Ronnie Meek

Sometimes even the loveliest and most appealing of musical theater scores can be forgotten, virtually erased from your memory. Unless, of course, you have your digital music system programmed to play a cavalcade of memorable showtunes, but even then, you're likely hear songs from the same ten shows on a continuous loop.

Although the calendar tells us we're still in the spring season, things are quickly heating up in Nashville - theatrically speaking - and theater-goers have a plethora of shows coming up from which to choose, including some summer musicals that are sure to set feet a-tapping and a classic drama that's sure to provoke more thought and discussion than perhaps ever before.

How wonderful is it that a song can usher in all sorts of memories - perhaps of your first kiss, driving in a car along a dusty country road, or of people once-loved, still-loved, who are no longer a part of your life - to flood your mind, fill your heart and to transport you, as if by magic, to some earlier time? I love that feeling, which we in the theater are subject to far more often than regular folk, thanks to the music that underscores our dramatic lives and which allows everyone onstage, offstage, backstage - in whatever stage of life - to indulge in the play of 'make believe.'

Theater in Tennessee has never been busier nor has it been more diverse than what you'll find onstage this weekend throughout the Volunteer State. From frothy and fun summer musicals that are sure to make you think - like All Shook Up at Chaffin's Barn and A Chorus Line at Cumberland County Playhouse - to new plays from Shawn Whitsell (his latest, Songs For Our Sons, premieres at Darkhorse Theatre on Friday night) and emerging playwright Che Pieper (his new script based on the book The Man With the Light in His Window debuts at The Theater Bug this weekend)…the magic of live theater is all around you…even in this heat and humidity! So pull your seersucker suits and sundresses out of the closet, get all gussied up and make your way to the relative cool of a darkened theater for some midsummer magic!

And Sondra Morton, Jayme Smith and co. (that would be Act Too) stages their company's latest work at the historic Franklin Theatre - The Sound of Music - starring Kimberly Rye as Maria, Cameron Bortz as Rolf and the inimitable Matt Baugher as Georg Von Trapp. Check it out!

After four critically acclaimed seasons, Nashville's Blackbird Theater will produce what company founders call their 'magnum opus,' the new musical Myth, set for a world premiere run tonight, July 16, through July 26.

After four critically acclaimed seasons, Nashville's Blackbird Theater (winner of the 2013 First Night Award for outstanding theater company) opens what company founders Greg Greene and Wes Driver call their “magnum opus,” the new musical Myth, opening this Friday night, July 17, running through July 26 at the Hillsboro High School Theatre in Green Hills.

?After four critically acclaimed seasons, Nashville's Blackbird Theater will produce what company founders call their 'magnum opus,' the new musical Myth, set for a world premiere run July 16-26.

The world premiere of a brand-spanking new musical with Broadway in its sights, a relatively young but awe-inspiring theater company and a sparkling, witty new play about Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald led the list of Tennessee's outstanding theatrical achievements in 2012 that was revealed Sunday night at Midwinter's First Night.

On September 2, 2012-during the presentation of The First Night Honors-a new Nashville and Tennessee theater tradition was unveiled with the presentation of the First Night Robe. Fashioned after and inspired by the legendary Broadway Gypsy Robe, the First Night counterpart is presented to someone who is making their first appearance on a Nashville-area stage.

Engrossing and compelling, John Logan's Red-which features a pair of tour-de-force performances from Ronnie Meek and Justin Boccitto under the focused and sure-handed direction of Mike Fernandez-is an altogether impressive third season opener for Nashville's Blackbird Theatre, the company that has firmly established itself as one of the region's most ambitious and most confident purveyors of quality theatricality.

For Tennessee theater audiences, this weekend presents a bounty of theatrical riches, with six shows opening: Blackbird Theatre's Red, Sideshow's Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre's Spreading it Around, Boiler Room Theatre's Parade, Tennessee Women's Theater Project's Shooting Star and Street Theatre Company's latest incarnation of Macabaret.

Ronnie Meek and Justin Boccitto star in John Logan's Red, to be presented by Blackbird Theater October 18-November 3 at the Shamblin Theatre on the Lipscomb University campus.

Just when you thought it was safe to go to the theater once again, we welcome you to the debut installment of Music City Confidential, all the news that's fit to print (or not-depending on your perspective) from Nashville's ever-growing, ever-fascinating (okay, so we obviously don't have enough to occupy ourselves) live theater industry (we're trying that out-does it work? Let us know, theaterati!) Here amid the florid prose and flowery praise, you'll find all the stories that don't quite fit elsewhere, some of 'em kind of gossipy, some of 'em stone-cold serious, some of 'em just lists of names you need to know. You'll also find photos from our new "Intermission@" series, details about the latest cast parties and various and sundry minutiae-the veritable flotsam and jetsam-from backstage, onstage, offstage and beyond…

With a plethora of theater productions of A Christmas Carol filling local stages throughout December, you'd be hard-pressed to not find yourself in the audience of one of those productions. But if you have the presence of mind-and a ticket-you'd search far and wide for a more pleasing rendition of Charles Dickens' iconic work than the one now onstage at Hendersonville's Living To Go Church courtesy of the new Actors Point Theatre Company, which is dedicated to bringing professional theater to Sumner County.

Myth, an original musical by Blackbird Theater co-founders Wes Driver and Greg Greene and composer Michael Slayton, will be presented in front of an audience for the first time on Saturday, November 12, at Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theater.

Myth, an original musical by Blackbird Theater co-founders Wes Driver and Greg Greene and composer Michael Slayton, will be presented in front of an audience for the first time on Saturday, November 12, at Lipscomb University's Shamblin Theater.

3Ps Productions and Street Theatre are proud to announce two focused talkbacks during the run of the critically acclaimed Long Way Down currently running at Street Theatre Company, 1933 Elm Hill Pike, Nashville.

Stage and television actor Lane Davies will star as Professor Henry Higgins in Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady, the season opening production of Smyrna's Lamplighters Theatre.