Ron Murphy News

Tennessee's best and brightest stage stars took to the stage at Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre Monday night, June 6, for First Night: The Tony Concert, to kick-off the 2011 First Night season in Nashville. Performing songs from Tony Award-winning musicals, the concert featured performers from throughout Tennessee - from Nashville to Crossville to Clarksville.

Nicole Begue Hackman is so perfectly cast as Eliza Doolittle in Lerner and Loewe classic My Fair Lady at Cumberland County Playhouse that all those other characters that people the musical may seem superfluous, despite the splendid performances of the rest of the cast. Oh, certainly, their characters aren't really extraneous, but Hackman's portrayal of the Cockney flower girl is so spot-on, so multi-dimensional and delightful - and she sings the role so exquisitely - that you may just find yourself aching to attend the races at Ascot or to hear your favorite opera Aida at Covent Garden when you are transported by onstage magic to 1912 England.

Audrey, that flesh-eating plant that has made Little Shop of Horrors both a film and stage hit, sets down roots in Crossville beginning May 19, continuing through August 6, at Cumberland County Playhouse. Directed by John Fionte, with music direction by Ron Murphy and choreography by Leila Marshall, Little Shop stars the wife-and-husband team of Lindy and Greg Pendzick as the woman who lends her name to that monstrous plant and her dweeby suitor, Seymour, the budding horticulturalist whose experiments result in some unexpected flower shop carnage.

Camp Rock, The Musical could easily be dismissed as so much homogenized, Disneyfied, teenaged pablum - but, in reality, it's much more than that. It's a fast-moving, engaging love story set to music and is much more akin to all those Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney 'let's put on a show!' movies than you might expect.

Think about it: What if you were watching The King and I and when Anna and the King of Siam started to sing 'Shall We Dance' and they just stood there, it just wouldn't have much of an impact, would it? Or if all those budding chorus members in A Chorus Line just stood around and talked about dancing but never did even the most basic shuffle-ball-change...sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it? That's where choreographers come into the picture; they collaborate with the director, the music director and the cast members to create movement that elevates every musical comedy. Without them, the action remains stagebound and static. A choreographer allows your heart to soar along with the performers onstage, making musical comedy all the more compelling and transformative. These talented men and women created remarkable and memorable work in 2010 as First Night's Top Choreographers...

If you find yourself venturing outside of New York, and you want to see some really good musical theater, what should you do? Allow me to suggest a visit to my neck o' the woods: A trip to Nashville might provide you with exactly what you seek. After all, in a city perhaps best known throughout the world as Music City USA, what else could you expect but some exceedingly well-cast, well-produced, well-played and well-sung musical theater? We're lousy with exceptional singers and musicians and, as a result, musical theater is alive and well - and thriving - in Nashville. And here's my list of the Best Musicals of 2010...

Despite portentous warnings of an approaching snowmageddon across the South, more than 150 members of the Nashville and Middle Tennessee theater community gathered at Street Theatre Company in Nashville Sunday night, January 9, for the announcement of the BroadwayWorld.com Nashville Theatre Award winners and the presentation of First Night's Top Ten of Twenty-Ten.

Forget the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or schlepping to the mall to shop 'til you drop on Black Friday, the best - and definitely the most joyous - way to welcome the holiday season is a trip to Crossville for Cumberland County Playhouse's gloriously rapturous production of She Loves Me, the lovely and lyrical musical from Joe Masteroff, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick.

Brigadoon, onstage at Cumberland County Playhouse through November 21, could well be one of the closest-to-sheer-perfection musical theater experiences I've ever had, beautifully played and exquisitely staged, performed by a phenomenally gifted cast led by the multi-talented Britt Hancock (who sings, act and dances with vigorous conviction) as Tommy Albright. If you are a true lover of musical theater, you really must go see it before Brigadoon once again disappears into the mist.

When the show finally ended on Sunday night, September 19, and First Night revelers made it to their cars, they headed downtown to Hard Rock Cafe Nashville, located at the corner of Broadway and First, for the After-Party. Although the show ran long (as awards presentations tend to do) at four hours, a hale and hearty crowd of theater-types partied until the early morning hours of Monday, September 20 in the Reverb Room and on the rooftop balcony overlooking the glittery Nashville downtown and the Cumberland River with the soaring Nashville skyline in the background.

The Spare Stage production of Lee Blessing's A Body of Water - a Bay Area premiere - opens November 6 and runs through November 22 at EXIT Theatre in San Francisco, with Spare Stage Artistic Director Stephen Drewes at the helm.

A middle-aged couple awakens in a beautiful country house on a hill, surrounded by trees and glimpses of water. There's just one problem. They can't remember their own names, much less the relationship between them. Their ensuing pursuit of memory yields both terrifying and comic results, setting them adrift on a leaky raft of postmodern anxiety.

The Spare Stage production of Lee Blessing's A Body of Water - a Bay Area premiere - opens November 6 and runs through November 22 at EXIT Theatre in San Francisco, with Spare Stage Artistic Director Stephen Drewes at the helm.

A middle-aged couple awakens in a beautiful country house on a hill, surrounded by trees and glimpses of water. There's just one problem. They can't remember their own names, much less the relationship between them. Their ensuing pursuit of memory yields both terrifying and comic results, setting them adrift on a leaky raft of postmodern anxiety.

The Spare Stage production of Lee Blessing's A Body of Water - a Bay Area premiere - opens November 6 and runs through November 22 at EXIT Theatre in San Francisco, with Spare Stage Artistic Director Stephen Drewes at the helm.

Yasmina Reza's ironic comedy -The Unexpected Man - to have SF premiere starring veteran Bay Area actors Ken Ruta and Abigail Van Alyn Stephen Drewes directs the Spare Stage production at EXIT Theater July 10-25

Yasmina Reza's ironic comedy -The Unexpected Man - to have SF premiere starring veteran Bay Area actors Ken Ruta and Abigail Van Alyn Stephen Drewes directs the Spare Stage production at EXIT Theater July 10-25

Adamanto Production and The Lillian Theater with Electric Pear Productions / Melanie Sylvan, Liebman Entertainment and Veronique Ory, Alex Zoppa, Cheryl Bianchi present the West Coast Premiere of STITCHING by award-winning and Scottish playwright Anthony Neilson (Royal Court Theatre's Relocated and Best Fringe Play 1997, The Censor).

Adamanto Productions and Electric Pear, in association with Liebman Entertainment are proud to present a limited Off-Broadway run of the U.S. premiere of Stitching - a deeply twisted, intricate drama by Scottish playwright Anthony Neilson - at The Wild Project (195 East Third Street) now through July 19. Directed by Timothy Haskell and starring acclaimed Israeli actress Meital Dohan and Gian-Murray Gianino, Stitching will play the following schedule during the July 4th holiday week and weekend

Adamanto Productions in association with Liebman Entertainment are proud to present a limited Off-Broadway run of the U.S. premiere of Stitching - a twisted, intricate drama that keeps you on the edge of your seat, by British playwright Anthony Neilson - at The Wild Project.