Nashville Theater Reviews: Best Shows & Critic Recommendations Page 2

Cumberland County Playhouse's WHITE CHRISTMAS Helps Ease Your Holiday Season Worries
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 12, 2023

Less than 48 hours after opening night of Cumberland County Playhouse’s 2023 holiday season offering of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, we are happy/sad to report that tickets are mighty scarce as the sparkling production is almost certainly headed to a complete sellout....

Rob McClure's Stunning Performance in MRS. DOUBTFIRE is the Perfect Post-Pandemic Panacea
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 09, 2023

Rob McClure’s masterful turn onstage as the redoubtable title character is reason enough to make sure you see Mrs. Doubtfire, The New Musical Comedy, now onstage at Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s Andrew Jackson Hall through Sunday. But odds are you’ll find so much more to love about this musical...

Take A Holiday of 'Pure Imagination' With NCT's CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 08, 2023

While the debate rages on about the proper time to start celebrating the holidays, Nashville Children’s Theatre may have devised the ideal plan with their current onstage offering – the world premiere of the theater-for-younger-audiences version of the recent Broadway musical Charlie and The Chocola...

Middle Tennessee State University's RODGERS + HAMMERSTEIN'S CINDERELLA Proves Anything Is Possible
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 06, 2023

Today we celebrate our most recent sojourn with Cinderella and company, thanks to the sumptuously designed, beautifully staged and wonderfully sung Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella, presented in an all-too-brief one-weekend run at Middle Tennessee State University’s Tucker Theatre in Murfreesboro....

Lipsomb University Theatre's Emotional and Whimsical BIG FISH THE MUSICAL
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 05, 2023

On its surface, there is so much about which to alternately fall in love with/wonder quizzically about in Big Fish, the musical with book by John August (based on his screenplay for the 2003 film version) and a score by Andrew Lippa, that there’s no wonder the show had trouble finding its audience o...

Playhouse 615 Wins Spooky Season With Suspenseful THE WOMAN IN BLACK
by Jeffrey Ellis - November 02, 2023

The play in question? The Woman in Black, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from the book by Susan Hill, that finishes up its three-weekend run in Mt. Juliet with performances through November 5. Directed by Meriwether, whose director’s note offers the tale of his own fascination with the script and his...

Laughter Abounds In Belmont University's Zany and Uproarious THE PLAY THAT GOES WRONG
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 29, 2023

That laughter you hear coming from within the Troutt Theatre on the Belmont University campus this weekend and next should probably come with a trigger warning. For no matter how rollicking, rambunctious and uproarious it truly is, it should be pointed out that what is transpiring on that stage over...

'Don't dream it. Be it!' Get Your Tickets to Roxy Regional Theatre's ROCKY HORROR Before It Closes
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 25, 2023

What rugby shorts did for Paul Mescal’s thighs in 2020’s Normal People, so do fishnet stockings do for Bradley Oosterink’s thighs in the Roxy Regional Theatre’s The Rocky Horror Show in 2023. Not that Mr. Oosterink’s thighs are the best things about the Roxy’s 11th annual iteration of the classicall...

Studio Tenn Inaugurates Sparkling New Turner Theatre With Electrifying MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 21, 2023

A musical retelling of producer Sam Phillips' serendipitous gathering of four of music's most notable Southern boys - Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley - at his Memphis-based Sun Records Studio on December 4, 1956, Million Dollar Quartet will set your feet to tapping out a...

Street Theatre Company's RIDE THE CYCLONE May Be the Best Thing We've Seen in 2023
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 18, 2023

What if (of all the things possible in the mythical, magical world of musical theater) the four earnest boy singers of Forever Plaid hooked up with the vengeful Heathers, while at the same time Hedwig (of the Angry Inch fame) was getting busy with Carrie White (of the bucket of pig’s blood fame) and...

Belmont University Musical Theatre's WORKING: A MUSICAL Offers Audiences a Heartfelt, Emotional Tribute to American Workers
by Jeffrey Ellis - October 14, 2023

Over the past three-and-a-half decades, I have had the privilege of seeing some remarkably talented and gifted young actors on every stage on the Belmont campus and never have I ever left a performance there without feeling inspired, absolutely certain that the future of theater as we know it is pre...

Florance and Jamison Star As Ethel Waters in Kennie Playhouse Theatre's HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 28, 2023

While we wait for Ethel Waters to get the large-scale showbiz treatment she deserves, Nashville audiences, for now at least, can show respect and give recognition to the legendary figure who is brought to life onstage once more by Connye Florance and Saaneah Jamison via the Kennie Playhouse Theatre ...

Nashville Rep's Season-Opening 9 to 5: The Musical Kicks Off An Eagerly Anticipated Slate of Theater
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 24, 2023

Baker’s superb direction brings all the various moving parts of this huge production together to deliver a gratifyingly heartfelt paean to the millions of working women (and men) who inspired the screenplay and musical book by Patricia Resnick. Baker’s vision for the piece, in concert with her team ...

Nashville Children's Theatre's STRONG INSIDE Offers Emotional View of the Segregated South
by Jeffrey Ellis - September 23, 2023

Thanks to Andrew Maraniss’ best-selling book Strong Inside – adapted for the stage by Tyrone L. Robinson – Wallace’s storied basketball career in the Southeastern Conference and the details of his upbringing in the segregated South are now brought vividly to life onstage in a history-making producti...

'Imaginative and Original,' 35MM-A MUSICAL EXHIBITION Opens 2023-24 Season for Street Theatre Company
by Jeffrey Ellis - August 17, 2023

Street Theatre Company’s residency at The Barbershop Theatre continues in its expected fine form as the groundbreaking company heads into the 2023-24 season with a gloriously sung production of 35MM – A Musical Exhibition, a song cycle from one of musical theater’s contemporary power couples: compos...

'Heartbreaking, breathtaking and powerful': Kenley Smith's FAN ME WITH A BRICK Provides a Fascinating Portrait of an American Family
by Jeffrey Ellis - July 13, 2023

Post-pandemic Nashville theater audiences have witnessed a groundswell of creativity as local companies have made the production of original works part of their programming initiatives. While the result might best be described as hit-or-miss depending on perspective, one company’s efforts have been ...

BWW CD REVIEW: ARCHETYPE at Lexicon Classics
by Erica Miner - July 03, 2023

What did our critic think of BWW CD REVIEW: ARCHETYPE at Lexicon Classics?a not-to-be-missed musical delight that will elicit the desire for repeated listenings...

Warren-directed FALSETTOS Proves A Potent Reminder of How Life Once Was
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 30, 2023

It was a part of life only understood completely, if experienced, and its impact continues to be felt today in ways you can sometimes predict, although oftentimes it invokes unexpected memories that take you completely unaware. That explains why I’ve taken so long to compose this review of Falsettos...

Studio Tenn and CPA Arts' THE SOUND OF MUSIC Provides Pleasant Summertime Entertainment
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 29, 2023

One of musical theater’s most beloved offerings, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music is again brought to life by Studio Tenn in a lovely – and certainly crowd-pleasing – production through July 16 at Christ Presbyterian Academy’s Soli Deo Center, which marks the welcome return to the Nashvi...

Page and Paulus' Revival of 1776 Offers a New Perspective on The Birth Of A Nation
by Jeffrey Ellis - June 22, 2023

Imagine walking into Jackson Hall on opening night, as I did, thinking, “Why did the directors reimagine this pleasant, if somewhat plodding, old-school musical with an ensemble of multi-ethnic women, trans and non-binary actors cast in the roles of America’s founding fathers?” Then leaving the thea...

Star-studded INTO THE WOODS Tour Comes to Nashville for Eight-Performance Run at TPAC
by Jeffrey Ellis - May 24, 2023

Truth be told, this may be the most impressive assemblage of talent we’ve ever encountered on the Jackson Hall stage in our 30-some years of reviewing Broadway at TPAC. Seriously....

HERE YOU COME AGAIN Stars Tricia Paoluccio In a Stunning Tribute to Dolly Parton's Down-Home Spirit
by Jeffrey Ellis - May 18, 2023

For years – for decades, really – I have advocated that Music City tourism would benefit from a sit-down production of a country music-themed musical, one that would appeal to a wide range of aficionados and would showcase the musical library of a beloved figure in the pantheon of Nashville music. F...

Nashville Rep Closes Out 2022-23 Season With Rousing Production of Tesori's VIOLET
by Jeffrey Ellis - May 17, 2023

With noteworthy performances across the board, Nashville Repertory Theatre’s production of Violet – with a lovely, haunting and emotional score by Jeanine Tesori and a sometimes meandering, oftentimes difficult to follow, libretto by Brian Crawley, based upon Doris Betts’ short story “The Ugliest Pi...

Colorful, Campy and With All The Fun The Law Will Allow, DISNEY'S ALADDIN Thrills Nashville Audiences
by Jeffrey Ellis - May 05, 2023

Colorful and campy, fast-paced and royally entertaining – and about as much fun as current Tennessee laws may allow (our state legislature’s supermajority, however, might be clutching their pearls and wailing about “who’ll protect the children?” even as the youngsters surrounding me on opening night...

Roxy Regional Theatre's Timeless Revival of SPRING AWAKENING Arrives Just When Tennessee Audiences Need It
by Jeffrey Ellis - April 19, 2023

We’ve been thinking about that 2012 legislation as we prepared to see Roxy Regional Theatre's 2023 production of Spring Awakening, the Tony Award-winning musical by Duncan Sheik and Stephen Sater, which is based on the play of the same name written in the late 19th century by playwright Frank Wedeki...