Trish Crist News

Trish Crist and Jaime Janiszewski should be artist's models: Crist, tall and titian-tressed, has a visage of timeless, classic beauty - she easily could have been the inspiration for all those towering statues of womanhood signifying liberty, freedom and all manner of other lofty aspirations. Janiszewski, softer and curvier, with an open face that always seems like it is about to break into an all-the-world-encompassing smile, could easily have posed for all of the world's great portrait painters of past and future centuries.

Paul Cook directs four of Nashville's favorites actors in the upcoming Rhubarb Theater Company production of Terrence McNally's A Perfect Ganesh, April 8-23, at The Darkhorse Theater.

Paul Cook directs four of Nashville's favorites actors in the upcoming Rhubarb Theater Company production of Terrence McNally's A Perfect Ganesh, April 8-23, at The Darkhorse Theater.

Mining the depths and heights of their own life experiences to bring to life onstage a plethora of challening and compelling characters, dramatic actresses in Nashville were at the pinnacle of their talents in 2010. Thoroughly captivating their audiences night after night, they put their tremendous talents on display with no-holds-barred performances that have raised the bar for actresses who follow in their wake in the coming seasons. And these ten women gave what we considered to be the most noteworthy performances of the 2010 season...

Nashville theater audiences were treated to a wide range of dramatic offerings in 2010, with the revival of some of the best-known American plays of the past half-century, along with productions of some amazing original works by a group of talented homegrown playwrights, whose subjects ranged from what goes on in the intimate confines of the ladies' room to a murder mystery comedy with a film noir ambience. Clearly, if 2010 is any indication, the new 2011 season now under way is going to be filled with even more surprises and delights.

Thanks to a joint production of Nashville's Rhubarb Theater and Pendulum 3, Sedaris' twinbill for Christmas - The Santaland Diaries and Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family, adapted for the stage by Joe Mantello - gave audiences just the right twist to the season, delivering laughs and evoking deeper thought, thanks to the superb performances of Bob Roberts, as Sedaris' onstage doppelganger, and Trish Crist as the Christmas letter-writing doyenne of the fictional Dunbar family. Directing each other in their halves of the show gave Roberts and Crist the opportunity to show us their dual roles in exemplary fashion.

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.

Jeffrey Ellis has been a fixture on Nashville's theater scene for many years - as a writer, reviewer, director and, of course, his many years with the First Night Awards. After a brief hiatus from theater, Jef's back and Nashville is glad to have him in the theater where he belongs. Writing for BroadwayWorld.com, Jef has kept the world informed of the theater life that happens in Nashville, from incisive reviews to interviews with some of Music City's best-loved local talent.

Rhubarb Theater Company presents 41, Trish Crist's comedy/drama opens at the Darkhorse Theater, Friday, July 23, continuing through August 7. According to the playwright, who does double duty as director, 41 is inspired by this summer's 41st anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots.

Nashville playwright and director Trish Crist has brought her latest project to the stage of Darkhorse Theatre, a heartfelt consideration of the journey taken by Americans since 1969 - the summer in which the modern lesbian and gay civil rights movement was finally galvanized at the Stonewall Inn in New York's Greenwich Village.

Rhubarb Theater Company presents 41, Trish Crist's comedy/drama opens at the Darkhorse Theater, Friday, July 23, continuing through August 7. According to the playwright, who does double duty as director, 41 is inspired by this summer's 41st anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots.

Rhubarb Theater Company presents 41, Trish Crist's comedy/drama opens at the Darkhorse Theater, Friday, July 23, continuing through August 7. According to the playwright, who does double duty as director, 41 is inspired by this summer's 41st anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots.

As talented as Nate Eppler is as an actor (and he's got the reviews to prove that he is, indeed, just that), it may be his writing talents that will ensure his place in theatre history (and he has a growing file of reviews to prove that, as well). Of course, only time will tell on that score, but for now Nate Eppler is keeping busy, adding to the opus of work to be delivered from his imaginative brain.

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.