Since romance is a cornerstone of the musical theater, perhaps it was inevitable that Pretty Woman — the most popular rom-com of all time — would make its way to Broadway It did so in 2018, thanks to an adaptation by Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton — the film’s director and screenwriter, respectively — as well as a score by Canadian pop composer Bryan Adams and his frequent … [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...]
‘Nostalgia and heart’: Stars say you gotta have ‘Damn Yankees,’ at the Wick
Polled for their preferences in musicals, the Wick Theatre’s audience has consistently ranked 1955’s Damn Yankees very high. What is it about this Tony Award-winning show based on Douglas Wallop’s tongue-in-cheek novel, The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, that is so appealing? Jeffrey Moss, who directs the Wick’s production that begins performances Thursday, sums it up … [Read more...]
‘Good People’ speaks its truth in searing Maltz production
“Write what you know” goes the clichéd but all-too-true route to theatrical success, and playwright David Lindsay-Abaire knows about escaping poverty. Born and raised in a blue-collar neighborhood of South Boston, he became a Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist (Rabbit Hole) as well as the adapter of his play Kimberly Akimbo into a much-acclaimed musical on Broadway this season. … [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...]
At Boca Stage, ‘Grand Horizons’ goes for the laughs
In the prologue to Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons, before we learn that Nancy and Bill French have passed their 50th anniversary, we watch as they wordlessly ready their breakfast as a team, the familiar exercise of a much-married couple. So it is more than a little surprising when the first words out of her mouth are “I think I would like a divorce.” Responding without … [Read more...]
Sharp cast helps lift subpar musical remake of ‘Tootsie’
Men have been dressing up in women’s clothing, for comic effect on stage and in the movies, about as long as those media have existed. In 1982, a committee of writers that included Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal kept that tradition alive with a film called Tootsie. It certainly earned its laughs, but it also had something to say, exploring the nature of and differences … [Read more...]
‘Leaving Omaha’ not Lewis’s best, but fine lead actors make it work
Playwright Carter W. Lewis does not have much positive to say about Omaha, the setting of his latest play, now receiving its world premiere at Palm Beach Dramaworks. But in his program notes, the production’s director Bruce Linser suggests that the Nebraska town is merely a microcosm for a nationwide society that has failed to provide the educational, economic and social … [Read more...]
Christie spoof offers reliable laughs at Delray Playhouse
By Dale King If you manage to snag a ticket to the very view-worthy comedic musical mystery Something’s Afoot at the Delray Beach Playhouse before it drops the final curtain Feb. 12, lend an ear to a song called “I Owe It All,” which should provide an overview of where this production is coming from. The bouncy melody, shared in mutual musicality by most everyone in the … [Read more...]
‘The Science of Leaving Omaha’: Downward mobility on the prairie
It is one thing to recognize the dramatic potential in a New York Times article about the disintegration of working-class communities and its devastating toll from one generation to the next, as playwright Carter W. Lewis did. It is quite another thing to make the imaginative leap and turn that material into The Science of Leaving Omaha, about a teenage dropout working in a … [Read more...]