Talk about an odd couple. Consider 21-year-old Leo, nearing the end of a cross-country bicycle trip, concluding in New York’s Greenwich Village, where his 91-year-old grandmother, Vera, lives. Arriving unannounced and unexpected at her apartment in the middle of the night, Leo embarks on a journey of discovery with a relative he hardly knows, an emotional trek at least … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2022-23: The season in theater
Now that the COVID 19 pandemic is in the rearview mirror --- we hope --- South Florida’s theaters are looking ahead to their first full season of productions in several years. So below is a look at what is scheduled, taken in geographic order from north to south, from Jupiter to Coral Gables. Last season, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre was hit with a double whammy of COVID … [Read more...]
Actress Lowe brings revelatory Dickinson to ‘Belle of Amherst’
For the past 46 years, the theatrical image that many of us have had of poet Emily Dickinson has come from William Luce’s one-woman play, The Belle of Amherst, and from Julie Harris’s Tony Award-winning, definitive performance in the role. But now, aided by new information about Dickinson uncovered in the intervening years, Palm Beach Dramaworks and actress Margery Lowe are … [Read more...]
After scoring virtual COVID hit, Dramaworks brings ‘Belle of Amherst’ back to stage
You could call the production of William Luce’s 1976 one-woman play, The Belle of Amherst, which will open Friday at West Palm Beach’s Palm Beach Dramaworks a revival for the company, because it streamed a filmed version last summer during the COVID-19 shutdown of live theater. But Margery Lowe, who plays poet Emily Dickinson both then and now, would disagree. “I feel … [Read more...]
Maltz gets underway in new house; companies announce 22-23 season
After two postponed productions and a third delayed by a week, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre opened in late March with critical acclaim for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and for its renovated and expanded playhouse. With much of the stress of construction deadlines over, producing artistic director Andrew Kato paused long enough to discuss the new, improved theater and the upcoming first … [Read more...]
You’ll be glad you met Esther in Dramaworks’ powerful ‘Intimate Apparel’
Playwright Lynn Nottage has two Pulitzer Prizes to her credit (Ruined and Sweat), but Esther Mills of Intimate Apparel is arguably her most memorable character. Esther is a seamstress who makes delicate lingerie, corsets and other intimate apparel for clients ranging from Mayme (Krystal Mosley), a black prostitute, to Mrs. Van Buren (Gracie Winchester), a white society … [Read more...]
A history lesson with love and nuance: Dramaworks cast, director prep ‘Intimate Apparel’
Be Boyd, an associate professor in the theater department of Orlando’s University of Central Florida, teaches the plays of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, but has yet to stage one of her plays professionally. That is until now, when she directs Intimate Apparel at Palm Beach Dramaworks, opening Friday, April 1. She eagerly agreed to the assignment, calling … [Read more...]
‘The Duration’: World premiere play deftly examines shadows of 9/11
Can it really be 20 years since the events of 9/11, a day so etched in our memories that it feels like yesterday? Perhaps by now Audrey Batten’s well-earned anger and bitterness have subsided, but in Bruce Graham’s world premiere play, The Duration — which initially takes place mere days after the destruction of the Twin Towers — her grief has the highly rational history … [Read more...]
World premiere ‘The Duration’ at Dramaworks takes on 9/11 legacy
As we continue to deal with the dark cloud of the COVID pandemic, Palm Beach Dramaworks wants us to look back 20 years to another tragic time in our history — September 11, 2001 — the day two airplanes flew into the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan and 3,000 lives were lost. It is the event that motivates Bruce Graham’s drama The Duration, receiving its world premiere at PBD on … [Read more...]
‘Almost, Maine’ at Dramaworks: Dramatic fare takes pleasant backseat to whimsy
Palm Beach Dramaworks likes to say that it traffics in “theater to think about.” But if you are looking for an entertaining night out without much thinking required, the West Palm Beach stage company has a lightweight slice of whimsy on view now that certainly fills that bill. Called Almost, Maine, it consists of nine brief vignettes on the subject of romance, … [Read more...]