Go Memphis

If you've ever whacked a honeydew melon with a baseball bat, you might be surprised at how closely it sounds like blunt force trauma to a human skull. Full story »

Memphian Jodie Markell's Tennessee Williams adaptation, "The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond," will make its local debut Jan. 8 as the highlight of four months of special screenings organized by On Location: Memphis, a group "dedicated to promoting education, cultural diversity, and economic development through cinema arts," according to its mission statement. Full story »

The good/evil tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has delighted and thrilled readers and playgoers since Robert Louis Stevenson penned the novella in 1886. Theatre Memphis has staged a terrific Halloween season chiller, spinning a new version of the respectable physician who explores his darker nature by immersion. His addiction is a struggle of the soul of right vs. wrong, logic vs. emotion, order vs. mayhem. Full story »

It seems a twinge mortifying that white Yankees have put race center stage in a musical that is called “Memphis,” as we’d prefer to be remembered for our triumphs rather than our foibles. And yet, perhaps because of the romantic lens of outsiders, the show that opened Monday night at the Shubert Theater in New York is the highest compliment yet paid to Memphis as a bastion of social change in America. Its plot may be simplistic, but the significance of “Memphis” isn’t. Full story »

Director Dan McCleary's new professional staging of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for the Tennessee Shakespeare Company at Poplar Pike Playhouse takes many cues, and a few miscues, from modernist painter Marc Chagall. Set designer Bob Phillips frames the stage in a bright, fauvist jungle of color, and when Shakespeare's mixed-up, muddled-up lovers emerge from their midnight ramblings amidst the fairies, they're streaked with colors as if the forest had been made of wet paint. Full story »

Since Ballet Memphis started its annual $300-a-plate fundraising banquet "Connections: Food" five years ago, the company's choreographers have slaved over dances inspired by a four-course meal served up by a phalanx of top local chefs. It was refreshing, in a way, to see an artistic disconnect at this year's feast, held Saturday at BRIDGES, Inc. Only one of the four dances seemed cooked up specifically for the occasion. Full story »

If there were any doubts that the Memphis Symphony Orchestra is moving in new directions, Saturday night's rollicking concert put them all to rest. Could you ever have imagined Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" performed as a backdrop to a flatulence-based kid's tale? Or the evening's narrator getting "crunk" with the guest conductor? Full story »

When Garrett Ammon took his final bow with Ballet Memphis in 2007, he knew he'd been given the break of a lifetime. He became artistic director for Ballet Nouveau Colorado, a medium-sized contemporary dance company near Denver. His artistry, however, keeps giving back. He's the choreographer for Ballet Memphis' "Connections: Food" on Saturday, which
pairs local chefs with choreographers to create a memorable event. Full story »

No, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra will not be playing "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp." However, the audience at Saturday's First Tennessee Grand Series concert will find there is a creative connection between the Oscar-winning film "Amadeus" and Craig Brewer's "Hustle & Flow" that gave the world the Oscar-winning rap song "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp." Full story »

Six years have passed since actor and funnyman Steve Swift first donned a beehive wig, put on a dress stitched from a tablecloth and declared thong panties to be ungodly. Sister Myotis started out as a character in a Voices of the South Christmas show and now a version of "Church Retreat" is headed for New York in June. The current production in the basement of First Congregational Church, newly renamed TheatreSouth, is a tryout for the tour. Full story »

A typical performance of Tennessee Williams’ play “A Streetcar Named Desire” involves the expectation of a classic American drama, done the traditional way, in front of a traditional audience. And by “traditional,” I mean “white.” Hattiloo Theatre, Memphis’ black repertory company, once again must be commended for giving audiences for its current production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” a new cultural perspective on a landmark script. Full story »

Dancers are born masochists. That's what director and choreographer Michael Bennett discovered back in the 1970s when he interviewed a host of hoofers and used their stories as the basis for "A Chorus Line," which made its debut on Broadway in 1975 and was revived in 2006. Or maybe they're all hopeless romantics? It's hard to tell the difference in the Broadway tour of "A Chorus Line," running through Sunday at the Orpheum theater. Full story »

Director Dave Landis can't be entirely blamed for letting his actors blow themselves up into cartoon characters in "The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940," a screwball thriller now running at Playhouse on the Square. The play itself is all about the overstuffed personalities, and when a director hires top local comic performers such as Ann Marie Hall and Kim Justis, he may as well stand back and let them go to town. Full story »

Director Dave Landis can’t be entirely blamed for letting his actors blow themselves up into cartoon characters in “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940,” a screwball thriller now running at Playhouse on the Square. The play itself is all about the overstuffed personalities, and when a director hires top local comic performers such as Ann Marie Hall and Kim Justis, he may as well stand back and let them go to town. And go to town they do. Full story »

Mark Twain was not known for authoring plays, but about seven years ago, a surprised Twain scholar found the unproduced 1898 manuscript of the farcical "Is He Dead?" The play was staged on Broadway two years ago and now has been given an uproarious treatment at Germantown Community Theatre. As directed by the reliable Marler Stone, "Is He Dead?" blends deception, romance and unintended consequences with fast-paced, broad silliness. Full story »