stagecritic

[stagecritic]

Broadway At TPAC Delivers Sparkling 'Into The Woods' Tour

Stephanie J. Block (Baker’s Wife) and Sebastian Arcelus (Baker) Tennessee Performing Arts Center has had many touring companies on Jackson Hall’s stage since 1980. Having attended more shows there than I can numerically recall, there have certainly been performances where a touring company’s “straight from Broadway” billing wasn’t justified in terms of the actors on that stage. This week’s…

[stagecritic]

'Be Brave' With Nashville Rep's '23-'24 Season Offerings

Courtesy Nashville Repertory Theatre NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Nashville Repertory Theatre is thrilled to unveil their 23/24 Mainstage Season, featuring a lineup of musicals, plays, and a brand new holiday spectacle. As the company celebrates the 39th annual season, it invites you to explore the idea of courage and bravery in everyday life. “We’re so excited about the upcoming year,” says Micah-Shane…

[stagecritic]

Film Review: Vital 'Living,' and its 'Ikiru' Inspiration, on Beautiful Display at Belcourt, Nashville's Top Cinema House

  Bill Nighy as Williams in “Living” (Photo by Ross Ferguson courtesy of Number 9 films / Sony Pictures Classics) Belcourt Theatre gives us many delights, and this weekend is no exception, as 2022’s  “Living” and the 1952 film that inspired it, Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru,” screen at Nashville’s preeminent home for world cinema of every era. You don’t have to be an expert on, or even have seen the…

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An Appreciation: Tennessee Playwrights Studio Reveals Humanity Beyond Headlines In 'That Woman' Presentations

An Appreciation: Tennessee Playwrights Studio Reveals Humanity Beyond Headlines In ‘That Woman’ Presentations

Logo courtesy Tennessee Playwrights Studio Sixty years ago politicians’ private lives were basically off-limits as far as most of the press was concerned. The 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was a handsome, charismatic figure with a beautiful and cultured wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, and two adorable children named Caroline and John. Their family image, molded…

[stagecritic]

Film Review: Warm and Funny 'Phantom of the Open' Is a Dreamer's Delight

Film Review: Warm and Funny ‘Phantom of the Open’ Is a Dreamer’s Delight

Photo from “The Phantom of the Open” by Nick Wall (Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics) “No, we are all the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” — Lord Darlington in Act III of Oscar Wilde’s 1892 play “Lady Windermere’s Fan (A Play About A Good Woman)” “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” — Portia in Act 5 of William Shakespeare’s…

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Theater Preview: Pipeline-Collective Joins With NECAT For Live Theatrical Event That Offers 12 Hours 'Outside Of Here'

Theater Preview: Pipeline-Collective Joins With NECAT For Live Theatrical Event That Offers 12 Hours ‘Outside Of Here’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Imagine a live theatrical broadcast/online experience that offers 32 of Nashville’s finest actors with a “Groundhog Day”-like twist on the COVID age. Pipeline-Collective Producing Artistic Directors David Ian Lee and Karen Sternberg have imagined such an event and it becomes reality on Saturday, Oct. 2 from 10 AM Central to 10 PM Central on NECAT (Comcast channel 9, ATT U-verse…

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August Wilson's 'Jitney' With Kamal Angelo Bolden & Brian Anthony Wilson Kicks Off 2021 Summer Shakespeare Festival

August Wilson’s ‘Jitney’ With Kamal Angelo Bolden & Brian Anthony Wilson Kicks Off 2021 Summer Shakespeare Festival

The Nashville cast of August Wilson’s “Jitney” (Photo by Michael Gomez www.gomezphotography.com) Nashville, TN – August Wilson’s “Jitney” opens Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s 2021 Summer Shakespeare Thursday with two well-known TV and film actors leading an accomplished cast, an award-winning and highly regarded director and a five-time Grammy winner providing original music. Local Black-owned…

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Nashville Ballet's 'Nutcracker' Broadcasts Begin This Week

Nashville Ballet’s ‘Nutcracker’ Broadcasts Begin This Week

Photo by Deborah Climo For the first time in company history, Nashville Ballet will present a televised premiere of “Nashville’s Nutcracker” on NewsChannel 5. This historic performance will feature new and exciting elements for viewers as they experience this holiday classic like never before. Photo by Deborah Climo In order to present “Nashville’s Nutcracker” safely this year, Nashville Ballet…

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Theater Review: The Loving Grace of Good Art in Nashville Rep's Humanely Relevant 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

Theater Review: The Loving Grace of Good Art in Nashville Rep’s Humanely Relevant ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’

Karen Sternberg as Blanche (photo for Nashville Repertory Theatre by Michael Scott Evans)

“The world is violent and mercurial – it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love– love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must…

[stagecritic]

Theater Review: A Handsome 'My Fair Lady' Revival Tour

Theater Review: A Handsome ‘My Fair Lady’ Revival Tour

Shereen Ahmed as Eliza Doolittle (on stairs) and Company in The Lincoln Center Theater tour production of Lerner & Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” (Photo by Joan Marcus)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Lincoln Center Theater national tour of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s “loverly” classic “My Fair Lady” is in handsome residence at Tennessee Performing Arts Center’sJackson Hall this week. The revival helmed…

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Theater Review: The 'Ravaged Wasteland' of Nashville Shakespeare Festival's Intriguing 'Macbeth'

Theater Review: The ‘Ravaged Wasteland’ of Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s Intriguing ‘Macbeth’

Mariah Parris as Lady Macbeth and Sam Ashdown as Macbeth (Photo by Rick Malkin)

“What things in our lives tempt us to deny the humanity in others, and by doing so, throw away part of our own? Is what remains, in a post-civilization world where so much of our humanity has been lost, even more precious? What, in such a ravaged wasteland, could lead us to abandon those last cherished scraps of…

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#HAM4HAM Nashville Digital Lottery For Dec. 31-Jan. 19 TPAC 'Hamilton' Run Begins This Sunday: 40 $10 Tickets Per Show

#HAM4HAM Nashville Digital Lottery For Dec. 31-Jan. 19 TPAC ‘Hamilton’ Run Begins This Sunday: 40 $10 Tickets Per Show

The “Hamilton” national tour company (photo by Joan Marcus)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Producer Jeffrey Seller and Tennessee Performing Arts Center announce a digital lottery for “Hamilton” tickets will begin with the show’s first performance on Dec. 31 in Nashville at TPAC’s Jackson Hall.

Forty (40) tickets will be sold for every performance for $10 each. The digital lottery will open at 11 a.m. on Dec.…

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Theater Review: God Bless You, Merry Nashville Rep! 'A Christmas Carol' For Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Theater Review: God Bless You, Merry Nashville Rep! ‘A Christmas Carol’ For Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Brian Russell as Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” (Photo by Michael Scott Evans)

Nashville Repertory Theatre’s production of Patrick Barlow’s “A Christmas Carol” adaptation is the maximum of minimalism – maximum holiday pleasure from the clear theatrical crucible of a minimalist focus. And the delight of watching five terrific actors caper through this modern version of a classic tale is no humbug.

[stagecritic]

Theater Review: NCT's 'Auntie Claus' Is a Glittering Gift

Theater Review: NCT’s ‘Auntie Claus’ Is a Glittering Gift

Megan Murphy Chambers as Auntie Claus and Rebecca Keeshin as Sophie (Photo by Reed Hummell)

You’d have to be a mix of pre-conversion Scrooge and Grinch to not feel your heart warmed by the ecstatic joy of Nashville Children’s Theatre’s world premiere “Auntie Claus” musical.

The acclaimed children’s book character, her family and friends are exuberantly alive on the NCT stage thanks to Marcy…

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An Appreciation: Laughing Through The Tears At Nashville Rep's Rhythmic Rendition Of 'Every Brilliant Thing'

An Appreciation: Laughing Through The Tears At Nashville Rep’s Rhythmic Rendition Of ‘Every Brilliant Thing’

Courtesy Nashville Repertory Theatre

“If you have no tragedy, you have no comedy. Crying and laughing are the same emotion. If you laugh too hard, you cry. And vice versa.” — Sid Caesar

“If you live a long life and get to the end of it without ever once having felt crushingly depressed,” the narrator at the center of “Every Brilliant Thing” tells us, “then you probably haven’t been paying…

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Theater Review: 'Return To Sender' Is A Superb NCT World Premiere Where Humanity Takes Center Stage

Theater Review: ‘Return To Sender’ Is A Superb NCT World Premiere Where Humanity Takes Center Stage

Mari and Tyler (Photo by Michael Scott Evans)

“There can’t be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience…” from “The Ox-Bow Incident”

“We’re all born human beings,” one of the characters in Nashville Children’s Theatre’s superb world premiere of “Return to Sender” reminds us. “But we have to earn that e at the end of human with our actions so we can truly call ourselves humane