Robyn Berg News

One of the new events added to the line-up for 2011 First Night, The Theatre Honors was The Women In Theatre Luncheon - which saluted the inaugural eight recipients of The First Night Star Award - held Tuesday, August 30, at The Listening Room Cafe in Cummins Station. Co-chaired by Corrie Miller and Neely O'Brien Green, the event was produced by Jeffrey Ellis, founder and executive producer of First Night.

Nashville's Blackbird Theater in August will mount a rare production of Magic - a play by the great, if largely forgotten, literary figure G.K. Chesterton - with performances at Shamblin Theatre on the David Lipscomb University campus, running August 12-27. Magic is described as 'a funny, fiercely dramatic, unabashedly romantic play that involves an aristocratic family whose conflicting beliefs and doubts about the supernatural are all challenged by the arrival of a mysterious conjurer.'

Wes Driver directs a thoroughly charming and beautifully acted revival of G.K. Chesterton's first play, Magic, now onstage at the Shamblin Theatre on the David Lipscomb University campus in a sumptuously appointed production from Blackbird Theatre Company. Featuring a stellar cast of Nashville stage professionals, Magic might best be described as a gentle drawing-room comedy from the post-Edwardian period (it debuted in 1913) that somehow remains relevant and intriguing almost 100 years after its premiere.

Nashville's Blackbird Theater in August will mount a rare production of Magic - a play by the great, if largely forgotten, literary figure G.K. Chesterton - with performances at Shamblin Theatre on the David Lipscomb University campus, running August 12-27. Magic is described as 'a funny, fiercely dramatic, unabashedly romantic play that involves an aristocratic family whose conflicting beliefs and doubts about the supernatural are all challenged by the arrival of a mysterious conjurer.'

Rehearsals are going frighteningly well. Even with the cast in their street clothes, rehearsing in a community room at an apartment complex, we've already been able to establish a haunting atmosphere and some strong character dynamics. When you produce a new or unknown work like Magic, there's always that fear that you'll be in the middle of rehearsals before discovering the play's really not that good. But that hasn't been the case at all.

Teaser for Blackbird Theater's production of Magic by G.K. Chesterton. August 12-13, 19-20, 25-27. Starring Amanda Card McCoy and David Compton. Ticket information at BlackbirdNashville.com.

Danny Proctor, Helen Shute-Pettaway, Layne Sasser, Pam Atha, Dan Brewer and Gary Hoff were introduced Monday night as the six members of the 2011 Class of First Night Honorees during the First Night Preview Party, hosted by founder and executive producer Jeffrey Ellis at The Listening Room Cafe in downtown Nashville.

Nashville's Blackbird Theater in August will mount a rare production of Magic - a play by the great, if largely forgotten, literary figure G.K. Chesterton - with performances at Shamblin Theatre on the David Lipscomb University campus, running August 12-27. Magic is described as 'a funny, fiercely dramatic, unabashedly romantic play that involves an aristocratic family whose conflicting beliefs and doubts about the supernatural are all challenged by the arrival of a mysterious conjurer.'

Nashville's Blackbird Theater, fresh off its successful, critically lauded premiere season, is offering two rarely produced shows for audiences in the company's eagerly anticipated second season - G.K. Chesterton's Magic (running August 12-27) and Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning Pacific Overtures (February 9-19, 2012) - creating a buzz that other theater companies can only envy and hope to create for their own season announcments.

Darkly comic and deathly serious - with moments of lyrical, poetic power intermingled with the jarring realities of missed opportunities and regret - John Patrick Shanley's Sailor's Song is given an artfully mounted, superbly acted and inspiringly directed production from Actors Bridge Ensemble, continuing through June 12 at Belmont University's Black Box Theatre.

Don Griffiths directs a cast of the region's finest actors in the Nashville premiere of John Patrick Shanley's Sailor's Song, running June 3-12 at Belmont University's Black Box Theatre, as Actors Bridge Ensemble - named First Night's Outstanding Theatre Company for 2010 - continues its 2011 season.

In recognition of the centennial of Williams' birth, I conducted a very unscientific survey among Nashville theater folk to determine which of his plays are the most popular and the best loved. Perhaps surprisingly, the top vote-getters in our informal survey were A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and Summer and Smoke, shows that have been given memorable (so memorable, in fact, that people continue to talk about them) productions in Music City in the last century. Members of the Nashville theaterati have definite ideas where Williams' plays are concerned.

First-time director Anne-Geri Fann acquits herself admirably with her production of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana which, like so many of Williams' characters, is flawed and imperfect yet somehow compelling, provocative and imminently watchable. With a stunning triad of Nashville actors taking on the leading characters in the play - Cinda McCain, Jack Chambers and Robyn Berg - your rapt attention to the stage proceedings is demanded and the three never disappoint, delivering performances that are stunningly raw yet somehow refined, callous yet heartfelt.

Cinda McCain may have been born with the express purpose of bringing Tennessee Williams' wounded yet fiery Southern heroines to life. Unique among Nashville actresses, she's played Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and Flora in 27 Wagons Full of Cotton - and now she is playing Maxine Fault in ACT 1's production of The Night of the Iguana at Nashville's Darkhorse Theater.

Audiences will find out what happens when a defrocked priest, a teenage tart and an ancient poet walk into a down-at-heels Mexican hotel in Tennessee Williams' classic play, The Night of the Iguana. Directed by Anne-Geri Fann, the play is the next offering in the 21st season of ACT 1, the Nashville theater company that focuses on classics, both past and contemporary - and works that will one day be considered classics.

Audiences will find out what happens when a defrocked priest, a teenage tart and an ancient poet walk into a down-at-heels Mexican hotel in Tennessee Williams' classic play, The Night of the Iguana. Directed by Anne-Geri Fann, the play is the next offering in the 21st season of ACT 1, the Nashville theater company that focuses on classics, both past and contemporary - and works that will one day be considered classics.

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of playwright Tennessee Williams, ACT 1 presents The Night of the Iguana March 4-19 at Nashville's Darkhorse Theatre. Directed by Anne-Geri Fann, the cast features Jack Chambers, Robyn Berg and Cinda McCain. For details, visit the company website at www.ACT1online.com.

'There are no small parts, only small actors,' goes the old theatrical saw that's tossed about willy-nilly to encourage budding thespians to take on roles they suspect might be beneath them and their lofty stature. But, of course, there's much truth to be found in the axiom and you will certainly see it brought to life in the efforts of the members of many acting ensembles, particularly those considered among the best in Nashville's 2010 theater season: