By Dale King Playwright Neil Simon takes a well-aimed shot at musical comedy in They’re Playing Our Song, a sharp and witty production being staged through Sunday at the Delray Beach Playhouse. Actually, Simon wrote the book, then turned it over to songwriter Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Carole Bayer Sager to provide words and tunes for a stage production. As it turns … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Buried Child’ at Dramaworks; ‘Oklahoma!’ at the Wick; ‘Memphis’ at Kravis
Diving headlong once again into the murky pool of absurdist theater, Palm Beach Dramaworks — the home of “theater to think about” — offers up Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, which features few concrete ideas but many stark dramatic images calculated to elicit emotional reactions. With such plays as Fool for Love and True West, Shepard has demonstrated a fascination with the … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Les Miz,’ ‘Man of La Mancha,’ ‘Uncertain Terms’
France’s Victor Hugo and Spain’s Miguel de Cervantes each wrote epic, complex novels that stand as national treasures, but to most people today they are best known through the stage adaptations that they spawned. Les Misérables and Man of La Mancha are two great examples of that singularly American genre — the musical — and by coincidence, both are currently on view in … [Read more...]
Weekend picks: March 21-22
Theater: The Maltz Jupiter Theatre, it seems, keeps getting better as the challenges it selects increase. There is perhaps no more difficult a musical for a theater of the Maltz’s size to carry off than Les Misérables, but director Mark Martino makes it look easy. He gives the epic show a cinematic sweep, without resorting to the show’s original turntable staging. Yes, he … [Read more...]
Community theater: Strong cast keeps ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ wacky
By Dale King Lake Worth Playhouse is riding the crest of some first-class theatrical productions this season. The one that drops the final curtain on its three-week engagement Sunday is one of the best, a classic dark comedy from the 1930s that still packs lots of laughs today. Arsenic and Old Lace is one of a dozen plays by Joseph Kesselring — and easily his best. The 1941 … [Read more...]
Community theater: Grim but gripping ‘Cabaret’ excels at Stage Door
By Dale King The musical Cabaret is dark and forbidding, much like its setting, Berlin in the 1930s. Broward Stage Door Theatre’s rendition of the award-winning 1966 show masterfully mixes the hedonistic characters who inhabited backstreet Berlin with the hopeful souls who dreamed of something better, but often felt the sharp slap of failure. This stellar production, which … [Read more...]
Community theater: Four standouts lift Stage Door’s ‘I Love You’
By Dale King If you could capture TV’s Love American Style, move it intact to a theatrical stage and add some upbeat music with snappy, imaginative lyrics, you’d be close to recreating the funky and offbeat relationship comedy, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. Based on a book by prolific playwright Joe Di Pietro, with music by Jimmy Roberts and lyrics by Di Pietro, … [Read more...]
Community theater: FAU delivers riveting ‘Holy Ghosts’
By Dale King Student dramatists at Florida Atlantic University are always finding plays that feature such bizarre themes and characters that they’re unlikely to end up on the stages of mainstream theatrical venues. So it is with Holy Ghosts, a production centering on mankind’s struggle to balance the need for religious tolerance with our strong inclination to reject faiths … [Read more...]
Community theater: Sharp cast gives ‘Other People’s Money’ grit, tension at Delray Playhouse
By Dale King Other People’s Money is a gritty drama, a modern-day tale of greed and financial seduction with just a smidgen of mirth. The 1989 play by Jerry Sterner attracted sold-out crowds to the Delray Beach Playhouse through most of its three-week run, which ended Sunday. The production focuses on the planned hostile takeover of a long-established, but out-of-date, … [Read more...]
Community theater: An enchanting ‘South Pacific’ at LW Playhouse
By Dale King Lake Worth Playhouse wraps up its much too-short, three-week run of the musical South Pacific with a matinee today. It’s the final time, at least for now, that the powerful baritone voice of lead actor Michael Cartwright will resound so beautifully across the lushly decorated seashore stage with touching Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II tunes like “Some … [Read more...]