Now that the COVID 19 pandemic is in the rearview mirror – we hope – South Florida’s theaters are looking ahead to their first full season of productions in several years. So below is a look at what is scheduled, taken in geographic order from north to south, from Jupiter to Coral Gables. Last season, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre was hit with a double whammy of COVID and … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2022-23: The season in theater
Now that the COVID 19 pandemic is in the rearview mirror --- we hope --- South Florida’s theaters are looking ahead to their first full season of productions in several years. So below is a look at what is scheduled, taken in geographic order from north to south, from Jupiter to Coral Gables. Last season, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre was hit with a double whammy of COVID … [Read more...]
Maltz gets underway in new house; companies announce 22-23 season
After two postponed productions and a third delayed by a week, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre opened in late March with critical acclaim for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and for its renovated and expanded playhouse. With much of the stress of construction deadlines over, producing artistic director Andrew Kato paused long enough to discuss the new, improved theater and the upcoming first … [Read more...]
Words matter, and are the matter, in Boca Stage two-hander ‘The Sound Inside’
It is no accident that Bella Baird, the central figure in Adam Rapp’s compelling, though arch, play The Sound Inside, is a professor of creative writing at Yale University. For Rapp, himself a former novelist, needed a character obsessed with literature, meticulous with words, someone whose self-conscious dialogue sounds carefully composed, as if written down before it is … [Read more...]
The Civil War, played for laughs: Boca Stage’s sharp, funny ‘Ben Butler’
Comedy depends on the element of surprise. And the most surprising thing about Ben Butler, Richard Strand’s Civil War tug-of-war over a runaway slave who seeks asylum at a Union army post, is that the dire situation is played for laughs. The play is full of verbal wit, delivered with verve by a capable four-member cast at Boca Stage, under the crafty direction of the … [Read more...]
‘Luna Gale’ at Boca Stage tackles big issues, underwhelmingly
Following closely upon its satire of Big Pharma, Rx, Boca Stage now takes a jaundiced look at the bureaucracy of the social safety net in Rebecca Gilman’s Luna Gale. At the play’s center is a stressed-out, overburdened Cedar Rapids social worker named Caroline, whose caseload includes meth addicts Karlie and Peter, parents of the title baby. We first encounter them in an ER … [Read more...]
‘Rx’: Boca Stage’s gentle skewering of Big Pharma delivered with dispatch
Workplace depression is not an officially recognized medical condition, but that does not stop Schmidt Pharma from trying to develop a lucrative cure for what ails so many of us. That includes Meena Pierotti, managing editor of American Cattle and Swine magazine, a trade publication so dreary that depression seems the logical response to employment there. Meena is the … [Read more...]
Show about Marilyn’s last days is, indeed, unremarkable
What is there left to be said about Marilyn Monroe? Almost 60 years after her death from a drug overdose at the age of 36, the Hollywood sex goddess still is a subject of fascination for us. Particularly for those who were alive while she was, which happens to also be the primary audience of Boca Stage. So one can understand why the company chose to produce … [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...]
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...]