Robyn Berg News

A cast of more than 125 performers took to the stage of the Troutt Theatre at Belmont University to fete the eight members of the 2010 Class of First Night Honorees in a production that featured the best of the best of Nashville theater and included a surprise appearance by Joseph Mahowald, winner of a 1989 First Night Award, now playing the role of Franklin Hart Jr. in the national tour of 9 to 5: The Musical, which opened in Nashville at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center on Tuesday, September 21.

For women in the audience (and both women and men came out in droves this past weekend for the opening of Potty Talk at the Darkhorse; making reservations for this week's upcoming performances is a very good idea), I suspect that the shared camaraderie of the ladies' room is a given. For men in the seats, however, it's a new experience, given our penchant for staring straight ahead and saying nothing (unless, of course, you have the 'wide stance' of a right-wing senator and his ilk). Regardless of your gender, you'll find a lot to laugh about and think about in Crist's play.

Opening Friday, April 9 - and continuing for nine performances through April 17 - Potty Talk is the latest play from Crist's fertile imagination. 'A 'royal flush' of Nashville comediennes polish the nuggets of wisdom that women discuss in the ladies' room,' is how Crist herself describes the play.

Opening Friday, April 9 - and continuing for nine performances through April 17 - Potty Talk is the latest play from Crist's fertile imagination. 'A 'royal flush' of Nashville comediennes polish the nuggets of wisdom that women discuss in the ladies' room,' is how Crist herself describes the play.

Written by artistic director Trish Crist, The Nashville Monologues 'explores the dark side of diversity through Halloween season performances of frightening, dramatic, revealing and (yes) comic monologues inspired by public submission' of those personal accounts.

If there are a million stories in the Naked City, then surely there have to be at least half a million in the Music City - and a couple dozen of those stories are recounted in The Nashville Monologues, the new play onstage through next weekend at Darkhorse Theatre.

Written by artistic director Trish Crist, The Nashville Monologues 'explores the dark side of diversity through Halloween season performances of frightening, dramatic, revealing and (yes) comic monologues inspired by public submission' of those personal accounts.

Written by artistic director Trish Crist, The Nashville Monologues 'explores the dark side of diversity through Halloween season performances of frightening, dramatic, revealing and (yes) comic monologues inspired by public submission' of those personal accounts.