Stephanie Jones News

More than 50 actors have been set to participate in The Blank Theatre's 25th Anniversary Young Playwrights Festival, including Michael Grant Terry (Bones, NCIS, Grimm, CSI), Janina Gavankar (The Mysteries of Laura, The Vampire Diaries, Grey's Anatomy), Lenny Jacobson (Nurse Jackie, Frequency, Big Time in Hollywood, FL), and Jennifer Stone (Wizards of Waverly Place). Twelve winning plays by young playwrights aged 17, 18, and 19 from six different states will be presented during this year's festival at the Stella Adler Theatre in Hollywood, running from June 1-25.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to the start of Memorial Day Weekend: It's Friday, May 26, 2017 and time to live life dramatically! It really sounds like we should be cutting a ribbon somewhere to herald the start of the long weekend that kicks off summer, but instead we sit here in front of a computer screen, remembering and reminiscing, in hopes of providing you with something to read while you sit by the pool, waiting for the SPF37 to kick in!

Feeling the urge to let your imagination run wild, your spirit to soar or to just leave the world in which you live and go on an adventure? Sounds like a trip to the theater is in order! Luckily, companies all over the Volunteer State have been hard at work, creating new productions to transform and to transport, shows that will entertain you this summer. That's where THE NASHVILLE THEATER CALENDAR comes in handy: Peruse our listings every week to find out what shows you should see!

Jason Lewis directs the regional premiere of Reefer Madness the Musical to close out ACT 1's 2016-17 season, opening June 9. A musical satire based on the 1936 cult film classic, Reefer Madness the Musical opened in Los Angeles in 1998. The book and lyrics were written by Kevin Murphy with music by Dan Studney.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to Thursday, May 25, 2017! So, here's the thing: We're up far earlier every morning than we'd actually choose to be, given the choice, and today we were lost in slumber, having a really terrific and very intriguing dream - I was in Louisville with my best pal Patrick Wilson.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Wednesday, May 24, 2017! How do we know this, you might ask? Well, we spent last evening at TPAC'S Andrew Jackson Hall, soaking up every possible bit of Carole King: The Beautiful Musical - wait, it's the other way around - Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and despite the earworm known as 'One Fine Day,' we are still floating on the inspiration and memories of opening night.

DreamWrights Center for Community Arts is packing in a month full of fun this March.

Jilted lovers, jealousy, lust, and small town gossip combine with a mysterious case of sleep walking in Vincenzo Bellini's romantic comedy LA SONNAMBULA.

The Rob Guest Endowment Committee is delighted to announce the 2016 Rob Guest Endowment Grand Final Concert will take place on Monday 14 November at the Sydney Lyric Theatre. The concert will be a night of exhilarating musical entertainment as six young musical theatre artist perform live and compete to win the $20,000 cash prize in this grand final event. Supported by a live professional orchestra, they will perform alongside some of Australia's most loved stars as the industry come together for an incredible night not to be missed.

Theaters and production companies throughout Middle Tennessee are looking for directors, crew members and cast members for several upcoming productions, including Peter and the Starcatcher at Dickson's Renaissance Players, directed by Bradley Moore, and Circle Players' Jesus Christ Superstar, directed by Jason Lewis.

Theaters and production companies throughout Middle Tennessee are looking for directors, crew members and cast members for several upcoming productions, including Young Frankenstein at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts and Peter and the Starcatcher at Dickson's Renaissance Players.

Theaters and production companies throughout Middle Tennessee are looking for directors, crew members and cast members for several upcoming productions, including Young Frankenstein at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts and Peter and the Starcatcher at Dickson's Renaissance Players.

It would have taken a miracle to save the opening night of Circle Players' Children of Eden - one of the most eagerly anticipated productions of the season in Music City - from the wrath of God: in this case an abysmal sound design that prevented the audience from hearing Lauren Frances Jones' exquisite vocal performance as Eve in the Stephen Schwartz/John Caird musical.

Mix together fable, biblical stories, music and a cast filled with talented local performers, and the result is Circle Players' production of Children of Eden, running March 18-April 3, at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theater. This epic musical by the award-winning creators of Wicked (Stephen Schwartz) and Les Miserables (John Caird) continues Circle's 66th season, as the oldest community theater organization in Middle Tennessee.

Nashville actor and NFL Hall of Famer Eddie George, who makes his Broadway debut Tuesday night in the iconic musical Chicago, was named First Night's Outstanding Leading Actor in a Play for his searing portrayal of a former slave haunted by the spectre of abuse in Nashville Repertory Theatre's The Whipping Man. Rene Dunshee Copeland, producing artistic director of Nashville Rep, was named Outstanding Director of a Play, while her three-actor ensemble (which included James Rudolph and Matthew Rosenbaum) were awarded as First Night's Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Play for their rendition of the Matthew Lopez play.

How wonderful is it that a song can usher in all sorts of memories - perhaps of your first kiss, driving in a car along a dusty country road, or of people once-loved, still-loved, who are no longer a part of your life - to flood your mind, fill your heart and to transport you, as if by magic, to some earlier time? I love that feeling, which we in the theater are subject to far more often than regular folk, thanks to the music that underscores our dramatic lives and which allows everyone onstage, offstage, backstage - in whatever stage of life - to indulge in the play of 'make believe.'

Turkeys are on-sale at your local supermarket, so there's no better way to know Thanksgiving is just around the corner - yep, less than two weeks away! - which means that local theater companies will be unleashing their holiday season productions with enough productions of A Christmas Story (both the musical and the play), It's A Wonderful Life and Ebenezer Scrooge-led shows that you could shake a stick at!

Thus, we are happy to present the return of one 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 2015/16 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. Something's missing? That's an easy fix: just send us a message here, on Facebook, or by email at jeffreyellis37215@att.com.

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…

Today in a Friday Five (on Thursday!) feature, we shine our spotlight on Catherine Birdsong Broyles and Darci Wantiez, who offer some insight into their theater lives and give us some terrific answers to our five (well, six really) questions. Once you've gotten to know them better, you'll probably want to make sure you have tickets to see the incredible quartet over the next two weekends.