As if Disney didn’t have enough trouble from the attacks by Ron DeSantis, now the various princesses from its animated feature film corral are rebelling against the Mouse Factory for the sexist stereotypes given to them. At least that is the premise of Disenchanted!, a sly satirical revue now receiving its South Florida premiere at the Kravis Center’s Rinker … [Read more...]
‘Designing Broadway’ an intriguing look at theater’s starring sets
To create theater, it is said, all you really need is “two planks and a passion.” While that is true, it negates the creative art of scenic design. That three-dimensional, architectural, historical and occasionally fanciful journey is explored in a gorgeous coffee-table book, Designing Broadway, subtitled How Derek McLane and Other Acclaimed Set Designers Create the Visual … [Read more...]
FAU Theatre Lab’s ‘Refuge’ investigates human side of immigration
This nation was built by immigrants, but you would never know it from the political brouhaha that has arisen from the current border crisis over the issue of immigration. Refuge, the saga of a young Honduran girl’s harrowing journey crossing our southern border into the inhospitable, barren land of Texas, completes Florida Atlantic University Theatre Lab’s season of … [Read more...]
Intense central performances give Zoetic’s ‘Next to Normal’ profound impact
Lyricist-book writer Brian Yorkey and his composer partner Tom Kitt researched well bipolar disorder to write the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical Next to Normal, about one woman’s battle with the mental affliction and its effect on her family. And in his program note, Zoetic Stage artistic director Stuart Meltzer is very candid about his own history with … [Read more...]
No weak links in powerful ‘Osage County’ at Dramaworks
How fortunate for playwright Tracy Letts that he grew up in a bitter, vindictive and addiction-prone household. For his relatives became the inspiration for the Westons of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning August: Osage County, a darkly dramatic and often quite funny look at his wildly dysfunctional family. The three-and-a-half-hour, … [Read more...]
Reviews from a promising Broadway season
Because of my travel plans, I had to schedule my spring Broadway splurge earlier than usual. So I was too early to see Bob Fosse’s Dancin’, Bad Cinderella, Shucked and others. But as you will see below, there were plenty of worthy shows that I caught in what is turning out to be a better-than-expected Broadway season. & Juliet (Stephen Sondheim Theatre, 124 W. 43rd St.) — … [Read more...]
Dramaworks explores dysfunctional family in ‘August: Osage County’
Often compared to Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Tracy Letts’s August: Osage County is an exploration of yet another dysfunctional family, an epic play that also was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It premiered in 2007 at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, where Letts is a company member and resident playwright. It quickly transferred to Broadway, … [Read more...]
Female ‘Odd Couple’ falls flat at Boca Stage
In his heyday, Neil Simon would write a new play each season. In 1985, however, when he didn’t have a good idea for a play, he rewrote one of his finest, funniest comedies, The Odd Couple, changing the gender of the characters and tinkering with many of his previously well-crafted laugh lines. While he never asked me for my opinion, I would have advised him with that … [Read more...]
Strong lead performances make ‘Oliver!’ a solid Maltz closer
In the early 1960s, long before Andrew Lloyd Webber and others sent a steady stream of mega-musicals from Britain to Broadway, a London songwriter named Lionel Bart scored a big hit on both sides of the pond with Oliver! Based, of course, on Charles Dickens’ classic novel Oliver Twist, Bart erased much of its crusading social message in favor of bouncy tunes and adorable … [Read more...]
Postcard from Broadway No. 6: Quirky musical ‘Kimberly Akimbo’ delights
I finished my week of theater-going in New York on a high note, seeing a quirky new musical called Kimberly Akimbo, with music by Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home, Caroline or Change) and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, Good People), based on his play of the same name. Both play and musical center on a teenager named Kimberly who has a rare aging disorder that gives … [Read more...]