Wherever the late Jerome Robbins is, he should be smiling down on the Wick Theatre. The Boca Raton stage company has mounted that perennial favorite, Fiddler on the Roof and, as the program acknowledges, Norb Joerder has reproduced Robbins’ original direction and Robert Abdoo has reproduced his original choreography. Many have tried to improve on Robbins’ deft, … [Read more...]
Ageless, universal ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ comes to The Wick
In the early 1960s, when the creators of Fiddler on the Roof were developing a musical about Tevye the dairyman and his rebellious daughters in 1905 Russia, they assumed it would have limited appeal. To their surprise, Fiddler was embraced by theatergoers far beyond the Jewish community, becoming at one point the longest-running show in Broadway history and an … [Read more...]
Maltz takes on ‘Beautiful’ look at classic pop songwriter
From a shy Brooklyn teenager who composed chart-topping songs that others recorded to a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical chronicles the career and life of one of the pop music world’s most acclaimed singer-songwriters. Following the show’s five-year Broadway run, it now arrives at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre in its South Florida regional … [Read more...]
‘Mockingbird’ still makes strong impact in Sorkin adaptation
It is rare these days for a non-musical to receive a national tour. It has to have a superior script and production or a bankable name in the leading role. Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of Harper Lee’s enduring novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, has both of the former and Richard Thomas as Alabama attorney Atticus Finch provides the latter. Now at the Kravis Center … [Read more...]
Dramaworks’ ‘The Messenger’ proves powerful, topical
By Sharon Geltner Palm Beach Dramaworks is achieving a lot of significant firsts. It is emphasizing new plays. And it just staged (it ran Dec. 8-24) the world premiere of The Messenger, scripted by its first residential writer, Jenny Connell Davis. The four-character, 100-minute play is about a Hungarian Holocaust survivor teaching math in Southern California who is … [Read more...]
‘Bye Bye Birdie’ at The Wick: An appealing return to 1950s America
The world of rock ‘n’ roll was, pardon the expression, all shook up when in 1958 Elvis Presley put his hip-swiveling act on hold to enlist in the Army. But music’s loss was the musical theater’s gain, as Lee Adams, Charles Strouse and Michael Stewart used that news as their inspiration for their show biz-meets-Middle America satire, Bye Bye Birdie. Classically trained … [Read more...]
Delray Playhouse’s ‘She Loves Me’ shines with stellar cast
By Dale King A lyric in theme song for the 1970s TV comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show tells us that “Love is all around.” That short, but sweet and sentimental, assertion could easily apply to the Hungarian perfume store where She Loves Me, the serene and romantic musical that packages amour in various situations, takes place. The production, now being presented on the … [Read more...]
Maltz’s ‘Christmas Carol’ looks great, comes up short in story
When, in 1843, Charles Dickens published a novella called A Christmas Carol, he had no idea that 180 years later, scores of regional theaters across America would be producing stage versions of the durable ghost story. And for many of them, it would be an annual event, the biggest moneymaker of the season. Now following in that tradition is the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, with a … [Read more...]
‘Berlin Diaries’ a Holocaust drama tour de force for two actors
Move over, Anne Frank. Playwright Andrea Stolowitz’s great-grandfather Max Cohnreich has a Holocaust-era diary too. Written in 1939, as Max is relocating from Germany to New York City, the diary arrives abruptly in the mail to Stolowitz many decades later, by way of the Holocaust archives. Feeling little connection to her ancestors, however, she puts the diary on a shelf, … [Read more...]
Don’t be a Scrooge: LWP’s ‘Christmas Carol’ is delightful
By Dale King Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the author’s legendary tale of a wretched money-hoarding soul who finds lifesaving redemption with help from ghostly apparitions who appear to him on a fateful Christmas Eve in 1840s London, is back in Palm Beach County, offering a spirited lift to folks looking forward to the arriving holiday season. The famed fable opened … [Read more...]