Jason Lewis News

In anticipation of the gala 30th anniversary celebration of The First Night Awards, Tennessee's best and brightest in live theater were revealed tonight as First Night's Top Ten of 2018 - reviewer and critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual recognition for theater in the Volunteer State - were announced during a Facebook Live presentation from Nashville.

There truly is no better place to experience the 'joyful noise' of the holiday* season than at Penumbra Theatre's annual production of BLACK NATIVITY. Despite it being a 30+ year #TCTheater holiday institution, this is only my second time seeing the show. If you've never seen it before, you need to add it to your holiday theater rotation to experience the pure joy radiating from the stage. And if you have seen it before, you know just how heart-warming and life-affirming it is. This 80-minute theater/ music/ dance/ poetry experience continues through December 23, so there's plenty of time to get to St. Paul.

Variety reports that Ryan Murphy will ride the blue wave. 

Looking into the future, you'll find a number of new productions on tap for your entertainment pleasure, thanks to the efforts of theater companies all over Middle Tennessee. Here's our calendar for October 15, 2018, to help you plot your course through the end of the year...

Looking into the future, you'll find a number of new productions on tap for your entertainment pleasure, thanks to the efforts of theater companies all over Middle Tennessee. Here's our calendar for October 1, 2018, to help you plot your course through the end of the year...

Hair is a great big hit on the symbolic and mostly imaginary bong that is theater in Music City - or anywhere else artists come together to share the largesse of their own indomitable spirits. The resulting production will leave you inspired, maybe even more readily equipped with the realities of life in the 21st century, which proves that no matter how much times have changed, they remain stultifyingly the same. While our prejudices and biases may have been altered by the social upheaval of the 1960s and the decades that followed, introspection reveals that we only have refocused our baser instincts on issues of equal significance.

Circle Players continues to celebrate of its 2018-19 season with tonight's opening of Hair, the 1969 tribal love-rock musical that made musical theater history with its premiere 50 years ago. Directed by Jason Lewis and choreographed by Tosha Pendergrast, the eagerly anticipated production features a cast of Nashville's favorite actors, with Nicholas Page as Claude.

Looking into the future, you'll find a number of new productions on tap for your entertainment pleasure, thanks to the efforts of theater companies all over Middle Tennessee. Here's our calendar for October 1, 2018, to help you plot your course through the end of the year...

Looking into the future, you'll find a number of new productions on tap for your entertainment pleasure, thanks to the efforts of theater companies all over Middle Tennessee. Here's our calendar to help you plot your course...

NBC returns to San Diego Comic-Con with plenty of “goodness” to share. Kick-start this year's SDCC experience with a tour of “The Good Place” interactive activation – the network's largest interactive fan experience yet – and follow-up with Q&A panel sessions for “The Good Place,” “Manifest,” Midnight, Texas” and the Golden Globe-winning NBC newcomer “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”

Now onstage at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre as the concluding production of Circle Players' 2017-18 season, Disney's Beauty and the Beast is brought to life by an eager-to-please cast and crew, giving further proof to the universality of the story and the continued delight of audiences lucky enough to score tickets (Circle Players' production has been playing to near-capacity, often sold-out, audiences in its three-week run at the Looby).

Jason Robert Brown's one night only concert event, 'Friday Night is Music Night' will be broadcast on BBC Radio this Friday June 1st at 8pm.

Desert Theatreworks is finishing their season with a bang - a top-notch production of the truly smart and hilarious comedy, Jewtopia. Two friends, one Jewish and one Gentile, are looking for girls to date. The Gentile wants a Jewish girl so he will never have to make another decision in his life, the Jew wants a Gentile girl who can cook, join him in sports, and take care of repairs around the house. Their search pokes gentle fun at stereotypes, particularly those assigned to Jews, but the writing is extremely funny, and DTW's delivery under director Lance Phillips-Martinez is top notch!

Special guests announced for three-time Tony Award winning composer Jason Robert Brown's one-off West End concert at London's Palladium, as part of BBC Radio 2's 'Friday Night is Music Night', accompanied by the 60-piece BBC Concert Orchestra

This April, three-time Tony Award winning composer, conductor and pianist Jason Robert Brown is coming to London for one night only for a special concert with the 60-piece BBC Concert Orchestra.

March is halfway over, which means we're just two weeks away from watching Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert on April 1st! The cast and creative team have been hard at work in rehearsals, with the supporting cast having just joined the process. Though they've only been in rehearsals for a few days, they've got a lot to say!

Bleak and darkly menacing, playwright Martin McDonagh's view of the world in his blackest of black comedies The Pillowman focuses on the investigation into a series of child murders in a fictional totalitarian state sometime in the near future - or, given the political climate in this real country in which we finds ourselves existing right now, it could well be representative of a parallel universe of which we will learn in the next few weeks or even moments.

'Midnight, Texas,' the #1 summer broadcast drama in the 18-49 demo, has been renewed for a second season on NBC.

First Night's Top Ten for 2018 - critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual review of the best in Tennessee theater were revealed last night during a live Facebook broadcast, with the hosts of Midwinter's First Night (Ashley Wolfe, J. Robert Lindsay, Tosha Pendergrast and Ben Pendergrast) announcing the productions and performances recognized among the best of 2017.

Actress Sandra Dee Richardson appears in the feature films 'Mamaboy' and 'Running Wild' - both films were distributed in early 2017.