By critical consensus, Guys and Dolls is as close to perfect as musicals get. Subtitled “A musical fable of Broadway,” it hails from 1950, when composer-lyricist Frank Loesser and book writers Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows adapted a couple of comic Damon Runyon tales of Times Square underworld characters. The show’s journey to Broadway was anything but smooth, yet the quality … [Read more...]
Stellar ‘Carousel’ at The Wick reminds us what musicals used to be
When they say, “They don’t write ’em like they used to,” they are referring to shows like Carousel. The second collaboration of the landmark team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, this musical drama packs an emotional wallop as well as a knockout punch of entertainment. True, it is a difficult show to pull off well, but you would never know that from the … [Read more...]
With strong central performance, Wick’s ‘Cinderella’ still works its magic
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, which first enchanted TV audiences in 1957, is based on a fairy tale by Charles Perrault that has been captivating children of all ages since it was first written in 1697. Nevertheless, when the musical was poised to make its Broadway debut in 2013, playwright Douglas Carter Beane was enlisted to give the script a makeover, injecting … [Read more...]
‘To Life 2’ takes another look at Great Jewish-American Songbook
With very few exceptions, the composers of the Broadway theater during the 20th century were of Jewish heritage, some of them immigrants from Eastern Europe. That cultural anomaly was examined in song a year ago in a revue dubbed To Life, named for a number in Fiddler on the Roof. Since it proved popular with the audience at Boca Raton’s Willow Theatre, that show has now … [Read more...]
Maltz’s new ‘Dracula’ successfully Stokers the fires of silliness
To paraphrase that renowned philosopher Monty Python, “And now for something completely silly.” To open its 2019-20 season, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has commissioned a new spoofy take on Bram Stoker’s classic vampire tale, Dracula. Or more accurately, on the general idea of Dracula, since co-adaptors Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen gleefully concede that they never read … [Read more...]
Dramaworks’s ‘Equus’ packs powerful punch
From a small newspaper item about a teenage boy who inexplicably blinded a stable of horses, playwright Peter Shaffer spun a tale of psychology and mythology, of passion and pain, a detective story that seeks the teen’s motives but becomes just as interested in the demons plaguing the doctor who tries to wean him to normalcy. The play is Equus – the Latin word for … [Read more...]
Dramaworks closes out season with Shaffer’s powerful ‘Equus’
Peter Shaffer’s 1973 stylized drama Equus takes the form of a detective story, as child psychiatrist Martin Dysart tries to learn what caused 17-year-old Alan Strang to brutally blind a group of horses. With heightened theatricality, it becomes not a whodunnit, but a whydunnit. And in the course of trying to understand the boy’s motives, Dr. Dysart wrestles with his own … [Read more...]
The Hapsters 2017: The lowlights and bright spots
There are many ways to look back on the past year in local theater, and with The Hapster Awards, now in their 28th year, we have chosen the (mostly) snide route. The envelopes, please. Remember Blues in the Night? You know, that critically acclaimed musical revue starring Avery Sommers and Laura Hodos? Of course you don’t remember, because the management of Delray’s … [Read more...]
Well-cast ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ sparkles at Rinker
In 1982, long before movies became the source of most stage musicals, the puckish songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken took as their inspiration a schlocky sci-fi flick from the low-budget factory of Roger Corman. To them, Little Shop of Horrors, the tale of a man-eating plant from outer space that changes the life of a nebbishy flower shop clerk, had doo-wop … [Read more...]
MNM mounts respectable ‘Company’ at Rinker
That sound you hear is the third shoe dropping in a surprisingly Stephen Sondheim-rich summer in South Florida. Following FAU Festival Rep’s Into the Woods and Palm Beach Dramawork’s current steampunk Sweeney Todd comes MNM Productions with the master of ambivalence’s take on marriage, 1970’s Company. In addition to launching an extremely fertile decade for composer-lyricist … [Read more...]