Playhouse Reps Tennessee's Largest
Crossville’s Cumberland County Playhouse, founded
with a mixture of professional and volunteer talent in 1965, now combines a year-round resident professional
repertory company with hundreds of trained volunteers, onstage and off, to
serve the state’s largest audience for Tennessee-produced theater.
The Playhouse is the only Tennessee theater—and joins a handful of major North
American companies—offering a resident company in rotating multiple plays
and musicals in any given week. August brings a total of five theater productions
and several concerts running concurrently in rotating rep on the rural theater’s
three Crossville stages, including two shows that will be seen on tours this
fall across Tennessee and the Southeast.
The 500-seat VF Factory Outlet Mainstage alternates Abigail Crabtree’s
productions of Frank Loesser’s classic Broadway fable, GUYS & DOLLS,
sponsored by Looney & Chadwell Title Services and Kenneth & Carol Ann
Chadwell and Gilbert & Sullivan’s THE MIKADO.
New York and Knoxville soprano Nicole Begue plays Sarah Brown and Yum-Yum,
resident actor Jason Ross of Chattanooga plays Nathan Detroit and Ko-Ko, and
New York Equity Guest Artist Josh Powell appears as Sky Masterson and Pooh-bah,
the bureaucrat who holds a dozen offices at once in the “Japanese” town
of Titipu.
United Scenic Artists scenic designer, Curtis Phillips, whose
work is seen nationwide, designed both shows, with lighting by Texas and international
designer Steve Woods, who lights the Jose Limon Company all over the world.
Costumes are by resident costumer Renee Luttrell and guest designer Rebel
Mickelson. GUYS & DOLLS runs through
August 26th and THE
MIKADO runs through August 30.
DEATH OF A SALESMAN, sponsored by Comfort
Suites and Holiday Inn Express runs through October 6 in the 250-seat Fairfield
Resorts Adventure Theater. SALESMAN stars Chicago and New York Equity Guest
Artist Peter Van Wagner as Willy Loman, and Playhouse leading lady Patty
Payne as his wife Linda, with other company members including Ross Schexnayder,
Carol Irvin, Jason Ross, and GUYS & DOLLS choreographer Michele Colvin in supporting roles. THE
MIKADO and GUYS & DOLLS cast members Andre Pitre and Ken Quiricone appear as Loman’s sons,
Biff and Happy, in the production by New York director Nancy Robillard, with
scenery by United Scenic Artists designer Tom Tutino of Bowling Green, KY,
and costumes by Knoxville’s Quinn Fortune.
Also repping in the Adventure Theater is the 14th season of SMOKE ON THE
MOUNTAIN, sponsored as always by Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, and its
new sequel, SMOKE ON THE MOUNTAIN HOMECOMING, continuing its World Premier
engagement at the Crossville theater, sponsored by First National Bank of
Tennessee. SMOKE runs through October 2nd and HOMECOMING runs through October
3rd. Nashville’s
Richard Daniel, Chattanooga’s Tom Hancock, and West Virginia’s
Rhonda Wallace are featured in both shows. Wallace has appeared in two national
tours of SMOKE and in the Playhouse’s multi-year Ryman Auditorium engagements.
Three Sanders Family shows, including A SANDERS FAMILY CHRISTMAS, will tour
this fall to Greenville, Jackson, Huntingdon, Maryville, Columbia, suburban
Atlanta, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, and other states.
Two homegrown and home-trained Tennessee teenagers, Chelsea Nye and Austin
Price, play the Sanders Family’s teenage twins. They and other cast members
play multiple country instruments as the singin’ and pickin’ members
of the Sanders Family, who are visiting North Carolina’s Mount Pleasant
Baptist Church in each show.
“We’re please to have many Tennessee natives in our professional
company,” notes Associate Producing Director Abigail Crabtree, “including
Cumberland County High School graduates Daniel Black and Jesse Graham, who
grew up on our stages, have trained here and in colleges and theaters across
the country, and have returned to make a real contribution to the company.”
August concerts include Nashville duo-pianists DORFMAN & KATAHAN on the
VF Factory Outlet Mainstage in what has become almost an annual Crossville
engagement on August 10th, a visit from MARK TWAIN
AT LARGE on August 24th,
and two outdoor concerts in the beautiful, rustic Theater-In-The-Woods. THE
WILDFIRE BLUEGRASS BAND appears August 15th and THE FIERY GIZZARD BAND & VICTOR
ANTHONY pickin’ and singin’ on August 29th.
The Playhouse serves over 160,000 visits annually with 450 performances and
over 1600 classes and private lessons in theater, dance, and music. This
is the state’s largest audience for Tennessee-produced theater, and is among
the state’s largest for nonprofit performing arts performances of any
kind. Perhaps surprisingly, tickets still average less than $19 each, the company
operates its $3.2 million budget on over 85% earned revenue, and offers free
parking to seal the bargain.
All Mainstage and Adventure Theater seats are reserved. For additional information
call 931-484-5000 or visit us online at www.ccplayhouse.com. Online ticketing
will begin in season ’08, for added convenience.
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