Boca Raton-raised Rachel Bay Jones, a 2017 Tony and Grammy Award winner for her featured role as Heidi Hansen, mother of a teenage son whose social media lie goes viral, in the smash hit musical Dear Evan Hansen, had long been ambivalent about forging a theater career in New York. “I’m a Florida girl. I love nature, I love being out in the sunshine. Living in a gray city … [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...]
Young thespians learn ‘Mockingbird’ lessons at Maltz
By Janis Fontaine It’s no easier to talk about race today than it was in 1960 when Harper Lee’s acclaimed novel To Kill a Mockingbird was published, or in rural Alabama in 1936, when the novel takes place. But conversations must be had. To jump-start those dialogues, a group of young professionals at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre are producing the play based on Lee’s … [Read more...]
Expert Maltz cast delivers a strong ‘South Pacific’
Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II have mistakenly acquired a reputation for sentimental musicals, yet this is the team that gave up shows about domestic abuse (Carousel), cross-cultural conflict (The King and I), the rise of Nazism (The Sound of Music) and racial prejudice (South Pacific). Perhaps their misguided reputation stems from the … [Read more...]
Directors seek fresh angles for two 1940s chestnuts
The Maltz Jupiter Theatre and the Wick Theatre are both grappling with a dilemma. Each has selected a classic musical – 1949’s South Pacific and 1947’s Brigadoon, respectively – because of its intrinsic dramatic and musical quality. But how do you approach such a show, knowing that your audience has probably already seen it, often many times over? To director Gordon … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Feb. 10-11
Film: The Donald Ephraim Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival concludes this Sunday evening with an exceedingly clever documentary about the many Jewish composers and lyricists who wrote our most popular, secular Christmas carols. You know about Irving Berlin penning “White Christmas,” but what about Mel Tormé’s “Christmas Song” – a string of winter images including chestnuts … [Read more...]
Maltz’s ‘Hairspray’ is an irresistible blast
Of the many movies that have been adapted into stage musicals, John Waters’ subversive cult comedy, Hairspray, seemed unlikely to make the transfer successfully. But eight Tony Awards and a 6½-year, 2,642-performance run on Broadway later, such doubts have been put firmly to rest. And if subsequent regional productions fare as well as the high-energy, hard-driving pop rock … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 12-14
Music: Renée Fleming sang her last Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera last year, but she hasn’t left off performing. Tomorrow night she returns to South Florida for a recital program with pianist Gerald Martin Moore at the Kravis Center. A couple years back she appeared at the Festival of the Arts Boca and featured rare verismo arias, and in previous iterations of this … [Read more...]
Maltz makes first-rate show out of second-rate ‘Newsies’
The Maltz Jupiter Theatre has demonstrated many, many times that it can produce a superlative show when it has worthy material. The harder task is to succeed with second-rate goods, but that is exactly what it is doing currently with its explosive, high-energy take on a so-so musical, Disney’s Newsies. Yes, adaptor Harvey Fierstein made some substantial improvements to … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 18-19
Dance: Miami City Ballet opens its first show of the season this weekend at the Kravis Center with his triptych, Jewels. Divided into Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds, and set to the music of Fauré, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky, this three-act ballet evokes French Romanticism, 20th-century modernism and Imperial Russia. While MCB has branched out considerably in its past few years, … [Read more...]