By Erik Kvarnberg FAU Theatre Lab wants everyone possible to get to know playwright, actor, and stand-up comic Joanna Castle Miller, and this starts with Conversa. Conversa is an autobiographical play written and performed by Castle Miller, directed by FAU Theatre Lab’s Producing Artistic Director Matt Stabile, and accompanied by live music from Theatre Lab veteran Paul … [Read more...]
Theater buzz: Dramaworks sets new play festival; FAU Theatre Lab moves to bigger digs
By Erik Kvarnberg Palm Beach Dramaworks sets eighth new play festival WEST PALM BEACH — Palm Beach Dramaworks is offering its eighth annual Perlberg Festival of New Plays this month at the company’s Clematis Street home. From Jan. 9 to 11, playwrights will unite with a number of actors and directors to read through works in progress. Last season’s festival led to two … [Read more...]
FAU Theatre Lab’s ‘The City in the City in the City’ proves compelling, powerful
By Erik Kvarnberg In Matthew Capodicasa’s play The City in the City in the City, which wrapped its world premiere run Nov. 23 at FAU Theatre Lab, the “city” of the title is as much a character as the two women who navigate it. Performed by Niki Fridh and Vaishnavi Sharma, this provocative two-hander touched on multiple problems of human existence while also showcasing … [Read more...]
The season in theater, 2025-26: A rich offering of Broadway standouts and provocative world premieres
By Sharon Geltner Area stages are planning an exciting season of TV stars, Netflix writers, off-Broadway actors, European festival standouts, and innovative productions. The contrasts range from Broadway musicals and brand names such as Neil Simon and Stephen King to Southeastern United States premieres of thought-provoking plays. Below, in geographical order, from north … [Read more...]
Perlman’s plays: Ex-Delray mayor finds new success writing for the stage
By Sharon Geltner There are 64,000 plays registered on a national clearinghouse for budding playwrights. The vast majority will never be staged. Yet, since 2024, Jeff Perlman, former mayor of Delray Beach, has seen three plays produced. “The odds of being produced are very low. I was told this by several veteran playwrights,” Perlman said. “Many people [who write … [Read more...]
Veteran South Florida theater critic Hap Erstein dies at 76
Harris Alan Erstein, known to his decades of readers and to family, friends and colleagues as Hap, died Saturday in Aventura. He was 76. Erstein had long suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was taken ill Monday night after a showing of the latest Jurassic Park film and transported to Aventura Hospital. Doctors there were able to stabilize him, but his … [Read more...]
Stunning central performance drives FAU Theatre Lab’s mordant ‘Impossible Task of Today’
Five years after a tragic event, Jack Jordan is still reeling from its effect on him. Although it takes quite some time in Jeff Bower’s mordant drama, The Impossible Task of Today, to learn what has turned this formerly high-functioning school teacher agoraphobic and deeply depressed, the memory of it remains with him like a black-cowled specter of death. Bower’s play, his … [Read more...]
Actresses appeal in FAU Theatre Lab’s ‘two of us,’ but play lacks bite
Those who became adults during World War I have been dubbed The Lost Generation, but as playwright Steve McMahon depicts today’s teens — the so-called Gen Z — in his new play two of us on the run, they are every bit as lost and rudderless. Certainly that is the case with Catherine and Jennifer, a pair of 16-year-olds, best friends by default, restless at home and eager to … [Read more...]
New-play festivals at Dramaworks, FAU promise to energize theater conversation
The audience is an integral part of the new play development process, as two area stage companies — Palm Beach Dramaworks and Florida Atlantic University Theatre Lab — can attest. Both have festivals of new work that consist of readings and talkbacks of evolving scripts, some of which will graduate to be fully produced in subsequent seasons. Coming up soon is Dramaworks’ … [Read more...]
Powerful ‘Last Yiddish Speaker’ mixes Jewish identity, American dystopia
In 1989, Florida Stage introduced us to fledgling playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer and her humorous yet thought-provoking saga of assimilation, The Last Schwartz. Since then, she has produced two handfuls of scripts in South Florida, as well as theaters across the country and around the globe. With her latest effort, The Last Yiddish Speaker, she returns to the theme of Jewish … [Read more...]