The current Clarence Brown Theatre version of A Christmas Carol which opened this past weekend is an adaptation by Edward Morgan and Joseph Hanreddy with music by John Tanner. This popular version first appeared on the CBT stage in 2016 and returned for three more years before the pandemic closure of 2020. It returned in 2023 and has now been freshened and energized for a 2024 run through December 21. Those theatre-goers who may have seen the production last year, or before, will certainly want to consider a return. This 2024 staging is CBT’s best by far—both in performances and visual delights.
Opening This Week: CBT’s Grand Tradition – ‘A Christmas Carol’
It seems inevitable that we find ourselves talking about traditions this time of year. Our holiday traditions often defy logic, embraced simply because there is inescapable satisfaction in the memories of food and drink, festive music, once-a-year events, and the…
Review: ‘How To Defend Yourself’ in the Lab Theatre at CBT
The Clarence Brown Theatre presents a troubling and thoughtful recent play, Liliana Padilla’s 2018 How to Defend Yourself, to UTK’s campus, directed by Jayne Morgan. How to Defend Yourself is about just that — a group of college students who join a self-defense class in the wake of the sexual assault of one of their friends. Collaborating with both community and campus resources, CBT’s How to Defend Yourself has an important message for everyone, but one that seems particularly relevant to UTK’s campus community: both students and educators.
Review: ‘Cry It Out’ — Clarence Brown Theatre – The Lab Theatre
BY ALAN SHERROD Molly Smith Metzler’s play, Cry It Out, may be set in a backyard in the New York City suburb of Port Washington, Long Island, but it covers a lot of territory inhabited by new mothers—unaware husbands,…
Review: A Provocative and Poignant ‘Knoxville’ at Clarence Brown Theatre
The latest adaptation of Agee’s ‘A Death in the Family’ is the musical ‘Knoxville’ written by the late Frank Galati with music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. ‘Knoxville’ opened this past weekend at the University of Tennessee’s Clarence Brown Theatre sporting superbly polished staging and a uniformly strong cast. The production continues through September 22.
Heads Up! What to See in Knoxville Theatre in September
Clarence Brown Theatre: Knoxville Is Knoxville Broadway bound? We’re talking about the new musical Knoxville, music by composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens with a book by the late Frank Galati, that opens at the Clarence Brown Theatre on…
Clarence Brown Theatre Brings Musical ‘Knoxville’ to the Stage
It hardly needs saying that the hottest theatre ticket of the year in Knoxville is … Knoxville. The musical Knoxville, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Death in the Family by Knoxville native son James Agee, opens at the…
Review: Clarence Brown Theatre’s ‘Kinky Boots’ – An Exhilarating Romp
As its final pick of the company’s season, the Clarence Brown Theatre opened its production of Kinky Boots on Friday evening. As it turns out, this production owes most of its genetic underpinning to that Broadway show thanks to director Rusty Mowery, a CBT alumnus and Broadway success story.
Review: CBT’s ‘Anon(ymous)’ Frames the Odyssey through the Lives of Refugees
Packed with as many action-filled moments as somber reflections on global conflict, playwright Naomi Iizuka’s Anon(ymous), which opened last Friday at Clarence Brown Theatre’s Lab Theatre, is a rollercoaster ride of lightness and darkness, of hope and despair. This thoughtful and resonant production offers an important observation
Review: CBT’s ‘The Giver’ – Warning of a Dystopian World and a Ray of Hope
The current Clarence Brown Theatre production of ‘The Giver’ which opened last week, is a stage adaptation by Eric Coble that was commissioned and premiered by the Oregon Children’s Theatre in 2006.