Comedy, as they say, is tragedy that happens to someone else. And the calamities that are happening just beyond an apartment in Inwood, N.Y., and all around the globe — the effects of climate change, economic distress, the rise of white supremacy militias, rioting and looting — are nothing if not calamitous. Yet in Last Night in Inwood, now receiving its world premiere at … [Read more...]
‘Last Night in Inwood’: World premiere play suggests an all-too-real nightmare
The year was 2016 and graduate student Alix Sobler needed to write a play for her master’s thesis. “I write comedy, but the world was in a real state at that moment,” she recalls. “The election between Clinton and Trump was at its height. Things felt really off-balance and I wanted to reflect that onstage in a way that was going to be accessible to audiences.” The … [Read more...]
The Wick’s ‘Milk and Honey’: See it for the music
In 1960, a promising young composer-lyricist was sent to Israel to soak up its atmosphere and culture in order to write a musical set in that plucky new nation. The songwriter was Jerry Herman and the show would be his Broadway debut --- Milk and Honey. It ran for a respectable 543 performances and, of course, has since been overshadowed by such Herman megahits as Hello, … [Read more...]
Wick goes big with Herman’s Israel love story, ‘Milk and Honey’
Avi Hoffman did not take long to decide when the offer came from Boca Raton’s Wick Theatre to be in Milk and Honey, Jerry Herman’s 1961 Broadway debut. He has a special affection for this musical about a romance between a middle-aged couple, set against the turmoil of the early days of the state of Israel. For starters, he grew up in Israel, living there from 1969 to 1977, … [Read more...]
Schlocky ‘Boca’ unworthy of GableStage’s standards
As GableStage audiences continue to assess what its new artistic director Bari Newport has in mind for the troupe, they are receiving mixed signals. Its recent production of the challenging, racially themed The White Card suggested it will be business as usual for the company that built its reputation on tough-minded, cutting-edge drama. But now it drastically switches gears … [Read more...]
Maltz cast shines in Simon’s ‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’
There has never been, and in all likelihood will never be, an American playwright as commercially successful as the late Neil Simon. From his Broadway debut in 1961 with Come Blow Your Horn, he has convulsed audiences in laughter season after season. But it wasn’t until 22 years later, with Brighton Beach Memoirs, that he eased up on his joke reflex, explored his own … [Read more...]
Hoffman revisits ‘Too Jewish?’ at PGA Arts Center
By Dale King Avi Hoffman, the familiar singer, actor, comedian, storyteller, master of shtick and supporter of Jewish causes, is back on stage in Palm Beach County. He has dusted off his 24-year-old production of Too Jewish? And after tweaking, revising and refurbishing it, he’s performing it again, this time at the PGA Arts Center in Palm Beach Gardens. “‘Too Jewish?’ … [Read more...]
Current theater: Twisted ‘Broken Snow;’ bubbly ‘Beehive’
A dark, twisting and twisted tale called Broken Snow inaugurates the professional theater program of JCAT at the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center in North Miami Beach. With a decade of community and children’s theater under its belt, the company makes a polished debut into Carbonell Award-eligible productions, even if the subject matter of Ben Andron’s world premiere … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: Hoffman makes last-ditch appeal to save New Vista Theatre
The ghoulish among us -- yeah, you know who you are -- insist that deaths come in threes. So there was Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and, while it’s not exactly parallel, maybe the third is New Vista Theatre Company.That is the impression left by an gang e-mail sent out late yesterday afternoon by artistic director Avi Hoffman, who announced “with enormous regret and sadness” … [Read more...]