Of the many musicals by the late, great Stephen Sondheim, some are more grisly (Sweeney Todd), more esoteric (Pacific Overtures) and more personal (Merrily We Roll Along), but few are as audience-friendly and ultimately profound than Into the Woods. Collaborating with James Lapine, the master composer-lyricist mashes up several familiar fairy tales – Cinderella, Red … [Read more...]
2023-24 Season in Theater: A post-COVID lineup full of promise
With COVID safely in the rear mirror and audiences back attending theater, the 2023-2024 South Florida season looks quite promising, with full schedules, numerous world premieres and several companies celebrating significant anniversaries. Here’s how the theater scene is shaping up, moving geographically from north to south. With its playhouse expanded, the Maltz … [Read more...]
Slow Burn offers hugely entertaining ‘Honeymoon in Vegas’
Slow Burn Theatre Company was established in 2009 with the express intent of producing contemporary, challenging musicals that few troupes in South Florida would attempt. Sure enough, it went out on a limb with its inaugural show, Bat Boy, earning the admiration of the critical community for its artistic and financial risk-taking, and audiences soon followed. When the … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2022-23: The season in theater
Now that the COVID 19 pandemic is in the rearview mirror – we hope – South Florida’s theaters are looking ahead to their first full season of productions in several years. So below is a look at what is scheduled, taken in geographic order from north to south, from Jupiter to Coral Gables. Last season, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre was hit with a double whammy of COVID and … [Read more...]
Slow Burn’s lovely ‘Once on This Island’ another winner for company
Two seasons ago, Slow Burn Theatre almost produced the epic Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens musical, Ragtime, but COVID got in the way. Perhaps they will get back to that show one day, but fans of the songwriting team should be pleased with the company’s current musical offering, Once on this Island, a spirited tale of the power of love, class distinctions and godly interventions, … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2021-22: The season in theater
This was supposed to be the first post-COVID theater season in South Florida, but the delta variant took care of that wishful thinking. Most stage companies are optimistic that they can produce something this season. Whether the audience will show up is another story. If all goes well, it could be an exciting year at the theater, with a new artistic director at … [Read more...]
Slow Burn’s ‘Songs for a New World’ makes the case for composer Brown
In 1995, audiences did not yet know composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brow. After all, he had not won his Tony Awards for best score (Parade and Bridges of Madison County). Nor had he written The Last Five Years, the two-character, backward-and-forward narrative musical that regional theaters all across the country have since embraced. But he had penned Songs for a New … [Read more...]
Slow Burn manages to sell second-rate, tuneless ‘Groundhog Day’
You have to admire the dedication of Slow Burn Theatre to revive musicals that got insufficient love on Broadway. (Yes, we’re looking at you Big Fish, Side Show and Parade.) Still, you have to also accept, no matter how well the company performs them, some of these shows are simply subpar. Which brings us to Groundhog Day, the stage adaptation of the 1993 Bill Murray … [Read more...]
‘Christmas Story’ a family-friendly, charming departure for edgy Slow Burn
The songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul will probably long be associated with the angst-riddled Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen. But five years before it arrived on Broadway, they wrote a whimsical adaptation of Jean Shepherd’s look back on his youth at holiday time, A Christmas Story. True, little Ralphie Parker obsesses over getting a Red Ryder … [Read more...]
Slow Burn’s production turns so-so ‘Shrek’ into a winner
How can you tell that the pot-bellied, antenna-eared green ogre named Shrek and assertive, yet incurably romantic Princess Fiona are meant for each other? They fart and burp with compatible pride. In the shorthand of musical comedy – well, in Shrek, the Musical at least – that means love. Chances are you know that already from the 2001 Oscar-winning Dreamworks … [Read more...]