By Dale King Broward Stage Door Theatre has boosted the jukebox musical genre to new heights. Once thought of as the unloved stepchild of traditional music-and-dialogue performances, jukebox-style productions are drawing larger and more exuberant crowds, at least at the Margate venue. Swing, Swing, Swing, now playing at Broward Stage, is the fourth all-melody production … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2016
First-rate ‘Iguana’ launches Dramaworks season
The Night of the Iguana may not be top-drawer Tennessee Williams, but it is receiving a first-rate rendering at Palm Beach Dramaworks, where the tale of connection and redemption at seedy Costa Verde hotel on the Mexican coast opens the company’s 17th season. The 1961 work explores whether, in Williams’ words, “two unstable lives can set the world on fire.” In its portrait … [Read more...]
McArdle, Clow winning in Wick’s charming ‘Playing Our Song’
As veteran director Norb Joerder readily concedes, The Wick Theatre was looking for a small musical to open its season, concerned about ticket sales before the snow bird audience arrives. In that sense, the company chose well with 1979’s They’re Playing Our Song, a two-character, on-and-off romantic comedy based on the quirky – and doomed – relationship between composer Marvin … [Read more...]
‘The Audience,’ at the Maltz: Human is the head that wears the crown
To dramatize the past 65 years’ history of Great Britain, you only need to focus on that nation’s queen, Elizabeth II. That is precisely what playwright Peter Morgan has done in his Olivier and Tony Award-winning hit, The Audience, premiering locally Thursday at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. “Queen Elizabeth has been on the throne for seven decades. The collective history of … [Read more...]
‘The Handmaiden’: Lots of heat, but little art
Oldboy and Lady Vengeance director Park Chan-Wook has proven himself of a savvy purveyor of elegant violence, transforming his scripts’ most brutal set pieces into displays of virtuosic camera movement and precise framing. But in The Handmaiden, a twisty triangle of secrets and lies based on a Victorian bodice-ripper, the South Korean stylist fashions himself less a … [Read more...]
Veteran actress Cohen happy to be in a ‘Pickle’
Most screen actresses have difficulty getting roles after the age of 40. But Lynn Cohen – Mags in The Hunger Games to most people or maybe Magda in the Sex and the City movies – is 83 and busier than ever. Now she is featured in The Pickle Recipe, first seen locally in this year’s Palm Beach International Film Festival and now back for a commercial run in several area … [Read more...]
Chekhov meets Beckett in Laufer’s provocative ‘Three Sisters of Weehawken’
What do you get when you cross an iconic play by Anton Chekhov with those of Samuel Beckett, by way of Christopher Durang and his puckish touch? Such a stew would probably resemble Deborah Zoe Laufer’s The Three Sisters of Weehawken, an amiably nutty and ultimately touching new work now receiving its world premiere at Florida Atlantic University’s Theatre Lab. As her title … [Read more...]
Andrea McArdle: The first ‘Annie,’ still in love with the theater
Forty years ago, a little 13-year-old girl with a big voice was plucked out of the chorus of moppets during rehearsals and given the title role of an optimistic orphan named Annie. Of course, that girl was Andrea McArdle, who hung onto that star-making part for almost three years, including Broadway and London. She has been back on Broadway, as a featured replacement in such … [Read more...]
Debussy, Beethoven performances showcase impressive Lynn Philharmonia
I had to miss out on the first Lynn Philarmonia concert in late September because of a family emergency, but this past Saturday night at the Wold Center for the Performing Arts, I was able to make it to the second concert, and I found that there’s a lot to be excited about. Director Guillermo Figueroa, who has recently added a regular gig with the Santa Fe Symphony to his … [Read more...]
Community theater: Delray Playhouse’s ‘Senator’ offers amusing electoral dysfunction
By Dale King Talk about art imitating life. The Delray Beach Playhouse is opening its 70th theatrical season with The Sensuous Senator, a rollicking romp about a presidential candidate who staunchly stands for morality, family and the sanctity of marriage. But when the wife isn’t around, he’s ready to bed down his sexy secretary or spend a lusty night with a … [Read more...]