Go Memphis

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 »

When it comes to casting a musical, divine intervention is often the best thing a director can hope for, especially when the show calls for a leading actor who walks, talks and sings like a famous dead person. Wonder of wonders, the right actor indeed showed up to audition for Circuit Playhouse's "Hank Williams: Lost Highway," a biographical musical revue of the incomparable singer-songwriter's life. Full story »

The renowned Alloy Orchestra -- a three-man ensemble that composes scores to accompany classic silent movies -- will return to Memphis on Oct. 12 to perform during screenings of two masterpieces during the Indie Memphis Film Festival at the Malco Studio on the Square. Full story »

No scene from a movie musical has appeared in more dreams than the one from "The Sound of Music" where Julie Andrews runs across a verdant green hilltop amid soaring snowcapped mountains, singing, "The hills are alive with the sound of music!" There is certainly great pressure on the young and talented actress Emily Chateau to claim, as her own, this infectious vitality in Theatre Memphis' new production, which started the 2009-10 season last weekend with a nearly sold-out performance. Full story »

Voices of the South is that rare theater company that not only creates new work regularly, it also creates astonishing work. The best description of "Cicada," a new original play running at TheatreWorks through Sept. 6, is poetry for the eyes, ears and soul. Steeped in the mythology and romance of rural Southern culture, the play captures a magnificent sense of atmosphere without resorting to old sorghum stereotypes. Full story »

Hattiloo Theatre, the black repertory company in a small Downtown theater space, has just opened its fourth season with a musical stage adaptation of "God's Trombones." The show poses an interesting question for viewers, who are likely familiar with the Biblical subject matter. Do we really want to go out for an evening of theater and end up hearing the same preaching that we can get (for free, or 10 percent if you're righteous) on any given Sunday morning? Full story »

Cell phones have long been a great anathema to theatergoers, ringing, as they tend to do, at the most inopportune moments. In a new comedy running at Circuit Playhouse, the sound of the cell phone is, for once, entirely part of the show. Playwright Sarah Ruhl's instructive meditation on how we run our lives via the receiver attached to our collective ear leaves the audience with much to text home about. Full story »

If Orpheum president Pat Halloran has his way, a new Broadway-bound musical won't just have the name of our city on a New York marquee, it will also have local dollars invested in the show's future. Tonight, Halloran has invited nearly 70 potential investors and business leaders to meet the creative team of "Memphis," which begins previews on Broadway in September. Full story »

Bartlett Community Theatre's production of "Much Ado About Nothing" has the conceptual density of a diamond. It's a show that, from first to last, seems immaculately conceived. Shakespeare, of course, gave the world a canon especially suited to unique adaptations, and in setting the play in the 1960s, director Irene Crist has found a cultural backdrop that isn't merely appropriate, it also amplifies the themes of the script. Full story »

With his New York accent and his expressive personality, actor David Prete has a way of making a stage shrink in around him. The oversized characters he plays in “All God’s Creatures,” a poignant one-man show running through Sunday at TheatreWorks as part of Playhouse on the Square’s Solo Works Series, are boldly and sometimes tragically rendered, a necessity given the show’s message about a man trying to make it in the soul-sucking entertainment industry. Full story »

Collierville's Harrell Theatre has outdone itself with the current production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." Director Amy Hanford knows how to put on a good show, but this is one of her best yet, blending breathtaking energy, attention to detail and smart choices in casting, costuming, music direction and sets. Full story »