So many musicals these days come from popular movies that a truly original, based on no previous material, show is extremely rare. So when an upstart new original show announced that it would open on Broadway without any out-of-town tryout, it seemed like the height of chutzpah. What was worse, the show is called Something Rotten!, which is ammunition one should never hand to … [Read more...]
Bria Skonberg: Trumpeter, singer, composer brings triple threat to Arts Garage
Female singers have become more frequent in jazz since the three arguably greatest jazz vocalists of all-time, female or male — Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday — dominated the genre through the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Female trumpeters? That's a much shorter story. And the ones who've excelled at both? Cue the crickets. That's because artists who have blended … [Read more...]
Stunning ‘Ragtime’ at Playhouse already show to beat for 2015
Having already tackled and triumphed with such mega-musicals as Les Misérables and Miss Saigon, Coral Gables Actors’ Playhouse could hardly be accused of avoiding a challenge. Still, you would be excused if you had doubts that the Miracle Mile company could pull off the towering, demanding Ragtime, arguably the finest stage musical of the past 20 years. But succeed director … [Read more...]
Composer, PBO prepare for ‘Enemies’ world premiere
Ask composer Ben Moore about writing an “accessible” opera, and he’s not all that comfortable with the term. “I like to say melodic, lyrical and memorable. Those are good words,” Moore said. And for the people behind his newest project, Moore is the ideal person to bring to the operatic stage a musical language in which lyricism is the driving impetus. “I had known Ben for … [Read more...]
Songwriter MacDonald evokes folk scene in credible first novel
Delray Beach-based author Rod MacDonald’s primary audience for his debut novel, The Open Mike, is likely to include many of the folks who have followed his primary career as a singer/songwriter. Considering that he got his musical start singing and playing guitar in Greenwich Village in the 1970s, where the book’s lead character (the similarly-named Reo MacGregor) does the … [Read more...]
Escher Quartet plays Haydn, Beethoven with warmth, dazzle
Of the many string quartets that have visited Palm Beach in the past 10 years, the Escher String Quartet has accolades a-plenty: the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, artists-in-residence at the BBC and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Close on 10 years old as a group, they take their name from the celebrated Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. This very … [Read more...]
Bland, predictable ‘And So It Goes’ aims for safe audiences
You can tell a lot from a movie by its opening shot. Rob Reiner’s new film, And So It Goes, opens with a crane shot delicately gliding over a landscape of absolute tranquility. We’re in a verdant seaside town in Connecticut, where the skies are always clear, there’s never any traffic, and the residences and businesses are storybook-quaint. These images — which scream … [Read more...]
FAU Summer Rep: A powerful, draining ‘August: Osage County’
By Dale King It took no small act of courage for Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Theatre and Dance to kick off Festival Rep 2014 with the attention-demanding black comedy, August: Osage County. It’s also courageous for university dramatists to present the Tracy Letts play so soon after the 2013 release of the film version that starred Meryl Streep and Julia … [Read more...]
Slow Burn’s ‘High Fidelity’ may be glib, but it’s fun
Habitual list maker Rob Gordon would probably never include High Fidelity on his “Top 5 All-Time Well-Written Musicals,” but that does not mean it lacks entertainment value. Or that it deserved to be panned so dismissively by the New York critics when it opened on Broadway in 2006 and closed 14 performances later. Because it was so negatively received there, High Fidelity … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’, ‘Tryst,’ and ‘Vanya and Sonia…’
“Erratic” is the word that comes to mind to describe the inaugural season of Boca Raton’s Wick Theatre. But when it is good, the eight-month old company can compete with any troupe in South Florida, as it proves with its current production of the Fats Waller revue, Ain’t Misbehavin’. The 1978 Tony Award winner set the gold standard for composer tribute songfests and by … [Read more...]