Stephen Sondheim was a mere 32 years old when the first show with his music and lyrics, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, opened on Broadway. A farce based on a convoluted storyline by the ancient Greek jokester Plautus, the audience-friendly musical has none of the psychological complexities that Sondheim would become known for, but plenty of his quirky melodies … [Read more...]
World premiere play revives ‘Goldbergs’ pioneer and the blacklist
Gertrude Berg, the pioneering writer-director-producer-star of radio and television’s The Goldbergs, a domestic comedy of a Jewish family in the Bronx, is all but forgotten today. In part that is why area stage actress Elizabeth Dimon wanted to commission a play about Berg and her show’s untimely demise in the dark days of the anti-Communist blacklist. In addition, the … [Read more...]
Audience-participation whodunit ‘Drood’ takes Maltz stage
Charles Dickens wrote what is probably the most popular holiday tale, A Christmas Carol, which has been adapted for the stage many times, filling theaters at this time of year. A bit perversely, then, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has chosen to dust off his other Christmas show, 1986’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a five-time Tony Award winner including Best Musical. It opens … [Read more...]
Playwright confronts work, romantic past in ‘Everything is Super Great’
Nineteen-year-old Tommy, the main character of Stephen Brown’s Everything is Super Great – a sarcastic title is ever there was one – lives a lonely life in a dead-end job at Starbucks. He is attracted to the female assistant manager who has no interest in him, he has no friends, his older brother has been missing for months and an inept therapist has arrived at Tommy’s home … [Read more...]
‘Andy and the Orphans’ deals thoughtfully with Down challenges
If the term “orphans” conjures up those adorable tykes from the musical Annie, playwright Lindsey Ferrentino asks us to adjust our sights and consider the more common situation of adults whose parents have died, leaving them with clean-up chores, both physical and emotional. That is how it is in Ferrentino’s Andy and the Orphans for siblings Maggie (Patti Gardner) and … [Read more...]
FAU cast dispatches ‘Urinetown’ smartly
By Dale King Student actors at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton have clearly taken the satirical comedy Urinetown to heart. Their performance is a laugh-laden riot. Coincidentally, the show doesn’t sink to the level of toilet humor – well, not often — as it could so easily do. Director Lee Soroko seems to gleefully turn ownership of the stage over to the young … [Read more...]
‘Fiddler’ still a miracle, as Sher’s version at Kravis shows
Fifty-five years ago, during what we now look back on as the golden age of Broadway, Sholem Aleichem’s folk tales of Tevye the dairy man and his five tradition-challenging daughters were adapted into the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Although considered commercially risky at the time, it went on to become one of the longest-running shows ever on Broadway, and a hit around the … [Read more...]
Maltz’s new ‘Dracula’ successfully Stokers the fires of silliness
To paraphrase that renowned philosopher Monty Python, “And now for something completely silly.” To open its 2019-20 season, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has commissioned a new spoofy take on Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale, Dracula. Or more accurately, on the general idea of Dracula, since co-adaptors Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen gleefully concede that they never read … [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...]
Is world ready for a ‘Dracula’ farce? Maltz, writers think so
Don’t feel bad if you have not read Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Neither had Gordon Greenberg, who co-wrote and directs the new comic version of the classic vampire tale in a world premiere at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, opening tonight. “And guess what? I still haven’t,” he concedes shamelessly. “Wikipedia is great,” Greenberg adds, referring to the online compendium from which he … [Read more...]