By Dale King The latest production at the Lake Worth Playhouse, I Hate Hamlet, is a mixture of factoids and fantasy, a whimsical frolic that seems to encourage every performer to overact. Be prepared to suspend your disbelief for this skewing of Shakespeare at the downtown Lake Worth venue. IHH, which opened on Broadway in 1991, is an over-the-top tale of a successful but … [Read more...]
Strong Slow Burn cast can’t save ‘Dogfight’ from its meanness
I think we can agree that anything can be turned into a musical, but you start with two strikes against you when you endeavor to adapt material as mean-spirited and misogynistic as Dogfight. That was the task undertaken by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, a pair of young composer-lyricists whose Broadway debut show, A Christmas Story, looks geared to be revived annually at holiday … [Read more...]
Vital ‘Viscera’ energizes MCB’s Program I
By Tara Mitton Catao A tepid launch of Miami City Ballet’s 30th anniversary season this last weekend suggests it might be time to rethink repertoire. On Program I, which was performed Saturday night at the Kravis Center, there were three works. Two selections reached way back in time; one was choreographed 64 years ago and the other 71 years ago. The third was a commissioned … [Read more...]
Raucous ‘The Night Before’ may be year’s funniest comedy
Jonathan Levine’s The Night Before runs only 99 minutes, but it feels considerably longer — so chockablock is this anarcho-buddy-stoner-road-Christmas-comedy with quips, gags, references, elaborate set pieces, and most of all ideas. It’s amazing how many of them work. Few comedies in recent memory measure up to middle hour of The Night Before in its hedonistic inspiration, its … [Read more...]
Arresting, powerful ‘Light’ from Ballet Austin at Kravis
By Tara Mitton Catao With a weighty theme and a cumbersome title, Ballet Austin’s Saturday night performance of Light/The Holocaust and Humanity Project at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts was anything but that. In short, it was arresting. Artistic Director Stephen Mills’ evening-length work depicted a timeless universality molded by the purposeful choices Mills made … [Read more...]
‘100 + Degrees in the Shade’ heats up South Florida art scene
By Sandra Schulman Fall is here and that means the art and culture scene will be heating up as the temps cool down. Running prior, through and after Art Basel Miami Beach, 100+ Degrees in the Shade is a monster art show and a landmark survey of what’s going down and coming up in the art scene in South Florida. This expansive show will include works in all media including … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Nov. 6-8
Dance: Stephen Mills didn’t think he was the right person to tell a Holocaust survivor’s story in dance, but the Ballet Austin artistic director relented, and the result was a remarkable 45-minute depiction of the memories of survivor Naomi Warren called Light: The Holocaust and Humanity Project. The work also includes larger themes, including the Genesis myth, used here as a … [Read more...]
Van Gogh, Degas at the Norton; student film contest; arts grants for the Kravis
It’s about to get crowded at The Norton Museum of Art. The exchange initiative that brought Monet’s Nymphéas to its walls last year is back with two French 19th-century masterpieces showing Thursday through April 17. A reciprocal loan from the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vincent van Gogh’s The Poplars at Saint-Rémy (Les peupliers sur la Colline) was painted in 1889 while the … [Read more...]
The great-grandfathers of our comedy: Gilded Age cartoons at the Flagler
A man tells his friend he lost $27 in Wall Street. The friend replies that he read the stock market news in the paper and asks: “Who got it – Gould or Sage?” This was brave humor in 1900. Jay Gould and Russell Sage were well-known railroad executives at the time. The joke derives from a 1900 cartoon by Louis W. Dalrymple that suggests such powerful financiers controlled … [Read more...]
New work opens Seraphic Fire season in compelling style
The United States has a long, rich choral music tradition that extends from the Moravians to William Billings, from spirituals to Morten Lauridsen. And now there are a number of prominent younger composers diligently adding to this repertoire. Minnesota-based Jake Runestad, who is only 29, is among these creators, and his new cantata, The Hope of Loving, had its world premiere … [Read more...]