Did you ever try to get a 7:30 reservation to a trendy, high-end restaurant only to be told, somewhat derisively, that the establishment is “fully committed” for the next two months? Chances are, while wallowing in your disappointment, you never gave much thought to the travails of the out-of-work actor/reservations clerk on the other end of the phone. Well, playwright … [Read more...]
At Kravis, heartwarming ‘Come From Away’ packs emotional punch
Grab your vaccination card and your mask, the Kravis Center is back in business. And since its Broadway series is opening with Come From Away, the true-life tale of a tiny Canadian town that welcomed the bewildered passengers of 38 diverted airplanes on 9/11, you might as well pack a box of Kleenex too. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have inspired … [Read more...]
Boca Stage’s ‘Warrior Class’ a sharp lesson in The Swamp
Scratch the surface of a politician and chances are you will find scandal or at least dirty laundry that will render him unelectable for higher office. That is the cynical premise of Kenneth Lin’s taut, tight 80-minute civics lesson, Warrior Class, now receiving its area premiere at Boca Stage (formerly Primal Forces). The play’s battlefield ricochets between a … [Read more...]
Intimate pages: FAU Theatre Lab premieres ‘To Fall in Love’
A study by a Stony Brook University professor theorizes that if two people answer 36 probing and personal questions, then stare into each other’s eyes for four minutes, they will fall in love. Perhaps, but that is all playwright Jennifer Lane (Harlowe) had to hear to write a play dramatizing such an unusual exercise. That two-person play, To Fall in Love, receives its … [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...]
Flimsy but hugely popular, ‘Mamma Mia!’ wins over Wick audiences
Popularity doesn’t always go hand-in-hand with quality. Consider Mamma Mia!, which ran nearly 14 years on Broadway, the ninth longest running show in the commercial theater. But this lazy jukebox musical is built from songs by the Swedish pop group ABBA that only occasionally coincide with the show’s credibility-stretching plot. Still, did I mention that it ran nearly … [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...]
‘Putting It Together’: How Sondheim and Lapine painted their masterpiece
When encountering a fully satisfying musical, it is hard to imagine the difficulties it endured on its way to Broadway. Think of Fiddler on the Roof or Hello, Dolly! – both a shambles in their out-of-town tryouts – or virtually every show by Stephen Sondheim, the musical theater’s pre-eminent composer-lyricist, notoriously slow in completing each score. Such is certainly … [Read more...]
Shakespeare Fest sticks to basics in impressive ‘Twelfth Night’
I never thought I would be able to use this word to describe a Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival production, but its latest take on Twelfth Night – the company’s fourth version – is “conventional.” In a good way. Perhaps producer/director Seth Trucks had no interest in setting the plot-initiating shipwreck on Mars or turning it into an air crash on a South Pacific island, as … [Read more...]
New Kravis programming director sees big potential for growing audience
Georgiana Young was perfectly content in her job as vice president of marketing and sales at Miami’s Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Then she got a call from Lee Bell. She was aware that Bell, senior director of programming at the Kravis Center for the past 24 years, had announced his intention to retire, so she felt she owed him a call or maybe lunch. But Bell … [Read more...]