Patrick Kramer News

Cast members - the hardest working man in Music City show business Patrick Kramer and the outrageously funny Katie Bruno - from director Jason Tucker's cast found time from their rigorous rehearsal schedule to take on our Friday 5 (+1) questions to offer us some insider information about the show and what makes them tick, after a theatrical fashion.

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.

Have you decided on your Halloween costume yet? You better get to work since it's only four days until the big night is upon us and you won't want to caught with your pants down, so to speak. May we respectfully suggest a trip to your local, neighborhood theater? Not only will you be entertained, transformed and transported - we're willing to be on this happening - but you'll also probably get some great costume ideas in the process! And there is the added bonus that the theater company might be in the business of renting out costumes which would make your efforts even easier than you first thought…

Patrick Kramer's commanding performance as Frederick Frankenstein (that's 'FRONKENsteen' for the uninitiated) in the Center for the Arts' production of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein is reason enough to buy a ticket (if you're lucky enough to score one - shows are playing to capacity crowds in Murfreesboro, so make your reservations yesterday), but director Renee Robinson and musical director Stephen Burnette very adroitly surround him with such strong support that the entire ensemble of Transylvanian thespians is worth the price of admission.

Here are our suggestions - our choices, as it were - for the shows to catch, the people to see, before Monday morning rolls around. Again. When work beckons, we promise you'll have so much more interesting water cooler chatter to share that you'll be the envy of everyone at the office:

Stephen Sondheim's Assassins - his musical treatment of the history of presidential assassinations in America - remains one of the most compelling and intriguing works to be found in the musical theater canon, focusing on a veritable rogue's gallery of historic figures whose infamy lives on decades after their horrific actions first gained them the notoriety they so often pursued in their disparate, yet somehow weirdly connected, lives.

Coming off of its tremendously successful season opener IN THE HEIGHTS, Street Theatre Company stages its second show of the 2016 season, the hilarious and thought­provoking musical ASSASSINS. With music and lyrics by the one and only Stephen Sondheim (SWEENEY TODD, INTO THE WOODS), the production opened Off Broadway before moving to London's West End. The show created such a buzz that it reopened in New York, this time on Broadway, where it won multiple Tony and Drama Desk awards.

Coming off of its tremendously successful season opener In The Heights, Street Theatre Company stages its second show of the 2016 season, Stephen Sondheim's provocative musical Assassins, May 20 through June 5.

Coming off of its tremendously successful season opener IN THE HEIGHTS, Street Theatre Company stages its second show of the 2016 season, the hilarious and thought­provoking musical ASSASSINS. With music and lyrics by the one and only Stephen Sondheim (SWEENEY TODD, INTO THE WOODS), the production opened Off Broadway before moving to London's West End. The show created such a buzz that it reopened in New York, this time on Broadway, where it won multiple Tony and Drama Desk awards.

Coming off of its tremendously successful season opener In The Heights, Street Theatre Company stages its second show of the 2016 season, Stephen Sondheim's provocative musical Assassins, May 20 through June 5.

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.

Among offerings this month are Christopher Durang's The Actor's Nightmare, a short comic play directed by Kristin Parsons. It involves an accountant named George Spelvin, who is mistaken for an actor's understudy and forced to perform in a play for which he doesn't know any of the lines. Patrick Kramer stars as George, with Bethany Champion as Meg, Tammy Sutherland as Sarah, Jenni Cadaret as Ellen and Douglas Goodman as Henry.

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 one of our most popular features: 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 2016 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.

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.