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.
Review: CBT’s ‘The Moors’ — Deliciously Dark and Atmospheric
BY ALAN SHERROD A strange, old Victorian house on the edge of the bleak, disorienting moors of Yorkshire… characters that suggest the Brontë sisters and their dissolute brother, Branwell…and, of course, the arrival of a new governess with a…
Review: Bruch’s ‘Scottish Fantasy’ Comes Alive with Stefan Jackiw and KSO – A Sensational Beethoven ‘Pastoral’
BY ALAN SHERROD Concerts have an intriguing way of taking on a life and meaning of their own. That meaning may be obvious and intentional, or personal and ineffable. That is the joy—and burden—of those that program concerts: the…
Review: Knoxville Opera’s ‘Falstaff’ – An Exhilarating Winner
BY ALAN SHERROD In his Friday evening pre-curtain remarks to the audience for Verdi’s Falstaff, Knoxville Opera General Director Jason Hardy asked for a show of hands of those seeing a KO production for the first time. Surprisingly, what…
Review: River & Rail Theatre Co. Explores Secrets and Truths in ‘Fun Home’
BY ALAN SHERROD Successful works of theatre have a way of holding up a mirror to its viewers, its reflection revealing universal truths that touch each individual with memories and revelations specific to their own lives. That is certainly…
Review: Knoxville Opera Triumphs With ‘The Marriage of Figaro’
BY ALAN SHERROD Knoxville Opera began its life at the Bijou Theatre in 1978 as the Knoxville Civic Opera. Returning to its birthplace this weekend, the company triumphed there to wrap up its 2022-23 season with a production of…
Review: UT Opera Theatre’s ‘Hänsel und Gretel’
BY ALAN SHERROD It felt like it had been forever since the University of Tennessee Opera Theatre had trod the boards at the Bijou Theatre—but the company was back last weekend with a production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hänsel und…
Review: William Shaub and Friends Make Sense of Beethoven’s Final String Quartet
BY ALAN SHERROD The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s Concertmaster Series with William Shaub has one more performance of “The Late Genius: Beethoven’s Final Days”, Thursday evening, April 6, at 7:00, at the Knoxville Museum of Art. Tickets and Information …
Review: Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Journeys Through Higdon, Copland, Sibelius
BY ALAN SHERROD If you sat back, closed your eyes, and indulged your imagination for just a bit, it was entirely possible that the evening’s music could conjure up a vision of the blue hazy mountains of the Appalachians…
Review: ‘Men on Boats’ at Clarence Brown – Old History, New Perspective
BY ALAN SHERROD On its most basic level, the Jaclyn Backhaus play, Men on Boats, which opened Friday evening in the Lab Theatre of the Clarence Brown, is a retelling of the 1869 exploratory journey made by John Wesley…