By Dale King The musical comedy theater scene is peppered with shows about the Baby Boom generation. One need only see certain key words on a marquee to realize the production playing on the stage beyond the double doors deals with issues near and dear to folks knocking on retirement’s door: Menopause, early bird dinners, rheumatoid arthritis, little blue pills, condos, … [Read more...]
Comic Carlin’s daughter to discuss growing up with George
By Dale King The last time a famed Carlin family member walked a stage at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach was 2002. The performer was George Carlin, by that time a bearded, white-haired comic legend still packed with the pith, fire and vinegar that had driven him to skewer popular and unpopular causes throughout his 40-year career. He continued … [Read more...]
Comic Griffin to bring edgy outlook to Kravis
March was a month in which comedian Kathy Griffin generated a lot of headlines. “I say things I regret constantly, and I just can’t help it,” she says. This time, it was over her departure from the E! Network series Fashion Police, where she had been brought in to replace the late Joan Rivers: “Kathy Griffin Describes Her ‘Fashion Police’ Experience as a ‘Dog Pile,’” “Kathy … [Read more...]
Appreciation: Don McArt, comic actor
Big of heart and big of ears, Don McArt ― “Bunny” to all who knew him ― passed away on Tuesday at the age of 90. A self-described “second-banana comic relief sidekick,” McArt forged a career in the movies (The Absent-Minded Professor, Too Much), on television (The Addams Family), on stage tours (Kiss and Tell, Pajama Tops, Say Goodnight, Gracie) and, of course, in productions … [Read more...]
Controversial comic Maher pushes all the buttons at Kravis
Bill Maher can be -- and undoubtedly has been -- called many things, including the accurate (and printable) tags of talk show host, social critic, actor, author, and documentary filmmaker. But the 54-year-old Maher started out as a stand-up comic while attending Cornell University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in English that’s come in handy since 1978. The New York … [Read more...]
Comic-hero sendup ‘Kick-Ass’ aims too low
Oh, Kick-Ass. You so want to eat at the big boy’s table, but you’re just not there yet. “There” being the level of comic sophistication of Judd Apatow, Adam McKay and their coterie of followers, who have rewritten the rules of hipster comedy for the 21st century with a deceptively simple formula: R-rated gross-out humor mixed with a syrupy sweet center, esoteric cultural … [Read more...]
‘Hell’ a darkly comic riff on the real land down under
The temptation to construct a review of Robert Olen Butler’s novel Hell entirely from quotations and excerpts is almost more than I can resist. And really, why should I resist? In Butler’s propulsively clever yet unsettling vision of the afterlife, I would be unable to avoid eternal damnation no matter what I chose: virtue or vice, piety or sacrilege, ethical rectitude or … [Read more...]