Alicia Haymer

Tennessee Playwrights Studio announces retirement of co-founder/co-director Kenley Smith. Read his statement along with thoughts from TPS theatre artists. Kenley Smith, the recent 2024 Theaterati of the Year Recipient, is ready to retire but will continue writing plays and supporting TPS. Molly Breen will continue as director of TPS. Thank Kenley for his contributions to the theatre community.

For more than 30-plus years, Jack E. Chambers has been a stalwart of the Nashville stage, working with virtually every theater production company to ever exist here during those three-plus decades. And although audiences have seen him in a wide variety of roles (he’s taken on all kinds of characters to exist in an ever-evolving plane of fictional existence), it is perhaps on now, in the fall of 2023, that they have the opportunity to see the once fresh-faced, just-out-of-college Chambers – now grown into the affable middle-aged actor they eagerly anticipate onstage – as the thoughtful, observant and creative everyman he is.

When the history of live theater performance in Nashville, post-pandemic, is written sometime in the future, it’s highly likely there will be a chapter dedicated to and inspired by the significance of the artistry of Alicia Haymer, the actor/director/playwright who grew up in Nashville and whose impact on local theater goes all the way back to her childhood.

Tennessee Playwrights Studio has announced the TPS 2023 Virtual Reading Festival, January 21-23 and February 2-4, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. CST.

The latest standings as of Monday, December 19th, have been released for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Nashville Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites.

The latest standings as of Monday, December 12th, have been released for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Nashville Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites.

The latest standings as of Monday, December 5th, have been released for the 2022 BroadwayWorld Nashville Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites.

Special Offer: Opens Friday! Tennessee Playwrights Studio present: DON'T LOOK BLACK - A MORAL STORY by Preston Crowder

Don't Look Black was developed during Crowder's Fellowship with TPS in 2020.

First conceived prior to the global Covid 19 pandemic and nurtured through those dark and challenging times by Gimlin and Breen, the two halves of THAT WOMAN have finally debuted at Nashville’s Darkhorse Theatre this week and will continue there and at The East Room in East Nashville through June 29, affording audiences throughout the city an opportunity to see this unique collection of original works of art close to home.

Opening tonight at Darkhorse Theater in Nashville is That Woman – The Monologue Show, which explores the stories of women who involved or rumored-to-be involved with President John F. Kennedy. Co-written by Nashville-area women playwrights and actors, it is performed by a diverse ensemble of actors who bring the women to life “in a fascinating look at a lesser-known aspect of history and a thought-provoking and entertaining evening of theatre.”

The Darkhorse Theatre is set to stage tandem productions of That Woman- The Monologue Show and That Woman- The Dance Show. Ticket for all shows are now on sale at tnplaywrights.org. The Monologue Show will take place for one night only, while the Dance Show will perform on multiple days. Find more information about the shows and performance schedules below. 

Tennessee Playwrights Studio has announced directors for their upcoming June and August Productions.

This is the last chance to vote for the 2021 BroadwayWorld Nashville Awards! The 2021 Regional Awards honor productions which had their first performance between October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021.

Time is running out to vote for for the 2021 BroadwayWorld Nashville Awards! The 2021 Regional Awards honor productions which had their first performance between October 1, 2020 through September 30, 2021.

Make no mistake about it, Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva is a formidable presence in any room. And when that room is a theater, her personality fills the space like no other to be found on a Nashville stage. Therefore, it should come as no surprise whatsoever that when the house opens at The Barbershop Theater for the audience to begin filing in to take their seats to see her in The Darkness and Other Black Things, she is waiting at centerstage for them to settle in for what promises to be a wild and oh-so-challenging ride.

Nashville Repertory Theatre  unveiled its 2021-22 season Tuesday night at Kimpton Aertson Hotel’s rooftop patio, featuring a plethora of Nashville theater’s brightest stars, who charmed and entertained everyone in their audience (each of whom were fairly adither with anticipation of what’s to come and the joy of watching live performance).

Tennessee Playwrights Studio has announced the TPS 2022 Season of theatre with four world premieres of new works by Tennessee playwrights/creators, along with a new cohort of TPS Fellows to be selected for the playwright development lab in 2022.

Tennessee Playwrights Studio and Angela Gimlin (Founder and COO of Nashville's own Inebriated Shakespeare Company) present a virtual workshop reading of the to-be-produced-after-the-pandemic play, THAT WOMAN, comprised of a series of monologues from the perspectives of women who were involved (or rumored-to-be involved) with President John F. Kennedy. 

The pandemic has not stopped Tennessee Playwrights Studio's 2020 Fellows from creating six interesting and thought-provoking new works, which have been developed throughout the year at monthly TPS workshops and will be performed by favorite local Nashville actors on January 27-29 and February 3-5, 2021.