened Act Two of the awards show with a medley of Hamilton-inspired songs.

In recognition of The Barn's 45 years of bringing the magic of live theater to the stage, we continue our special series of Onstage at The Barn: Memories from The First 45 Years, with actor Michael Edwards, who made his debut at The Barn in the 1970, continuing to work there until 1990. For many people from that era, Mike Edwards was-and still is, in so many ways-the face of Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, the actor most recognizable for the long list of roles he played there.

A capacity crowd filled The Keeton to witness the no-holds-barred evening, hosted by Julia Marie Nettles, Jenna Pryor, Austin Jeffrey Smith and Taylor Tracey. Arron Holman worked the crowd during the evening to provide insight for the coming theatrical season in Nashville.

Studio Tenn and Tennessee Performing Arts Center's joint venture to produce Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita in Nashville resulted in the production claiming the top prize as "Outstanding Musical of The Year" at Sunday's Midwinter's First Night event at The Larry Keeton Theatre. Nashville Repertory Theatre's production of Nate Eppler's original play Good Monsters took the title of "Outstanding Play of The Year" in the annual ceremony that dates back to its origins in 1989.

First Night's Top Ten of 2017 - critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual review of the best in Tennessee theater - were revealed tonight during a live Facebook broadcast at 7:30 p.m. (CST), with Actor's Bridge Ensemble and Studio Tenn/TPAC leading the nods in this year's listing of categories.

First Night's Top Ten of 2017 - critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual review of the best in Tennessee theater - will be revealed tonight during a live Facebook broadcast at 7:30 p.m. (CST).

Austin Jeffrey Smith, Taylor Tracey, Jenna Pryor and Julia Nettles will share the stage as co-hosts of 2017 Midwinter's First Night, set for Sunday, January 8, 2017, at The Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson.

Austin Jeffrey Smith, Taylor Tracey, Jenna Pryor and Julia Nettles will share the stage as co-hosts of 2017 Midwinter's First Night, set for Sunday, January 8, 2017, at The Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson. Midwinter's First Night is the annual presentation of First Night founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis' First Night's Top Ten of 2017 and the announcement of winners of the BWW Nashville Awards, voting for which continues through the end of December.

The Dixie Swim Club - the Jones-Hope-Wooten comedy about five Southern women who meet on their college's swim team and hold a beachfront reunion every year thereafter - opens this week at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts, in a new production helmed by George W. Manus Jr.

It's only October, but the 2016-17 school year is already off to a frenzied start for Belmont University's Kyle Caress, who this week gets a respite from the halls of academia to spend fall break in New York City with some of his musical theater classmates/comrades/friends, taking in some of the hottest shows on Broadway before returning to Nashville to put the finishing touches on the department's fall musical offering.

Nearly There Productions, under the leadership of Julian Bird and in association with Group Theatre & Film, will perform both pieces from Arthur Miller's Danger: Memory! collection - two contrasting but thematically related one-act plays, I Can't Remember Anything and Clara, about the meaning of memories and the selective amnesia of the past.

Nearly There Productions, under the leadership of Julian Bird and in association with Group Theatre & Film, will perform both pieces from Arthur Miller's Danger: Memory! collection - two contrasting but thematically related one-act plays, I Can't Remember Anything and Clara, about the meaning of memories and the selective amnesia of the past.

Two Broadway veterans join with a group of seven of Tennessee's most enduring, influential and outstanding theater artists to comprise the Class of 2016 First Night Honorees, who were revealed Monday night during the annual First Night preview party, hosted by First Night founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis.

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.

What happens when a group of teenagers idolize a celebrity - a figure from popular culture whose charisma ensures he will live on forever despite his death at a young age - reunite some 20 years later to further venerate their crush and to recall his impact on their young lives? That's the question considered in Ed Graczyk's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, the tragicomedy now onstage as the final production of ACT 1's 2015-16 season at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater.

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.