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...]
Sharp cast shines in ‘Deathtrap’ at LW Playhouse
By Dale King Deathtrap, the wryly comic mystery by author/playwright Ira Levin (Rosemary’s Baby, Stepford Wives), is at once easy and hard for a reviewer to critique. The 1978 production won a Tony for Best Play, and begat a 1982 movie about the selfsame playwriting duo from the stage production that longs to create a ragingly successful Broadway thriller, even if blood … [Read more...]
‘Not In My Town’: New opera makes a strong impact
In a politically unsettled time, it’s helpful to have artworks that take on the issues of the day and give us something to think about. Not In My Town, a new opera by Wilton Manors-based composer Michael W. Ross, is nothing if not politically engaged. The story of the 1998 torture-killing of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student, was part of the impetus for a … [Read more...]