By Dale King Newsies takes a high-energy, somersault-flipping, song-filled dip into a generally factual, historic event — a work stoppage involving newspaper delivery boys, called “newsies” — at the end of the 19th century. The show, a thought-provoking, entertaining and entrancing tale about industrious street kids with a genuine interest in righting wrongs — … [Read more...]
LWP serves up another fine whodunit in ‘Dial M for Murder’
By Dale King Lake Worth Playhouse has spent the last couple of seasons polishing up its capacity for presenting thought-provoking, plausible and entertaining murder mysteries. The theater company earned plaudits last year for its adaptation of Agatha Christie’s popular murder mystery Mousetrap. A year earlier, it kept the audience entranced with an edge-of-your-seat … [Read more...]
LW Playhouse’s ‘Guys and Dolls’ winningly shows off large, able cast
By Dale King After recently toying with a variety of theatrical genres, Lake Worth Playhouse has chosen to kick off the 2023 portion of its 70th season with a tried-and-true classic, Guys and Dolls. This stage staple centers on Depression-era gamblers and their women, referred to without objection as “dolls” and “broads,” whose major goal in life is to marry and raise … [Read more...]
‘Fun Home’: LW Playhouse gives breakthrough musical a fine reading
By Dale King Lake Worth Playhouse has officially opened its 70th season with a probing, thought-provoking production of Fun Home, a true-to-life musical theater adaptation of cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s 2006 graphic novel memoir of her passionate search to find a connection between her and her deceased father – both of them gay. With music by Jeanine Tesori and a book … [Read more...]
LW Playhouse’s ‘Heathers’ brings offbeat story vividly to life
By Dale King Lake Worth Playhouse continues to exercise its theatrical muscle by bringing unorthodox plays to its main stage in downtown Lake Worth Beach. Since the COVID pandemic eased, show planners have presented such quirky entries as Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a gender-bending two-person performance, and We Will Rock You, an idiosyncratic collection of tunes by the … [Read more...]
Lake Worth Playhouse’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ tracks movie and book classic agreeably
By Dale King For most of us in the age-55-and-over bracket, a visit to “the merry old land of Oz” used to be a once-a-year excursion provided by one of the three sole TV networks that broadcast the classic 1939 film of author L. Frank Baum’s fanciful story, The Wizard of Oz, on our 12-channel, antenna-on-the-roof television sets. Today, folks can find the same video … [Read more...]
‘Atlantis’: A pitiless Ukrainian postwar dystopia — from 2019
Whether programmed by coincidence or intention, today’s opening of Atlantis at Lake Worth Playhouse offers, like most great science fiction, a harrowing and prescient reflection on our present moment. Director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s sophomore feature, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, is set in Eastern Ukraine in 2025, “one year after the war.” It’s … [Read more...]
LW Playhouse’s ‘Mousetrap’ delivers Christie’s goods, deftly
By Dale King If Agatha Christie murder mysteries are your cup of tea, grab a mug of Earl Grey – hot – and take a seat among the many audience members at the Lake Worth Playhouse for a run of Christie’s top-notch tale, The Mousetrap. A talented cast that delivers the playwright’s goods with aplomb keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. The old English drawing room set … [Read more...]
LW Playhouse’s ‘9 to 5’ a bright revival of workplace classic
By Dale King Lake Worth Playhouse flips the calendar page on its 2021-22 season, opening the new year with a lively and entertaining revival of the comic workplace improvement saga, 9 to 5. The 2008 stage production inspired by the 1980 film starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton (who wrote the tunes and lyrics for the show’s mainly up-tempo soundtrack) … [Read more...]
At LW Playhouse, ‘Earnest,’ with an LGBTQ Palm Beach twist
By Dale King Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest has been modified and repackaged in many different ways since it first hit the London stage on Valentine’s Day 1895. Lake Worth Playhouse has made its own modifications to the three-act production, pulling it into the 21st century, relocating it from England to Palm Beach County and toying with some of the gender … [Read more...]