Mary Peyton

Thanks to the efforts of a cast of high school students under the direction of their artistic mentor Paula Y. Flautt (who's the fine arts director at CPA), I have to admit that Carousel is my favorite musical. It's always been my favorite among all the musical masterpieces created by the team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, but I found myself so completely moved, so thoroughly enchanted by the production in CPA's Events Center (where it continues through Saturday evening)-which boasts stellar production values, an amazing live orchestra and a production design that rivals some of the best professional mountings we've seen in Nashville-that Carousel has supplanted Gypsy on my list of all-time favorites.

Some 67 years after Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel first opened at Broadway's Majestic Theatre, director Paula Y. Flatt will unveil her vision for the show-which was named by Time magazine in 1999 as the best musical of the 20th century-in a new production featuring her students at Nashville's Christ Presbyterian Academy.