Pam Atha News

2015 First Night Honoree Martha Wilkinson - the winner of nine First Night Awards for outstanding lead actress in a musical - leads the Nashville Repertory Theatre cast of the Oscar- and Tony Award-winning Chicago, running March 19-April 16 at the Andrew Johnson Theater at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

In Robert and Willie Reale's whimsical show, Frog and Toad wake from hibernation in the Spring, plant gardens, swim, rake leaves, eat cookies, go sledding, and learn life lessons along the way. The two best friends celebrate and rejoice in their differences that make them unique and special. The jazzy, upbeat score bubbles with melody and wit, making A Year With Frog and Toad a musical sure to entertain the whole family.

Shows are opening, shows are closing and Fiddler on the Roof is back onstage for Actors Pointe Theatre Company while Tom Sawyer takes a bow at Springhouse Theatre in Smyrna! Obviously, the 2016 theater season continues to reveal itself at a breakneck pace, giving audiences a veritable buffet of offerings from which to choose.

When you're talking about dance and dancers in Nashville, one name immediately rises to the top of the list: Billy Ditty. No matter the genre, no matter the venue, no matter the project, he exemplifies dance in Music City for many people.

In Robert and Willie Reale's whimsical show, Frog and Toad wake from hibernation in the Spring, plant gardens, swim, rake leaves, eat cookies, go sledding, and learn life lessons along the way. The two best friends celebrate and rejoice in their differences that make them unique and special. The jazzy, upbeat score bubbles with melody and wit, making A Year With Frog and Toad a musical sure to entertain the whole family.

Chicago is one of my favorite cities on the planet, so it goes that Chicago, the Tony Award- and Oscar-winning musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb, is also one of my favorite stage musicals. Brash, sassy, laugh-out-loud funny at one moment, and heart-tuggingly and sweetly sentimental at the next - with a musical score that's memorable and pitch-perfect in the skillful way it tells the story of wannabe vaudeville superstars Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly - Chicago has been a part of the musical theater vernacular for almost 40 years.

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to produce the award-winning, Broadway hit CHICAGO, the murderous musical depicting the balance between power, notoriety, and getting your way. CHICAGO will run tonight, March 19, through April 16, 2016 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

2015 First Night Honoree Martha Wilkinson - the winner of nine First Night Awards for outstanding lead actress in a musical - leads the Nashville Repertory Theatre cast of the Oscar- and Tony Award-winning Chicago, running tonight, March 19, through April 16 at the Andrew Johnson Theater at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Nashville Repertory Theatre's unveils its production of the Kander and Ebb classic Chicago this weekend, as Music City is transformed into the Windy City - well, the Andrew Johnson Theatre at TPAC will be, at least - for a three week run of the show that asks the musical question "What price fame?"

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.

Nashville audiences this weekend find themselves with two concurrently running opportunities to bask in the warm glow of Miranda's heartfelt creation as Hume-Fogg Academic High School's Theatre presents In The Heights for a three-performance run (which premiered last night - on Broadway, naturally, Nashville's Broadway) and Street Theatre Company, which tonight opens its 11th season with its mounting of the show that will run for the next three weekends.

Nashville Repertory Theatre is proud to produce the award-winning, Broadway hit CHICAGO, the murderous musical depicting the balance between power, notoriety, and getting your way. CHICAGO will run March 19 - April 16, 2016 in Johnson Theater at Tennessee Performing Arts Center. Preview performances are March 17 and 18.

2015 First Night Honoree Martha Wilkinson - the winner of nine First Night Awards for outstanding lead actress in a musical - leads the Nashville Repertory Theatre cast of the Oscar- and Tony Award-winning Chicago, running March 19-April 16 at the Andrew Johnson Theater at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Make no mistake about it: There is absolutely no way to avoid instantly liking Everett Tarlton - it's useless to even try. In fact, resistance is futile. The boy possesses so much innate charm that anyone - whether you're a director, a choreographer, an actor or even a critic - simply cannot resist him. And audiences? Those poor souls have no hope whatsoever.

Nashville Rep has curated a collection of diverse theatre workshops for individuals with various levels of theatre experience. Each workshop is a unique opportunity to be instructed by an expert in their field.

Once again, it's that time of year: a period of reflection and introspection that gives us all the perfect opportunity to express our gratitude for the things in our lives that have meant the most to us in 2015. We reached out to members of our theater community, to inquire about that which they are thankful for and we got some very heartfelt, considered romances that, leavened by the humor injected from some of our favorite people, gives us added insight into the psyche of the artistic and creative-minded people who make theatrical magic every day…

Halloween's all done in, there are still three weeks ahead before we officially give thanks, and Christmas - and all its accompanying frenzy and frivolity - is about seven weeks away! So what's there to do for all the theatrical types jonesing for a trip to make believe? Plenty! Theater companies all over middle Tennessee are showing off their best and brightest, with a number of eagerly anticipated shows opening this weekend and/or continuing from their earlier opening nights and next Tuesday there's a sparkling new Broadway musical swinging through Music City to entertain you…

Next up for Daron Bruce's students at Hume-Fogg Academic High School (one of the nation's highest rated secondary schools) is a much-anticipated production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, running November 5-7 at the iconic and historic high school - located on Broadway, naturally - in downtown Nashville. Taking on the challenge of portraying Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street, is Andrew Forbes, who is in today's High School Drama spotlight.

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.

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.