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’s ‘La Cage’ falls short, but packs a relevant punch
A few years ago, as same-sex marriage was becoming legal all across the nation thanks to the evolved support of the president, the once daring 1983 musical La Cage aux Folles – which features two gay main characters and Broadway’s first male-male kiss – was looking a little dated. But as MNM Productions correctly points out in its program notes for the show, its message of … [Read more...]
Arts Preview 2017-18: The season in theater
Keith Garsson bounces back with a sexy season of Primal Forces, Palm Beach Dramaworks produces two world premieres, Slow Burn serves up its first non-musical and in case you haven’t had enough inclement weather this hurricane season, The Wick promises to make it rain inside its theater. All in all, it looks like a promising 2017-18 at area stages. Here’s a preview, in … [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...]
MNM readies Sondheim’s ‘Company’ for Rinker
By Dale King MNM Productions is a small but driven contemporary theater company that’s latched on to the black-box-style, 300-seat Rinker Playhouse at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, and intends to stay a while. Its two producing partners, Michael Lifshitz and Marcie Gorman-Althof, have given wing to risk by announcing plans to present one of the best-loved and … [Read more...]
MNM makes something tasty out of slender ‘Spamalot’
It’s a backhanded compliment, but one sign of a theater company’s strength is when it can succeed with lackluster material. Consider how far MNM Productions has come in its three years of existence – it now manages to almost hide the deficiencies in the flimsy comic romp, Monty Python’s Spamalot, now playing at the Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse through June 4. Yes, the … [Read more...]