Alex Brightman and cast in School of Rock. (Photo by Timmy Blupe) Oh well, the odds of winning the Hamilton digital lottery are said to be 80,000 to 1, and — what a surprise — I did not win. But the next day, I ended up seeing Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Hamilton performing anyway. OK, they weren't actually performing the show Hamilton, but they appeared at the 30th … [Read more...]
Tarantino’s ‘Hateful Eight’ takes us to a familiar gory place
Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight begins with a lengthy overture. We know this because the word “Overture” fills the screen in black 1950s-movie typeface, over a mountain landscape tinted the gaudy red of an Italian giallo. The film is then divided into six chapters, each functioning like a movement in a composition, and a 12-minute intermission divides the experience … [Read more...]
Strong Slow Burn cast can’t save ‘Dogfight’ from its meanness
I think we can agree that anything can be turned into a musical, but you start with two strikes against you when you endeavor to adapt material as mean-spirited and misogynistic as Dogfight. That was the task undertaken by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, a pair of young composer-lyricists whose Broadway debut show, A Christmas Story, looks geared to be revived annually at holiday … [Read more...]
Vital ‘Viscera’ energizes MCB’s Program I
By Tara Mitton Catao A tepid launch of Miami City Ballet’s 30th anniversary season this last weekend suggests it might be time to rethink repertoire. On Program I, which was performed Saturday night at the Kravis Center, there were three works. Two selections reached way back in time; one was choreographed 64 years ago and the other 71 years ago. The third was a commissioned … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘110 in the Shade’; ‘Shorts Gone Wild 3’
The musical team of composer Harvey Schmidt and lyricist Tom Jones hit the jackpot their first time out with an intimate, endearing love story, off-Broadway’s The Fantasticks. But they wanted Broadway success, so they next adapted N. Richard Nash’s The Rainmaker on a larger scale, with a full, though essentially superfluous, chorus of townfolk, dramatic Agnes de Mille … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ ‘Casa Valentina’
Slow Burn Theatre forged its reputation producing offbeat, underappreciated musicals, like Bat Boy, Urinetown and Parade. Whether it is a switch of missions or simply a pause, the Boca Raton troupe recently served up the Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent and is now having fun with the very entertaining Little Shop of Horrors — the 1982 hit that remains the most … [Read more...]
PB Film Fest’s new home opens with four-film cancer benefit
With new management and a new year-round home, the 20-year-old Palm Beach International Film Festival is turning over a new leaf. Broadway producer Jeff Davis (Rock of Ages) took over the reins of the festival in February, serving as its president and CEO. This weekend, beginning tonight, he opens The Palm Beaches Theatre — the 240-seat Manalapan playhouse and screening room … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Les Miz,’ ‘Man of La Mancha,’ ‘Uncertain Terms’
France’s Victor Hugo and Spain’s Miguel de Cervantes each wrote epic, complex novels that stand as national treasures, but to most people today they are best known through the stage adaptations that they spawned. Les Misérables and Man of La Mancha are two great examples of that singularly American genre — the musical — and by coincidence, both are currently on view in … [Read more...]
Powerful ‘I and You’ at Arts Garage saves a surprise for last
The second shoe to drop in Theatre at Arts Garage’s “Celebration of Women’s Voices” season is Lauren Gunderson’s compact, crafty two-hander, I and You, which arrives with the badge of this year’s $25,000 Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. Reviewers, perhaps more than civilian theatergoers, enjoy being surprised and Gunderson more than obliges on … [Read more...]
MCB’s ‘R&J’ sumptuous to look at, but light on the heart
By Tara Mitton Catao Starting its Kravis Center season off last weekend with an ambitious full-length production of John Cranko’s highly regarded Romeo and Juliet, Miami City Ballet continues to present a variety of repertory that not only pleases audiences but also encourages the artistic development of its dancers. In addition to presenting three different casts as Romeo … [Read more...]