Cat Arnold News

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Live life dramatically: It's Friday, May 12, 2017 - graduation day at Vanderbilt University - which prompts the musical question: 'Does it always have to rain on that day? This day, in particular?' Truly it's a FREAKY FRIDAY tradition, if the grads are donning caps and gowns at Vandy, chances are everyone else will be carrying their umbrellas with them in Music City.

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Thursday, May 11, 2017 (aka #TheatreThursday, y'all!) and we're just dying to ask the musical question: What shows will you be seeing this weekend? We hope you'll live life dramatically and make it to at least one production - but multiples are even better!

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! It's Monday, May 8, and it looks to be a beautiful spring day in Nashville (so live life dramatically), prompting us to ask the musical question: Do reviews matter anymore?

Michael Frayn's classic farce Noises Off debuts at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater May 12, running through May 27, in a production helmed by Bradley Moore for ACT 1's 2016-17 season.

Led by a trio of veteran Nashville-area actors - Dan Zeigler, Pat Street and Lynn Yates - the quartet of eponymous characters is completed by Ryan Chavez Richmond, who is quickly making a name for himself (and gaining more than a little notoriety along the way) on local stages. The four of them are joined by Jeanne Valcarcel Drone as Cassandra and Nikki Gavin as Nina in Durang's rollicking comedy that is sure to make you laugh uproariously one moment and bring tears to your eyes in the next.

Make no bones about it: the mind and imagination of playwright Tony Kushner (whose Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is playing at Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre, in a new production of from ACT 1) is nothing like yours or mine or that guy sitting at the table by the window at your neighborhood Starbucks, tip-tap-typing away at his laptop in hopes of capturing lightning in a bottle with his words or that woman waxing philosophical about the current political climate in this country while recapping the latest happenings on her favorite TV series for some obscure website.

In the quarter century since Tony Kushner's Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes first exploded upon the theatrical scene, much has changed about society's response to AIDS, homosexuality, politics and life in general. But, perhaps most startling has been the way in which things have remained the same during the 25-plus years since its 1991 debut on a stage in California.

ACT 1 presents Tony Kushner's seminal theatrical achievement Angels in America, Parts 1 and 2, at the Darkhorse Theatre March 11-25. Presented in partnership with Carlton Cornett LCSW and DeWayne Fulton, the production gives Nashville area audiences a rare opportunity to see both parts of Kushner's award-winning work at the same time. Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Tony Award for Best Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.

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.

Melissa Williams, longtime Nashville theater veteran, directs the final show of ACT 1's 2015-16 season – Ed Graczyk's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean – running at Darkhorse Theater May 6-21.

Bradley Moore directs his own adaptation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, as ACT 1 readies its fourth show of the 2015/2016 season, featuring a cast of respected Nashville actors. 

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.

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.

Today, three of the folks most closely associated with the production - director Moore is joined by cast members Sarah Shepherd and Maggie Pitt - fall under our Friday 5 spotlight, allowing us to get to know more about what makes them tick and why each of them believe audiences should flock to Darkhorse Theatre to see their racy rendition of Aristophanes' Lysistrata.

Bradley Moore directs his own adaptation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, as ACT 1 readies its fourth show of the 2015/2016 season, featuring a cast of respected Nashville actors. 

Theater-goers from our neck o' the woods have been quite spoiled already this year - and 2016 is barely three months old - and the hits, as they are wont to say, just keep on coming. In fact, there's so much great theater going on in the Nashville area right now, that you may be having a difficult time choosing among the bounteous offerings local companies are providing you.

Bradley Moore directs his own adaptation of Aristophanes' Lysistrata, as ACT 1 readies its fourth show of the 2015/2016 season, featuring a cast of respected Nashville actors.