Go Memphis

When I first moved to Memphis from Florida, I arrived in a city of wonderful accents. I gleefully began studying them, learning that there was no such thing as a generic "Southern" accent. One would think that this knowledge of variable accent acquisition would have aided my viewing of "The Seafarer" at Circuit Playhouse, a darkly comic play set on a Christmas Eve in Dublin, Ireland. Full story »

"Schumann was a nut," cracked pianist Jeremy Denk, an accurate assessment, but offered with true affection. Denk, after all, knows a thing or two about the German composer, as splendidly evidenced by Saturday night's performance of Schumann's Piano Concerto with the IRIS Orchestra. The brilliant, rolling and poetic composition was thrillingly rendered by Denk who played with shimmering fluidity. Full story »

Playhouse on the Square and Circuit Playhouse are already gearing up kids for the holidays nearly two months before Christmas, as if children need the prep time. The first to open, on Halloween weekend at Circuit, was a kid’s show called “The Toymaker’s Apprentice.” It’s a sweet little gift for parents of 3- to 7-year-olds; the gift being a run time of 40 minutes and a tale that parents haven’t heard a hundred times before.
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Friday night's Memphis Symphony Orchestra concert was a brisk and refreshing mash-up of style and substance. The chamber music performance at Buckman Performing and Fine Arts Center was the first public appearance of conductor Thomas Wilkins, one of three candidates for the job of retiring maestro David Loebel. While all ears were tuned to the orchestra, all eyes were on Wilkins, an assured, elegant presence whose program was varied and fascinating.
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Let's get the dubious honor portion of this dance review out of the way before digging into the unexpected delight that is Ballet Memphis' "The Wizard of Oz." Full story »

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 »