Summer used to be a time when local theaters went on vacation and area performers, directors and designers recharged their batteries. Nowadays, many South Florida theaters run year-round or at least have one hot weather show and/or showcases for its student training programs. So consider avoiding the summer superhero movies in favor of live theater, like the following … [Read more...]
At GableStage, a somber, powerful ‘The Children’
Lucy Kirkwood has life-and-death issues on her mind in her clever, thought-provoking drama The Children, but she is wily enough to wrap her themes inside a very human character study. And at GableStage, which is giving the work its area premiere, director Michael Leeds brings this somber little play to life with Laura Turnbull, Angie Radosh and David Kwiat – three of the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 3
Music: New music is beginning to appear with more regularity on concert programs these days, and a case in point is this afternoon’s presentation by The Symphonia of Boca Raton. Composer Bruce Adolphe, best-known as the creator of the Piano Puzzler riddles on NPR’s Performance Today, wrote a violin concerto in 2014 inspired by the life of Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a German who spoke … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2018-19: Theater
If you don’t watch carefully, South Florida theater companies will move around on you. Celebrating its 25th season, Stage Door Theatre has relocated from Margate to Lauderhill, a move westward and a little south, but also a move up in the world to the gorgeous new $11.6 million, 1,100-seat Lauderhill Performing Arts Center. And the nomadic Primal Forces troupe has moved … [Read more...]
‘White Guy on the Bus’ engages, unsettles at GableStage
Remember the song from Avenue Q that chirps that “Everyone’s a little bit racist”? That is the premise as well of Bruce Graham’s unsettling contemporary drama, White Guy on the Bus, now receiving a powerful area premiere at Coral Gables’ GableStage. Expertly directed by Michael Leeds, who orchestrates a top-notch cast led by Tom Wahl – the eponymous “white guy” – the play … [Read more...]
‘I’m Gonna Pray’ serves up dark, compelling father-daughter strife
Is there a yearning more primal than for the approval of a parent? Well, if you happen to be in the theater, the approval of critics comes in a close second. Both are captured, pitfalls and all, in Halley Feiffer’s dark, probably autobiographical, disturbing tale of father-daughter struggles, I’m Gonna Pray for You So Hard, now in its area premiere at GableStage. … [Read more...]
Powerful ‘If I Forget’ stuns at GableStage
These days, we cling to our memories, worried that without them we will drift into dementia. But in his latest controversial book, fictional professor of Jewish studies Michael Fischer argues that American Jews need to forget – forget the Holocaust and stop obsessing over it for the sake of their mental health and general well-being. Not surprisingly, perhaps, he … [Read more...]
2017’s Top 10 in local theater
2017 was a strong year for theater in South Florida, particularly for musicals, though it wasn’t until I started to compile my 10 best list that I noticed how many musicals were among the standouts. Here is my highly subjective look back on the past 12 months from where I sat. 1. Arcadia, Palm Beach Dramaworks – Thermodynamics, mathematical algorithms, chaos theory and … [Read more...]
‘The Humans’ stuns at GableStage
Yes, the Blake family of Stephen Karam’s The Humans is dysfunctional, but what onstage clan is not? Still, most of them are so wrapped up in their own troubles, they are oblivious to their collective difficulties. In a work that is alternately dramatic, comic and more than a little creepy, it would be the rare audience member who does not identity with this clan on some … [Read more...]
Arts Preview 2017-18: The season in theater
Keith Garsson bounces back with a sexy season of Primal Forces, Palm Beach Dramaworks produces two world premieres, Slow Burn serves up its first non-musical and in case you haven’t had enough inclement weather this hurricane season, The Wick promises to make it rain inside its theater. All in all, it looks like a promising 2017-18 at area stages. Here’s a preview, in … [Read more...]