Nancy Allen News

American Composers Orchestra's (ACO), under the leadership of Artistic Director Derek Bermel and Music Director George Manahan, opens its 40th Anniversary Season on Friday, October 28, 2016 at 7:30pm with Orchestra Underground: Contempo-Scary Music at Carnegie Hall's subterranean Zankel Hall.

Which brings us to this year's first installment of our popular feature/interview series, Collegiate Theatrics, featuring Belmont University sophomore Mary-Alexis McEntire, who is perhaps better known to friends, family and fans as Lexie McEntire. The Fairfax, Virginia, native is in the initial throes of her second year at the school - known widely for its theater and dance and musical theatre programs - as another young artist in a long line of Belmont students (then and now) making their names known on stages all over the globe.

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.

American Opera Projects (AOP) announces it is the recipient of several recent grants to support the creation of new operas in partnership with various producing organizations.

Hear ye, hear ye…Music City Confidential is back! Which means, of course, that I've heard an awful lot of scuttlebutt since last week's column went live on the interwebs - or, more likely, that I am trying to avoid boring and mundane stuff like packing - I'll let you decide what my motivation truly is...

Shows are opening, shows are closing and the newly reimagined national tour of The Phantom of the Opera continues its run at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center this weekend. Theater in Tennessee continues its fast-paced run through 2016 with a number of new openings this week, thanks to Bongo After Hours Theatre, Nashville Rep, Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, Circle Players and more - and Cumberland County Playhouse, Arts Center of Cannon County, Street Theatre Company, Lakewood Theatre Company and ACT 1 continue runs of their latest shows - to give you even more opportunities to celebrate the magic of live theater in the Volunteer State! And on Monday night, The Chicago Talking Machine Company premieres its first Nashville show at the Centennial Black Box Theatre.

The New York Philharmonic Very Young People's Concerts (VYPCs), for children ages 3 to 6, will conclude its 11th season Sunday, April 3, 2016, at 12:30 and 3:00 p.m. and Monday, April 4 at 10:30 a.m. at Merkin Concert Hall, 129 West 67th Street.

Winter's apparently over - it's in the mid-70s, balmy and windy, as we write this - and even before Spring pops up all over, there's an amazing amount of good theater to be found in the Nashville area. In fact, there's so much to choose from that you have absolutely no excuse staying alone in your room. Instead, in the wise and wonderful words of Sally Bowles, life is a cabaret and you're far more likely to find that out in the darkened confines of a theater, where magic and mayhem is bound to happen.

Nashville audiences this weekend are treated to a unique opportunity insofar as In The Heights is concerned: two stunning and startling, yet somehow altogether different, productions of Miranda's first masterpiece (you young people who are caught up in the specter of Hamilton have this earlier work to thank for your newfound enthusiasm for musical theater) to be inspired by - two shows that are almost alarmingly good and amazingly performed. Daron Bruce and Lisa Forbis' cadre of young performers at Nashville's Hume Fogg Academic High School will deliver their rendition of In The Heights for only one more performance (tonight, on Nashville's Broadway, is the last of three shows), while Street Theatre Company's founding artistic director Cathy Street bids farewell to her adopted hometown of ten years with her beautifully directed staging at Bailey Middle School, which opened last night for the first of three weekends of performances.

Four series have been newly-added to the programming lineup of free events at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center: The History of the World in 100 Performances with Adam Gopnik, and three series curated and produced by Award-winning theater directors Lonny Price and Matt Cowart: LC Dialogues, LC Originals, and Late Nights at the Atrium.

The New York Philharmonic, in collaboration with CAMI Music, will celebrate the Chinese New Year for the fifth consecutive year, this time welcoming the Year of the Monkey with a program of music by Chinese composers and a work inspired by China, celebrating the cultural heritage of China and honoring the Chinese-American community, on Tuesday, February 9, 2016, at 7:30 p.m. Long Yu - music director of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, artistic director and chief conductor of the China Philharmonic Orchestra, artistic director of the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, and founding artistic director of the Beijing Music Festival - will return to the Philharmonic to conduct the Chinese New Year Concert for the fifth consecutive season.

The three-time Emmy Award-winning All-Star Orchestra, under the direction of renowned conductor Gerard Schwarz, returns to public television with a new season of four episodes featuring Mr. Schwarz's 'all-star' team of top orchestral musicians, including prominent principal players from over 30 major U.S. orchestras

JCC Manhattan presents the fall season finale of PREformances with Allison Charney on Monday, December 14th at 12:30pm. In this unique concert series, you will hear celebrated classical musicians just before their performances on the world's most prestigious stages removing traditional barriers between performer and audience.

Candace Quarrels' story is one of those hard-to-believe show business tales that is likely to resonate with so many people, for so long, that it might become legendary in time. In fact, it may be the modern day equivalent to the age-old tale of a young, sweater-clad Lana Turner being discovered at a lunch counter in Schwab's drugstore in L.A. (back in the day when aspiring starlets had lunch at drug store soda fountains) and being transformed into a movie star - who, interestingly enough (especially for this story), became a legend.

Ask people involved in theater around Nashville to list some of their favorites who have moved on to seek fame and fortune in other places, one name that's likely to come up is Calvin David Malone. A graduate of Belmont University's esteemed musical theater program, the Owensboro, Kentucky, native is now on the boards in Fredericksburg, Virginia, delighting audiences with his massive talent and considerable stage presence.

CARRIE The Killer Musical Experience is now performing at the historic Los Angeles Theatre, the first theatrical musical at that venue. Opening Night was last night, October 8, and BroadwayWorld brings you a first look at the opening night bash, plus photos from the starry arrivals, below!

John Wyatt, founder of Cinespia, LA's most popular cinematic event of the summer, announced today its highly anticipated September 2015 lineup.

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.

The New York Philharmonic Ensembles, composed of musicians from the Orchestra, will give its fifth performance of the 2014-15 season on Sunday, March 15, 2015, at 3:00 p.m. at Merkin Concert Hall with a concert featuring Bottesini's Gran Duo Concertante for Violin, Double Bass and Piano; Tournier's Suite for Flute, Violin, Viola, Cello, and Harp, Op. 34; and Brahms's String Sextet No. 2 in G major, Op. 36. The musicians on the program will be Acting Principal Associate Concertmaster Michelle Kim and violinists Quan Ge, Fiona Simon, and Sharon Yamada; violists Judith Nelson, Re?mi Pelletier, and Robert Rinehart; cellists Eric Bartlett, Alexei Yupanqui Gonzales, and Patrick Jee; Principal Bass Timothy Cobb; Principal Harp Nancy Allen; and guest pianist Jean Schneider.

Opera Exposures, the not-for-profit opera company founded in 2004 by Edna Greenwich, will celebrate the end of its tenth year with a holiday concert on Sunday, December 21, 2014, at 3 PM at the same venue where it all began for the company in February 2004 - St. Marks Church in the Bowery, 131 East Tenth Street at Second Avenue in Manhattan.