As long as there is latent racism, widespread fixation on internet porn and young people stumped by their purpose in life – three subjects explored in bouncy, infectious songs – then Avenue Q, the adult Sesame Street-inspired show populated by puppets, will probably be around. And if it is produced with the care and skill that MNM Theatre Company brings to the task, … [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...]
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...]
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...]
Well-cast ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ sparkles at Rinker
In 1982, long before movies became the source of most stage musicals, the puckish songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken took as their inspiration a schlocky sci-fi flick from the low-budget factory of Roger Corman. To them, Little Shop of Horrors, the tale of a man-eating plant from outer space that changes the life of a nebbishy flower shop clerk, had doo-wop … [Read more...]
MNM mounts respectable ‘Company’ at Rinker
That sound you hear is the third shoe dropping in a surprisingly Stephen Sondheim-rich summer in South Florida. Following FAU Festival Rep’s Into the Woods and Palm Beach Dramawork’s current steampunk Sweeney Todd comes MNM Productions with the master of ambivalence’s take on marriage, 1970’s Company. In addition to launching an extremely fertile decade for composer-lyricist … [Read more...]
MNM readies Sondheim’s ‘Company’ for Rinker
By Dale King MNM Productions is a small but driven contemporary theater company that’s latched on to the black-box-style, 300-seat Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, and intends to stay a while. Its two producing partners, Michael Lifshitz and Marcie Gorman-Althof, have given wing to risk by announcing plans to present one of the best-loved and … [Read more...]
Fist & Heel’s ‘Citizen’ was powerful, subtle
There was a subdued elegance to Citizen, the multimedia work presented May 6 at the Rinker Playhouse in West Palm Beach. It wasn’t at all what I had expected from the Brooklyn-based dance company that calls itself Fist & Heel Performance Group. The clean and concise structure of the work was reminiscent of the post-modern dance movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when … [Read more...]
Capitol Steps get rich material from the age of Trump
Regardless of how you feel about our recent election and our new president, there is no denying that it and he have been major boons for the comedy industry. One such recipient of the humor windfall is certainly The Capitol Steps, those Washington wags who frequently play the Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse, as they are doing through March 19 — the satirical group’s first … [Read more...]
Audience samba is joyful postscript to energetic Brazilian dance show
The 24 performers of Balé Folclórico da Bahia entered the Rinker Playhouse — as we did — from the outside and stood right next to us as they sang. Bathed in a warm, reddish light and dressed in the traditional white clothes and head wraps of the Northeast of Brazil, they sang with a gentle fervor and we felt their presence intimately. Presenting Bahia Of All Colors, … [Read more...]