A study by a Stony Brook University professor theorizes that if two people answer 36 probing and personal questions, then stare into each other’s eyes for four minutes, they will fall in love. Perhaps, but that is all playwright Jennifer Lane (Harlowe) had to hear to write a play dramatizing such an unusual exercise. That two-person play, To Fall in Love, receives its … [Read more...]
FAU Theatre Lab gets gift to start playwriting program
By Christina Wood Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters recently announced the establishment of the Myrna Gordon Skurnick Theatre Lab Playwriting Program and Creative Writing MFA Fellows. Since its founding in 2015, Theatre Lab, the resident professional company of FAU, has pursued its mission to inspire, develop and produce new … [Read more...]
FAU Theatre Lab readies second online monologue festival
By Dale King Zen Buddhists are notorious, perhaps apocryphally, for spending time pondering the sound of a single hand clapping. But the nearly 40 South Florida actors and artists gathered up last month by Florida Atlantic University’s Theatre Lab for its first-ever Online Original Monologue Festival concluded their singular performances to the sound of no hands … [Read more...]
Streaming theater abounds for us shut-ins
Chances are, if you are reading this, you are an avid fan of the arts and are going through withdrawal pains, since all area theaters, concert halls, performing arts centers and movie houses have been closed by the dreaded COVID-19. And although internet-streamed performances are a poor substitute for the live stuff, a lot of writers, actors, singers and assorted … [Read more...]
At Theatre Lab, quirky ‘Glass Piano’ intrigues
Legend has it that a Princess Alexandra of Bavaria once ingested – or believed she ingested – a grand piano made of glass. Intrigued by the notion, playwright Alix Sobler has turned it into a fairy tale for adults, The Glass Piano, now receiving its U.S. premiere at Florida Atlantic University’s Theatre Lab. There is much to like about the play and its production, even if, … [Read more...]
Playwright’s ‘Glass Piano,’ at FAU Theatre Lab, offers a fairy tale of anxiety
Theatergoers will have to take a leap of faith with playwright Alix Sobler and her play The Glass Piano, about to have its U.S. premiere at FAU Theatre Lab in Boca Raton. It concerns a Princess Alexandra, who either did, or believes she did, ingest a glass piano when she was a child. Ever since, she has lived a cautious life knowing the piano could break into tiny shards … [Read more...]
FAU Theatre Lab handles promising ‘Super Great’ deftly
The first thing you need to know about Stephen Brown’s new play, Everything is Super Great, is that the title is facetious. In fact, nearly everything is pretty awful for the four disconnected characters that populate this “comedy about what’s missing.” For each of them has a void in his life, a missing person or a stunted relationship that keeps his or her existence … [Read more...]
Playwright confronts work, romantic past in ‘Everything is Super Great’
Nineteen-year-old Tommy, the main character of Stephen Brown’s Everything is Super Great – a sarcastic title is ever there was one – lives a lonely life in a dead-end job at Starbucks. He is attracted to the female assistant manager who has no interest in him, he has no friends, his older brother has been missing for months and an inept therapist has arrived at Tommy’s home … [Read more...]
‘When She Had Wings’ is attractive whimsy for the whole family
For the two seasons that Matt Stabile has taken the artistic helm of Florida Atlantic University’s Theatre Lab, he has begun with a Heckscher Theatre for Families production. In addition to introducing youngsters to live stage shows, these plays strive to appeal to adults as well, which is a tricky juggling act. Bridging that gap with whimsical skill and more than a … [Read more...]
Soggy, sluggish ‘Harlowe’ disappoints at FAU Theatre Lab
“Yes, it really rains onstage!” That was the promotional tagline for the stage adaptation of Singin’ in the Rain and the most interesting thing about Jennifer Lane’s Harlowe, a listless little play about healing, currently receiving a watery world premiere production at Florida Atlantic University’s Theatre Lab. As the audience enters the intimate Lab space, a … [Read more...]