Last season, Lee Roy Reams was a sensation at Boca Raton’s Wick Theatre, playing drag queen Zaza in La Cage aux Folles. So it was probably inevitable that managing executive producer Marilynn Wick would say to him, “I’ve got to have you back next year. What do you want to do?” Reams said, “I want to do ‘Hello, Dolly!,’” a show that he had directed numerous times before. … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2015
‘Burnt’: A cliched plate of warmed-over tortured artist
Chefs at elite restaurants are hotheaded narcissists with the patience level of toddlers and the ego of Trumps. This much we know from reality cooking series, from other movies set in restaurant kitchens, from the Gordon Ramsay ethos. So when we see Bradley Cooper’s Adam Jones, the volcanic antihero of Burnt, grab his (female) sous chef by the collar in a post-prandial … [Read more...]
Theater roundup”: ‘Big Fish,’ ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,’ and ‘Picnic’
Palm Beach County has lost one of its key producing troupes, as Slow Burn Theatre Company moves its operation to the Broward Center’s Amaturo Theater. But from the selection of Big Fish as its initial offering there, and from the skilled rendering of the problematic material, the five-year-old group demonstrates that it is more than ready to leave its high school auditorium … [Read more...]
Broward Stage Door’s ‘Promises, Promises’ revives spirit of Swinging Sixties
By Dale King Promises, Promises, the musical now playing at the Broward Stage Door Theatre, brings together assorted material from seemingly disparate sources. Still, the show holds together very well, particularly in the second act when the comedy kicks into overdrive and the players truly find their vocal and acting muses. The show, which completes its five-week run with a … [Read more...]
Master Chorale opens with impressive Buxtehude, Mozart
Encrusted as it is with myth and the very real act of a tragically early death for its remarkable composer, the Requiem of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is sometimes hard to see clear, even with its continued popularity. But what it represents along with the meditation on last things that its text embodies is a splendid piece of sacred composition, at least for its first half — it … [Read more...]
Tyrrell’s Theatre Lab gets moving at FAU
When F. Scott Fitzgerald declared that “there are no second acts in American lives,” he surely was not referring to Lou Tyrrell. The founder of Florida Stage (formerly known as The Pope Theatre, formerly known as Theatre Club of the Palm Beaches) has recently begun his third act, opening yet another theater organization. After an ill-advised move to the Kravis Center in … [Read more...]
New work opens Seraphic Fire season in compelling style
The United States has a long, rich choral music tradition that extends from the Moravians to William Billings, from spirituals to Morten Lauridsen. And now there are a number of prominent younger composers diligently adding to this repertoire. Minnesota-based Jake Runestad, who is only 29, is among these creators, and his new cantata, The Hope of Loving, had its world premiere … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘Come Blow Your Horn’ still amuses at Delray Playhouse
By Dale King Delray Beach Playhouse continues to hitch its wagon to Neil Simon’s star as it opens its 69th season with the famed playwright’s first Broadway comedy hit, Come Blow Your Horn. It closes with a matinee Sunday. The Playhouse closed its 2014-2015 season with back-to-back Simon works: They’re Playing our Song, the Marvin Hamlisch-Carol Bayer Sager collaboration … [Read more...]
West Palm roundup: Amanda Valdes; another plan for the Carefree
By Sandra Schulman South Florida native Amanda Valdes is having a major moment with her art of creepy darling Goth girls, all doe eyes and angles and cartoonish allure. Her art focuses on the wildly embellished Girl, and how costuming, identity and myth play into female perceptions. Mermaids, Day of the Dead dames, courtesans and other coquettes parade and pose in her alpha … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’ gets Lake Worth Playhouse season off to charming start
By Dale King Lake Worth Playhouse jumps spiritedly into the new theatrical season with a top-notch production of Meet Me in St. Louis, the 1989 musical drawn from the fabled 1944 same-name film starring Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien. The show that has played on and off Broadway follows the Smith family — dad, mom, four daughters, a son and a grandpa. The comfortable, … [Read more...]