April 28, 2024: I completed my bite out of Broadway today with my eighth show in six days --- The Outsiders --- based on S.E. Hinton's novel and Francis Ford Coppola's movie adaptation. It's a visceral musical, steeped in the street warfare between the blue-collar Greasers and the socially better-off Socs. The comparison may be unfair, but it is hard not to think of West Side … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2024
Postcard from Broadway No. 6: Intense ‘Appropriate,’ dazzling ‘Illinoise’
April 27, 2024: Today, Saturday, was a two-show day with productions that couldn't be more different. At the matinee I saw Appropriate, an intensely dramatic look at a highly dysfunctional family. And in the evening I saw a recently opened dance concert/musical, Illinoise, that challenges what a musical is. Appropriate, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins in his Broadway debut, is … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway No. 5: Timely ‘Suffs’ an auspicious debut for actress-creator
This afternoon, I, my wife and a couple of good friends from high school who got married a week before us (wow, 52 years ago) met up and went on a food-themed walking tour of Greenwich Village. In addition to a history lesson of the neighborhood, we snacked on bagels, pizza, pie crust cookies, Italian rice balls, Belgian-style fries, artisan chocolates and designer cupcakes. A … [Read more...]
SunFest retools, regroups for a robust 40th anniversary
One of the most memorable hits and videos of the past half-century was the 1981 single “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads — in which vocalist David Byrne repeated the mantra of “same as it ever was.” That phrase doesn’t apply to SunFest, Florida’s largest waterfront music and art festival. For its 2024 installment, a floating SunFest Electronic Barge will … [Read more...]
Pianist Geniushene’s ‘Op. 1’ program intriguing, to a point
By Márcio Bezerra The Society of the Four Arts hosted pianist Anna Geniushene on Wednesday in a program of firsts. The young artist, whose career has been growing silver she won the silver medal at the 2022 Van Cliburn Competition, presented a clever program that consisted of several Opus 1 by composers from the classical period to the twentieth century. To be … [Read more...]
Weird rumination on Sasquatch life is short, but too long
If you ask 10 Bigfoot enthusiasts what the apocryphal creature is, you’re likely to get 10 different answers. The latest and trendiest explanations are the most mystical, bolstered by advances in quantum theory. Bigfoot, so say the most far-out cyptozoologists, is an interdimensional being, a hologram essentially, that can phase in and out of our reality as effortlessly as Star … [Read more...]
Boca Stage ends season with charming ‘America’s Sexiest Couple’
Unlike its recent seasons, Boca Stage has no Neil Simon plays in its current line-up. But with America’s Sexiest Couple, boy, does it come close. Its playwright, Ken Levine, is no stranger to sitcoms, having spent much of his career writing episodes of M*A*S*H, Cheers and Frasier. Still, this Levine stage comedy will bring to mind a couple of Simon classics --– Plaza Suite … [Read more...]
‘What’s Best for the Children’: Sharp topical comedy premieres at FAU Theatre Lab
Educating our youngsters --- deciding what and what not to teach them --- is a very serious matter. But apparently that news never made its way to playwright Idris Goodwin. For he has taken the subject of education in America today and turned it on its ear, examining the matter from an absurdist perspective in a jaunty little comedy called What’s Best for the Children, now … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway No. 4: ‘The Notebook’ proves emotionally stirring
The weather turned cold in Manhattan today, but the passions boiled over in the musical version of The Notebook, based on Nicholas Sparks' rabidly popular novel and the subsequent cult favorite movie. As you probably recall, the movie divided the central lover roles in two ---- young romantics, Allie and Noah --- and their older selves, a woman who had drifted into dementia and … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway No. 3: Gripping ‘Mary Jane’ from McAdams
After a lunch with some distant cousins of my wife's, we headed to the Broadway Theatre (the only Broadway theater actually on Broadway) to see one of the final previews of a musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Because it hasn't officially opened yet, my critical comments are embargoed, but suffice it to say the production brings to mind F. Scott Fitzgerald's much … [Read more...]