Macon Kimbrough News

Just days before the world commemorates the centennial of the sinking of the HMS Titanic, Circle Players, Nashville's oldest community theatre company, will present a revival of Titanic the Musical, at the James K. Polk Theatre at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on April 5-8.

With a score filled with so many Cole Porter tunes that you're fairly drunk with delight after hearing them, the expert direction and choreography of musical theatre aficionado Kate Adams-Johnson, and a cast of extraordinarily gifted performers breathing vigorous life into the time-honored text, the new production of Kiss Me, Kate at The Keeton Theatre should be atop your list of must-see theatrical events in this very busy month of February. Sam and Bella Spewack's witty, sparkling script is brought to life with flourish, proving this period piece-which was named winner of the very first Tony Award for best musical-to be, in fact, a timeless classic, a musical theatre masterpiece that deserves to be seen over and over again.

Just days before the world commemorates the centennial of the sinking of the HMS Titanic, Circle Players, Nashville's oldest community theatre company, will present a revival of Titanic the Musical, at the James K. Polk Theatre at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on April 5-8.

Sarah and Charlie, a married couple, run a small theater that's presenting A Christmas Carol -- until Charlie shows up backstage to say the cast and crew are snowed out. They actually manage to perform much of the play, with their personal story invading the Dickens tale, infusing it with dual levels of meaning. This is a family-friendly show, and a great way to spend the holiday with your family.

Sarah and Charlie, a married couple, run a small theater that's presenting A Christmas Carol -- until Charlie shows up backstage to say the cast and crew are snowed out. They actually manage to perform much of the play, with their personal story invading the Dickens tale, infusing it with dual levels of meaning. This is a family-friendly show, and a great way to spend the holiday with your family.

In short, Chicago is the best production ever presented by The Keeton Theatre. In fact, it's one of the finest versions of the tuneful musical we've ever seen on any stage, from any production company - and trust me, we've seen a bunch of 'em, ranging from Broadway and national touring companies to mountings from academic theaters, professional regional theaters and community playhouses.

Chicago is presented by The Keeton Theatre, Sept 15 - Oct 1, 2011. For more information call 615-883-8375 or visit www.thelarrykeetontheatre.org. Tickets are $25.00 for dinner and show, $20.00 show only. Patron's special: $10.00 show only tickets on Thursday.

Tonya Pewitt and Stacie Riggs star as Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly as The Keeton Theatre will present Chicago, the first show of its 2011-2012 season, running September 15 - October 1 at the theatre in Donelson. Directed by Keeton artistic director Kate Adams-Johnson, with musical direction by Ginger Newman, Chicago is the Tony Award winning musical about Roxie Hart, a chorus girl who kills her lover as a career move, Billy Flynn, her sharp, razzle-dazzle lawyer, who turns her into an instant celebrity, and Velma Kelly, a dancing jailbird with an ear for headlines and an eye for talent!

A favorite of theater audiences since its debut at the 1979 Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors' Theatre of Louisville, Crimes of the Heart is given a faithful and elegantly staged revival at Franklin's Boiler Room Theatre. The play moves along at a languid pace befitting its setting and time period - and the story told by the playwright is as engrossing and as richly drawn as it ever was. Moreover, you are struck by the notion that Crimes of the Heart is, indeed, a timeless piece of Southern literature, claiming its rightful place among our region's most memorable prose.

Laura Thomas Sonn and Tyson Laemmel are two of the most talented, engaging, charming and capable musical theater stars to be found in Nashville and they bring such joy and life to their characters in The Wedding Singer that it's easy to overlook the problems with the show. Now onstage in a buoyant production from Circle Players, directed with style by Paul J. Cook, The Wedding Singer is only one of the latest examples in the current trend of movies made into stage musicals - and that's one trend I am so ready to be over.

Amid threatening weather forecasts and a winter storm bearing down on the South, more than 150 hardy souls gathered to celebrate live theatre in Nashville and Middle Tennessee with the presentation of the BroadwayWorld.com Nashville Theatre Awards and First Night's Top Ten of Twenty-Ten on Sunday night, January 9. Street Theatre Company's new venue at 1933 Elm Hill Pike was the setting for the event that featured performances by Joann Coleman, Ben Van Diepen, Ann Street Kavanaugh, Laura Matula, Michael Kitts and Bakari Jamal King.

The individuals and productions that made 2010 such a memorable year in Nashville theater will be recognized Sunday night, January 9, with the presentation of the BroadwayWorld.com Nashville Theatre Awards and the unveiling of First Night's Top 10 of 2010. Street Theatre Company, located at 1933 Elm Hill Pike in Nashville, will provide the setting for the event, which is hosted by Jeffrey Ellis, the executive producer of the First Night Nashville Theatre Honors, who covers Nashville theater for the world's largest theater website.

There's no doubt about it: Circle Players' Tim Larson is fearless. Perhaps no director in Nashville is more ambitious than Larson who, time after time, takes on the seemingly impossible and reimagines it as something well within the reach of his creative collective of actors, designers, technicians and musicians. Larson's staging of Titanic, a project he's taken on twice to great and justifiable acclaim, proves that even that musical is something which seasoned and capable community theater groups can tackle.

A revival of Circle Players' 2008 production, which was staged at the company's then-home at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, this 'new and improved' mounting (a collaboration between Circle and SCA) is astounding in its sheer chutzpah. Who'd have ever thought a community theatre could take on such a daunting task and be so imminently successful in doing so? Frankly, it boggles the mind.

Swing!, the Broadway musical that celebrates the music and dance phenomenon will play its final show at The Senior Center for the Arts' Nashville Dinner Theatre on February 28.

Directed by Kate Adams-Johnson, with music direction by Ginger Newman, the show features a cast of 18, a live band, more than 30 dance numbers and vocal performances that feature some of the Swing era's greatest hits, including 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' and 'It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing)'.

Directed by Kate Adams-Johnson, with music direction by Ginger Newman, the show features a cast of 18, a live band, more than 30 dance numbers and vocal performances that feature some of the Swing era's greatest hits, including 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' and 'It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing)'.

Directed by Kate Adams-Johnson, with music direction by Ginger Newman, the show features a cast of 18, a live band, more than 30 dance numbers and vocal performances that feature some of the Swing era's greatest hits, including 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' and 'It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing)'.

Directed by Kate Adams-Johnson, with music direction by Ginger Newman, the show features a cast of 18, a live band, more than 30 dance numbers and vocal performances that feature some of the Swing era's greatest hits, including 'Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy' and 'It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing)'.

Mame begins in the roaring '20s, when Mame Dennis is rolling in the dough and leads the life of an eccentric, Bohemian socialite. Things change when she is appointed guardian to her 10-year-old nephew Patrick. When the Great Depression hits, Mame becomes virtually penniless overnight - trying to make ends meet at any number of odd jobs, including one as a retail sales clerk, quite often failing but refusing to allow the times to dictate her mood or dampen her spirits.