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...]
Maltz’s Island Theatre wraps season with searing ‘Virginia Woolf’
Deserving of a Pulitzer Prize, yet denied one when the jury’s recommendation was overruled because of the occasional, but entirely appropriate, profanity in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee’s marathon three-act, three-hour look at marriage and the illusions we cling to in our daily lives. First performed in 1962, and adapted into an Oscar-winning film four years … [Read more...]
Standout leads help lift Maltz’s ‘Frozen’ from almost-there status
You have to hand it to Disney. The Mouse House certainly has its formula down cold. They start by co-opting a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, say, sprinkle it with songs, toss in a comic sidekick character or two, inject the storyline with a few Hallmark-esque messages, then open up the box office and stand back to make room for the … [Read more...]
Standout performances can’t lift ‘Gaslight’ rewrite at Maltz
Theatrical tastes and gender sensibilities can change drastically in 86 years. So while a play like Gaslight thrilled audiences in 1938 – as did its more famous movie version six years later – it would be unlikely to captivate theatergoers today. Enter Patty Jamieson and Johnna Wright, a pair of Canadian actresses-turned-writers who were on the right track with their rewrite … [Read more...]
Actress Jacobson triumphs in ‘Becoming Dr. Ruth’ at the Maltz
Few people are unfamiliar with Ruth Westheimer, the straight-talking grandmotherly sex therapist of radio, television, books and even a sex education board game. Perhaps even fewer, however, are aware of her back story, how this plucky German girl fled from the Nazis to Switzerland, eventually emigrating to America by way of Palestine and then becoming an unlikely media … [Read more...]
At the Maltz: ‘Becoming Dr. Ruth’ tells remarkable story of woman behind the frank talk
Most people are familiar with Ruth Westheimer, but few know her backstory — her roots as a German child who fled her homeland to Switzerland as the Nazis were gaining power. After World War II, she emigrated to Palestine and took up arms as a sniper for the Haganah, a Zionist paramilitary troupe. Ultimately, she moved again to the United States and became the world-renowned, … [Read more...]
Big, beautiful ’42nd Street’ at Maltz is dazzling triumph for local theater
At one point in 42nd Street, the production number-heavy backstage musical about a Depression-era Broadway tryout, Julian Marsh, the director of Pretty Lady — the fictional show-within-the-show — calls it “the biggest musical this town has seen in two decades.” While that is true, he could also be referring to what the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has lovingly assembled on a … [Read more...]
Simon’s ‘Plaza Suite’ not just for laughs, Maltz director says
You might think when the Maltz Jupiter Theatre takes a break from its usual musical menu to produce a comedy like Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite that the task is easier. Not so, says director J. Barry Lewis, the Maltz’s go-to guy when it comes to staging Simon’s plays. “They’re always a challenge, there’s no doubt about it,” he says. “It’s one of the oldest sayings in the … [Read more...]
Standout lead performance makes Carole King bio ‘Beautiful’
The beginning and ending of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical depict the legendary singer-songwriter at Carnegie Hall performing numbers from her multiple Grammy Award-winning album, Tapestry. If those scenes are the standout highlights of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s new production, that is because they show King at the peak of her writing talent, because the stunning … [Read more...]
Maltz takes on ‘Beautiful’ look at classic pop songwriter
From a shy Brooklyn teenager who composed chart-topping songs that others recorded to a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical chronicles the career and life of one of the pop music world’s most acclaimed singer-songwriters. Following the show’s five-year Broadway run, it now arrives at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre in its South Florida regional … [Read more...]