Nate Eppler News

Tennessee Repertory Theatre has announced its schedule for the Martha R. Ingram New Works Festival. The festival will be held April 28 - May 8 at Nashville Children's Theatre and will feature staged readings of new plays from seven local playwrights as well as Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winner David Auburn.

Nashville's playwriting duo of Nate Eppler and J. Dietz Osborne, who scored with Filthy Rich at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre last fall, have yet another world premiere production bowing this week. The pair's Southern Fried Funeral takes the stage at Franklin's Bethlehem United Methodist Church's Performing Arts Center on Friday night, continuing through March 20.

Clearly, Osborne and Eppler are writing about the people, places and things they have known from birth (in fact, on opening night, Osborne's family members from Arkansas, Alabama and Tennessee were on hand to witness the world premiere of the play, thus his pedigree is assured) and they display an impressive knowledge of what constitutes proper funeral etiquette and the peculiarly Southern way of life and death in all its 'Jesus Called...And Dewey Answered' glory.

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, the big comedy hit of last season on Broadway in a revival starring Angela Lansbury as the wacky medium Madame Arcati, comes to the stage of Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in a new production directed by J. Dietz Osborne and starring Martha Manning in the role that won Lansbury her latest Tony Award. Opening Thursday, February 11, Blithe Spirit runs at Chaffin's Barn, the city's premiere dinner theatre that was voted one of Nashville's Top 10 Tourist Destinations, through March 13.

Nashville's playwriting duo of Nate Eppler and J. Dietz Osborne, who scored with Filthy Rich at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre last fall, have yet another world premiere production bowing this week. The pair's Southern Fried Funeral takes the stage at Franklin's Bethlehem United Methodist Church's Performing Arts Center on Friday night, continuing through March 20.

If J. Dietz Osborne has seemed a bit distracted lately, it's easy to understand why. Within the past couple of months, he has directed Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, now onstage at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, been putting the finishing touches on Southern Fried Funeral (which will have its world premiere production by Franklin's Bethlehem Players starting Friday, March 12) with his writing partner Nate Eppler, and he's been cast as movie director Victor Fleming in Frankly, My Dear (opening March 18 at Chaffin's Barn).

It's a completely winning production from top to bottom: Osborne's direction is sure-handed and confident, his players' readings of their roles pitch-perfect and the technical elements and design aesthetic for the piece are delightfully on-target. It's essential, of course, in a comedy of British origins for the pacing to be quick, effortless and skilled or else the whole blessed thing becomes a bloody mess. Osborne obviously approaches the play with affection and skill, assembling a strong cast of players to bring Coward's near-iconic characters to life.

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, the big comedy hit of last season on Broadway in a revival starring Angela Lansbury as the wacky medium Madame Arcati, comes to the stage of Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in a new production directed by J. Dietz Osborne and starring Martha Manning in the role that won Lansbury her latest Tony Award. Opening Thursday, February 11, Blithe Spirit runs at Chaffin's Barn, the city's premiere dinner theatre that was voted one of Nashville's Top 10 Tourist Destinations, through March 13.

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, the big comedy hit of last season on Broadway in a revival starring Angela Lansbury as the wacky medium Madame Arcati, comes to the stage of Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in a new production directed by J. Dietz Osborne and starring Martha Manning in the role that won Lansbury her latest Tony Award. Opening Thursday, February 11, Blithe Spirit runs at Chaffin's Barn, the city's premiere dinner theatre that was voted one of Nashville's Top 10 Tourist Destinations, through March 13.

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, the big comedy hit of last season on Broadway in a revival starring Angela Lansbury as the wacky medium Madame Arcati, comes to the stage of Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in a new production directed by J. Dietz Osborne and starring Martha Manning in the role that won Lansbury her latest Tony Award. Opening Thursday, February 11, Blithe Spirit runs at Chaffin's Barn, the city's premiere dinner theatre that was voted one of Nashville's Top 10 Tourist Destinations, through March 13.

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, the big comedy hit of last season on Broadway in a revival starring Angela Lansbury as the wacky medium Madame Arcati, comes to the stage of Nashville's Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre in a new production directed by J. Dietz Osborne and starring Martha Manning in the role that won Lansbury her latest Tony Award. Opening Thursday, February 11, Blithe Spirit runs at Chaffin's Barn, the city's premiere dinner theatre that was voted one of Nashville's Top 10 Tourist Destinations, through March 13.

While the women in Nashville theatre might garner more critical attention, showier roles and sparklier costumes, the men, clearly, are no slouches themselves. Capable and committed, the men who assay roles on Nashville stages are a pretty impressive collection of actors who can take on the most traditional of roles one week, while tackling parts that require them to be more experimental and brave the next. In 2009, Nashville's best actors showed their range while strutting themselves in some of the best productions we've seen in years.

If, indeed, 'it takes a village,' and if, as the poets say, 'no man is an island,' then perhaps no art form is more collaborative than live theatre. With a village of artists backstage and offstage assuring that each production is mounted, then coming to life during each performance, the collaborative effort is renewed. And what audiences see onstage is the collaboration of artists, the people who comprise the acting ensemble, the folks who bring the stagebound script to life, sending it soaring into our imaginations.

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.

Somebody's stolen Santa's Christmas Magic and a crafty young girl and some of her special friends have joined forces to get it back in the Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre presentation of Sarah and the Secret of Santaland, a new play by J. Dietz Osborne and Nate Eppler, based on a story by Davey Peppers. The world premiere production debuts on Tuesday, December 8, and continues through December 19 at the venerable Nashville venue, with doors opening at 10 a.m. and the show starting at 11 a.m.

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.

Burr's even-handed direction and his unerring eye and ear for what is truly funny ensure that King's circa 1940s script is winningly interpreted and offers further proof that good farce, no matter its age, remains highly entertaining and laugh-out-loud funny. With Burr's expertly cast ensemble enacting the ridiculously absurd situations, you have a winning combination that will delight audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

See How They Run is described as a 'hilarious 1940s slapstick farce that takes place in a quaint English vicarage.' The vicar's wife is a former actress--vicar plus stage diva can only equal hijinks and mayhem, of course--and she's joined by four men dressed like priests (two of whom are imposters). The vicar's wife is pretending to be married to one who not her real husband, there's a bishop clad in pajamas, a nosy neighbor hiding in the coat closet and a silent maid, all of whom are being interrogated by a British army sergeant who's looking for an escaped POW.