Nashville Theatre + Broadway News

BYE, BYE, BIRDIE Runs June 1-17 at Dickson's Renaissance Center

(5/21/2012) Bye Bye Birdie—conjuring up memories of Elvis Presley and the fan fervor that greeted a lot of musical acts in the 1950s and ‘60s—takes center stage at Dickson’s Renaissance Center in June as the Renaissance Players present the musical theater classic June 1-17.

Murfreesboro's First Professional Theater Company to Debut With JEKYLL & HYDE In Concert

(5/21/2012) Jekyll and Hyde—the musical that established Frank Wildhorn as a major force in contemporary musical theater—will be given a concert mounting as the first offering from Murfreesboro’s Stones River Theatre Company, the city’s first and only professional theatre company.

BWW Reviews: Take Two for Street Theatre Company's Impressive Staging of THE LAST FIVE YEARS

(5/20/2012) Directed by Lauren Shouse, Street Theatre Company’s production is unique in its casting: Cori and Tyson Laemmel play Cathy and Jamie for the final two weekends of the run, while Kacie Phillips and Ryan Greenawalt opened, to essentially unanimous and deserved acclaim, in the roles for the first two weekends. But here’s an intriguing thought: How different would the show be if Cori Laemmel were paired with Ryan Greenawalt and Kacie Phillips played opposite Tyson Laemmel? It’s staggering, isn’t it?

Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot: BETH ANNE MUSIKER

(5/20/2012) Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it’s difficult to know who’s playing whom—hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known—or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin’ world—thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We’re gonna tell ya…Today’s actor/subject/model is the beautiful, talented and very busy Beth Anne Musiker, photographed by Mark Mosrie.

Tennessee Rep Interns Stage THE WOMAN IN BLACK, Now thru 5/22

(5/20/2012) Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s 2011-2012 professional interns will present The Woman in Black, a ghost play adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from the book by Susan Hill. The Woman in Black runs tonight, May 20 through May 22 at 7:00 pm at Tennessee Rep’s Rehearsal Hall at NPT's Studio A, 161 Rains Avenue.

BWW Reviews: EMERGENCE Shows Off Artistic Collaboration At Its Very Best

(5/19/2012) Let’s face it: You have to give Paul Vasterling, the grand poobah (as both artistic director and CEO of Nashville Ballet, what other title suits him best?) of all things musical/dancical/theatrical in Music City, a whole bunch of credit for the imaginative—heretofore unexperienced—heights he has helped his company achieve and his city to claim as its own. The man has redefined the idea of collaboration while giving human form to the term “synergy” with his continuing efforts to push the creative envelope in a city filled with artistic types and their sometimes conflicting sensibilities.

Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot: KIM NYGREN

(5/19/2012) Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it’s difficult to know who’s playing whom—hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known—or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin’ world—thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We’re gonna tell ya…Today’s actor/subject/model is the beautiful, talented and very busy Kim Nygren.

BWW Reviews: Kim Bretton Brings Stunningly Acted TIME STANDS STILL To The Stage in Nashville Premiere

(5/18/2012) Kim Bretton, easily one of the best actors to be found anywhere, makes an auspicious Nashville debut as a director—that places her firmly among the upper echelons of that particular field of endeavor—with her thoughtful and intriguing mounting of Donald Margulies’ Time Stands Still for Actors Bridge Ensemble.

Bob Gunton's WALKING ON WATER Premieres Tonight at Cumberland County Playhouse

(5/18/2012) Bob Gunton, the musical theater star who was Tony Award-nominated for his turn as Broadway’s original Juan Peron in Evita, returns to his Tennessee theatrical roots tonight in an original production that is sure to be one of the highlights of the 2012 season at Cumberland County Playhouse.

Megan Chambers Stars in Boiler Room Theatre's Upcoming NEXT TO NORMAL

(5/18/2012) Boiler Room Theatre debuts its most eagerly anticipated production of the 2012 season next week with Next To Normal, the groundbreaking 2009 Tony Award-winning musical, starring Nashville stage favorite Megan Murphy Chambers as Diana, a suburban wife and mother who contends with her worsening bipolar disorder while her family struggles to take care of one another.

CAMPING WITH HENRY AND TOM Concludes 2011-12 Season At Pull-Tight

(5/18/2012) Camping With Henry and Tom—directed by Lynda Gibbs—focuses on a 1921 camping trip that Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and President Warren G. Harding took into the Maryland woods to escape civilization. Inspired by that actual event, Camping with Henry and Tom is an exploration of friendship, politics and leadership; a comedic and dramatic clash of three great historical figures, and what might have happened when they ventured off into the woods together.

BWW Interviews: Cori Laemmel Takes On The Friday Five Before Going Onstage For THE LAST FIVE YEARS

(5/18/2012) Today’s spotlight falls upon Cori Laemmel, who opens tonight in the reboot of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years opposite her real-life husband Tyson Laemmel (following the critically acclaimed version that starred Ryan Greenawalt and Kacie Phillips for the first two weeks of the run) at Street Theatre Company.

Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot: WILL BUTLER

(5/18/2012) Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it’s difficult to know who’s playing whom—hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known—or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin’ world—thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We’re gonna tell ya…Today’s actor/subject/model is the handsome, talented and very busy Will Butler, photographed by Mandy Whitley.

Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot: RACHEL WOODS

(5/17/2012) Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it’s difficult to know who’s playing whom—hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known—or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin’ world—thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We’re gonna tell ya…Today’s actor/subject/model is the beautiful, talented and very busy Rachel Woods (who recently was named a Top Ten Finalist in the English Speaking Union’s National Speaking Competition and is a 2011 BroadwayWorld Nashville Award winner), photographed by J Renee Photography.

BWW Interviews: Good Food and a Good Role Beckon Broadway's Ben Davis to Nashville

(5/17/2012) Ben Davis isn’t even in Nashville yet, and already he’s eating like a native: “This morning,” he confides in a telephone interview from his home in New York City, “in anticipation of your phone call and our upcoming trip to Nashville, my wife and I had sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast.”

Tennessee Performing Arts Center Receives After-School Creativity Grants from Disney

(5/16/2012) The Tennessee Performing Arts Center has been named one of the first recipients of an after-school creativity grant from Disney. The $75,000 award will be used to develop sustainable theatre programs in Metro Nashville Public Schools, building on work that began when TPAC was selected as the first organization outside of New York City to offer the Disney Musicals in Schools outreach program.

Tennessee Rep Presents Ingram New Works Festival, 5/30-6/9

(5/15/2012) Tennessee Repertory Theatre has announced its schedule for the Martha R. Ingram New Works Festival. The festival will be held May 30 – June 9 and will feature staged readings of new plays from four regional playwrights as well as nationally-renowned playwright Steven Dietz. Dietz is this year’s recipient of the Ingram New Works Fellowship.

Leslie Jordan Returns to Old Stomping Grounds to Host CTC Fundraising 'Un-Gala,' 5/15

(5/14/2012) Comedian, author and Emmy Award-winning actor Leslie Jordan will have a homecoming of sorts tonight, May 15 when he returns to Chattanooga to headline Tuesday Night Live!, Chattanooga Theatre Centre’s annual fundraising gala, with proceeds going to the Annual Fund.

Roxy Regional Theatre Opens THE WEDDING SINGER, 5/25

(5/14/2012) Starting May 25, let the Roxy Regional Theatre's THE WEDDING SINGER "take you back to a time when hair was big, greed was good, collars were up, and a wedding singer might just be the coolest guy in the room."

Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot: LYNN YATES

(5/13/2012) Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it’s difficult to know who’s playing whom—hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known—or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin’ world—thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We’re gonna tell ya…Today’s actor/subject/model is the beautiful, talented and very busy Lynn Yates, photographed by Nora Canfield (www.msdigphotography.com).

Big Daddy Cool and Company Bring Their Swingin' Show to Gallatin's Palace Theatre

(5/12/2012) Set in post-World War II Chicago, the show features swing music for the mid-20th Century, award-winning magic and illusion, and high energy swing dance. Songs include “It Don’t Mean A Thing,” “In The Mood,” “Jump Jive & Wail,” “Blues In The Night” and many more hit songs from the mid-20th Century.

BWW Reviews: Gaslight Dinner Theatre Serves Up Some Hot Dishes in CHURCH BASEMENT LADIES

(5/12/2012) It makes no difference the region in which you were raised or now live, nor does the church in which you grew up or now worship and, seemingly, it doesn’t matter what your ethnic heritage is: There is a commonality, a universality that binds us all together as a society. And while all of that is a given, it’s driven home with the gentle humor and the good graces of Church Basement Ladies, the sweetly evocative and sometimes hilarious musical onstage at The Gaslight Dinner Theatre, in a warmly acted production directed by Nathan W. Brown.

Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot: KATELYN FIORINI

(5/12/2012) Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it’s difficult to know who’s playing whom—hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known—or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin’ world—thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We’re gonna tell ya…Today’s actor/subject/model is the beautiful, talented and very busy Katelyn Michelle Fiorini.

Austin Price Stars in ALL SHOOK UP! at Cumberland County Playhouse Closing Today

(5/12/2012) A square little town in a square little state in the middle of a square decade is about to be changed forever as All Shook Up! takes over the stage. Natalie, a young mechanic, dreams of love, adventure and of one true love who’ll take her away from her dreary surroundings. Natalie’s best friend Dennis has long had a secret crush on her. Since the Mayor outlawed everything that’s fun, it seems like the whole drab town is singing the blues.

Yanni Brings 2012 Concert Tour to TPAC Tonight, 5/12

(5/12/2012) Yanni, music’s true world citizen and most popular contemporary composer, brings his 2012 North American Concert Tour to the Tennessee Performing Art Center’s Andrew Jackson Hall tonight, May 12th at 8:00 p.m.

Nashville Symphony Invites Community to Tonight's Carnegie Hall Concert, 5/12

(5/12/2012) The Nashville Symphony invites members of the community join the orchestra when it performs at Carnegie Hall today, May 12, 2012.

BWW TV Seattle Exclusive: Behind the Scenes of Kristin Chenoweth on Tour!

(5/11/2012) BroadwayWorld Seattle was granted EXCLUSIVE access to Kristin Chenoweth's debut performance of her new (and first ever) tour, which opened in Seattle on Wednesday night ... and received a whopping NINE standing ovations for a show unlike we had ever seen.

BWW Reviews: How'd They Do That? Circle Players Delivers Fresh Take on HAIRSPRAY

(5/11/2012) Luckily (for me and for you, the rest of the audience who may or may not have seen the show in any of its multiple onstage incarnations), director Patrick Kramer, choreographer Kate Adams-Johnson and musical director Randy Craft have fashioned a rendition of Hairspray—that indomitable musical about one determined and ambitious Baltimore teenager in 1962—that fairly snaps, crackles and pops with its fresh delivery, its clever staging and the laudable and thoroughly committed performances of a cast of thousands.

Zooey Deschanel To Play Loretta Lynn in Broadway-bound COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER

(5/11/2012) Loretta Lynn, whose multi-decade career has firmly established her as one of Nashville’s most legendary performers, introduced Zooey Deschanel (Grammy and Golden Globe nominee and star and producer of Fox’s hit sitcom New Girl) to her audience last night during a performance at Opry Country Classics at the “mother church of country music,” the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville. In much the same way that Lynn revealed that Sissy Spacek would be taking on the challenge of playing her on film—a role that ultimately won her the Academy Award for her critically lauded, transformative performance—she gave her blessing onstage to Deschanel.

BWW Interviews: Hairspray's Link Larkin, aka Darin Richardson, Takes on The Friday Five

(5/11/2012) Today’s spotlight falls upon Darin Richardson, who is currently onstage in Circle Players’ Hairspray, getting his 1960s teen heartthrob on as Link Larkin, playing opposite Whitney Vaughn as Tracy Turnblad. For Richardson, it’s just the latest in a long list of onstage roles, which includes his recent role in The Keeton Theatre's Kiss Me, Kate, and a stint at the Miracle Theatre in Pigeon Forge, where he and castmates were forced to sort of re-write The Good Book when Jesus got stuck in the tomb. Seriously. So, gentle readers, read on…and find out more about the handsome and talented Darin Richardson, and go to The Larry Keeton Theatre and see him in Hairspray (he's there for the next two weekends).

Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot: KERI PISAPIA

(5/11/2012) Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it’s difficult to know who’s playing whom—hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known—or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin’ world—thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We’re gonna tell ya…Today’s actor/subject/model is the lovely and talented Keri Pisapia, photographed by Kristy West.

Kim Bretton Directs Nashville Premiere of Donald Margulies' TIME STANDS STILL, Now thru 5/20

(5/11/2012) Kim Bretton directs the Nashville premiere of Donald Margulies’ Time Stands Still, presented by Actors Bridge Ensemble at Belmont University’s Black Box Theatre, tonight May 11 through May 20.

The Circuit Playhouse Presents TUNA DOES VEGAS, 6/8-7/8

(5/10/2012) The latest installment from the creators of Greater Tuna, A Tuna Christmas, and Red, White and Tuna gets its regional premier at The Circuit Playhouse beginning June 8th. When a conservative radio host announces on the air that he and his wife will renew their vows in Sin City, all of the residents of Tuna, Texas’s third smallest town, come along for the ride. Favorite characters from past ‘Tuna’ productions return, and new ones are introduced by a cast of two actors.

Christoper Durang's SISTER MARY IGNATIUS EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU Opens Tonight at Murfreesboro's Out Front on Main

(5/10/2012) Holly Amber stars in Christopher Durang’s Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, opening tonight (May 10) and continuing through May 20. Directed by Ryan Vogel, who does double-duty playing one of Sister Mary Ignatius’ troubled former students, the play is presented at BWW Tennessee Theatre Award-winning Out Front on Main, located at 1511 E. Main Street in historic downtown Murfreesboro.

Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot: BLAIR ALLISON

(5/10/2012) Who's who in Tennessee theater? Sometimes, without a program in your hand, it’s difficult to know who’s playing whom—hence, our newest feature: Hey, Jef, Here's My Headshot...featuring some of the Volunteer State's best-known—or soon-to-be-known all over the freakin’ world—thespians. And have you ever wondered who the amazing photographers are who make them look so damn good? We’re gonna tell ya… Today’s actor/subject/model is the beautiful, talented and very busy Blair Allison, photographed by Bennett Farkas.

SAY GOODNIGHT, GRACIE Kicks Off Summer Season for Nashville's Street Theatre Company

(5/10/2012) Ralph Pape's Say Goodnight, Gracie tells the story of life, dreams, high school reunions and Devil Dogs. It is New York City, 1976, and we meet five members of the first Television Generation: Jerry, a struggling actor, his girlfriend Ginny, a secretary, Steve, a prankish would-be poet and television writer, Bobby, a musician who has been scraping by with dates in small clubs in suburban New Jersey, and his girlfriend, Catherine, a beautiful and rather kinky airline stewardess.

Street Theatre Company Presents The Comedy SAY GOODNIGHT, GRACIE, 6/8-6/24

(5/10/2012) SAY GOODNIGHT, GRACIE by Ralph Pape tells the story of life, dreams, high school reunions and Devil Dogs. It is New York City, 1976, and we meet five members of the first Television Generation: Jerry, a struggling actor, his girlfriend Ginny, a secretary, Steve, a prankish would-be poet and television writer, Bobby, a musician who has been scraping by with dates in small clubs in suburban New Jersey, and his girlfriend, Catherine, a beautiful and rather kinky airline stewardess.

Tennessee Rep Interns Stage THE WOMAN IN BLACK 5/20-22

(5/10/2012) Arthur Kipps (played by Rodney Pickel), a middle-aged lawyer, has been haunted for years by a series of events he experienced as a young man. Hoping to free himself of his nightmares at last, Kipps hires a young actor (Sean Hills) to help him tell his tale. As the two men dive deeper and deeper into the story, however, they begin to find that some things can never be put to rest.

STAGE TUBE: Behind the Scenes of Nashville Ballet's EMERGENCE

(5/9/2012) Paul Vasterling along with our guest choreographers have been working hard the last couple weeks putting together their pieces for Emergence. We put together a little 'behind the scenes' glimpse for you of the creative process and we hope to see you at the performance next weekend!

Those Out There in The Dark: Audience Antics and Other Tall Tales From Off-Stage

(5/9/2012) Norma Desmond sings about them “out there in the dark” in Sunset Boulevard, Lauren Bacall dealt with a particularly sinister and deranged one in her 1981 film The Fan, and virtually everyone you know who had taken to the stage in a show anywhere around the world can regale you with stories about their wild and woolly antics. “They,” of course, are the fans, the audiences, the people for whom theater is presented every night.