It is called musical comedy, but you can count on two hands the number of shows that are genuinely funny. Something Rotten!, a stew of Elizabethan foolishness, is certainly one of them. Where most new musicals these days are based on movies, Something Rotten! is an original story and its premise should get you giggling quickly. It concerns the Bottom brothers – Nick and … [Read more...]
Except for Cox’s singing, ‘Bodyguard’ flops as a musical
Turning the 1992 Whitney Houston-Kevin Costner flick The Bodyguard into a theatrical musical wasn’t a bad idea, but boy, it has been adapted to the stage very badly. Its success in London’s West End and then on tour in this country is surely due to the residual affection for that film, as well as for the Houston song trunk which forms the basis for this jukebox musical. … [Read more...]
Buck and Boogz’s ‘woke’ dance at Rinker inspires, astonishes
The impact of the March for Our Lives was felt across this divided country and around the world. People of all ages took time March 22 to show their support, and I couldn’t have had a better introduction to the events than going to see Love Heals All Wounds, by Lil Buck and Jon Boogz at the Rinker Playhouse in West Palm Beach. In times of change, artists have often taken on … [Read more...]
Beautiful new ‘Figaro’ charms at Palm Beach Opera
A good production of Le Nozze di Figaro that doesn’t get in the way of its music can demonstrate to its audience this work’s surprising modernity, even rooted as it is in the late 18th century. It’s Mozart who speaks to us most clearly from his 1786 vantage point, writing a kind of operatic music that lives and breathes with its characters, a music that mirrors their manic … [Read more...]
‘One Line Drawn’ marks exciting departure for MCB
When the curtain opened for Miami City Ballet’s world premiere of One Line Drawn at the Kravis Center on March 2, we immediately knew we were in for a complete change-up. There would be no tutus here. With what seemed to resemble five sets of blaring headlights (stacked on top of each other) shining directly in our eyes, the dancers entered – first one, then another and … [Read more...]
‘The Illusionists’: The sound of 2,000 jaws dropping
I am a sucker for magic, for the jaw-dropping, “How did they do that?” tricks and illusions that seem to defy the laws of nature and logic. There is a profusion of such stunts in The Illusionists: Live from Broadway, an Australian-born, Great White Way-branded show that is flummoxing audiences at the Kravis Center through Sunday. Yes, there are a few sub-par sequences in … [Read more...]
Contra-Tiempo’s ‘Agua Furiosa’ ambitious but uneven
When I am sitting in the audience, I have a certain expectation: I want to be rewarded. By the end of the performance, I want to take away a vision, a purpose or even just a feeling that makes me believe that the whole experience was worth my while. In a full-length work, this expectation is even more pronounced as there isn’t the option (as there is in a repertory program) … [Read more...]
Fierce punch of ‘Cabaret’ still lands
It’s tawdry and sleazy, and you wouldn’t want it any other way. That describes director Sam Mendes’ take on the hard-hitting, yet melodic, leer at the rise of Nazism in pre-war Berlin, Cabaret, now playing at the Kravis Center through Sunday. Harold Prince staged the original 1966 Broadway production of the John Kander-Fred Ebb-Joe Masteroff show based on the … [Read more...]
At 91, Tony Bennett shows he can still make magic
An adoring capacity crowd greeted the artist formerly known as Anthony Dominick Benedetto on Monday as the ageless, 91-year-old vocalist confidently strode onstage at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts’ Dreyfoos Hall in West Palm Beach. And why not? As Tony Bennett, the singer has earned 20 Grammy Awards, the most recent for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for Tony … [Read more...]
Violinist Huang impressive in Kravis recital
By Dennis D. Rooney 23-year old Sirena Huang won the grand prize at last year’s inaugural Elmar Oliveira International Violin Competition held at Lynn University in Boca Raton. On Jan. 22, she gave a local recital, part of the Kravis Center’s Young Artists Series. That complex’s Rinker Playhouse was an ideal venue. With Robert Koenig at the piano, Huang played a … [Read more...]