By Dale King The venerable George S. Kaufman-Moss Hart comedy You Can’t Take It With You holds a pretty important place in the annals of film and television. The three-act play from the late 1930s was “the first-of-its-kind situation comedy,” said Randolph DelLago, the play’s director and artistic boss at the Delray Beach Playhouse, where Can’t Take It is now playing. That … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘The Last Schwartz,’ ‘Old Times’
Whatever would the theater do without dysfunctional families? They are the subject of so many rip-roaring dramas and dark comedies, from Long Day’s Journey into Night to August: Osage County to Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Catskills clan in The Last Schwartz. First seen at Florida Stage in 2002, the play has had an active life at regional theaters across the country and has come close … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Once’ far more than enough; ‘Wiesenthal’ lacks drama
There used to be a skit in the parody show Forbidden Broadway that declared the show Thoroughly Modern Millie to be the worst best musical in Tony Award history. But that was before Once. Winner of the top Tony in 2012 — a weak season for musicals by any measure — this simple love story between a Dublin vacuum cleaner repairman/rock star wannabe and an angelic Czech immigrant … [Read more...]
Community theater: Strong acting trio drives ‘Crimes of the Heart’
By Dale King In the play, Arsenic and Old Lace, the lead character, Mortimer Brewster, comments on the mental stability of his relatives. “Insanity runs in my family,” he says. “Actually, it gallops.” The same might be said of the three MaGrath sisters in Crimes of the Heart, the tragicomedy now playing at the Broward Stage Door Theatre. While their cerebral processes may … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘Parade’ at Slow Burn; ‘Pippin’ at BRTG; Renee Taylor at Plaza; ‘Chorus Line’ at Maltz
It is not just that Slow Burn Theatre Co. keeps taking risks with its dark, unconventional musical choices, but the scrappy West Boca troupe continues to deliver on its offbeat selections with high-impact, powerful productions. The case in point at the moment is Parade, the 1998 show based on the downbeat history of Leo Frank, a Brooklyn Jew who moves to Atlanta — a lox out of … [Read more...]
Community theater: “Ain’t Misbehavin’” does right by Waller at LW Playhouse
By Dale King Thomas “Fats” Waller lived a short but notable 39-year life. A master of stride piano and a sparkling entertainer, he was a fine songwriter whose best work occupies an honorable place in the Great American Songbook. He deserved wider recognition, but it took 35 years from his 1943 death before the high-energy compilation of his tunes, Ain’t Misbehavin’, hit the … [Read more...]
Theatre roundup 2: Challenging new ‘Hummingbird’ at Arts Garage; Wick rebounds with sparkling ‘42nd Street’
Playwright Carter Lewis uses a light touch to address heavy issues. In such past works as Women Who Steal, Ordinary Nation and The Cha-Cha of a Camel Spider — all produced by Florida Stage — he has gathered current social ills and shaped his observations about them into entertaining, and often challenging, theater. Certainly that is the case with his latest play, The … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 18-20
Film: Having delayed its opening until January, the month for dumping sub-par movies on the market, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit will get no awards or be taken the least bit seriously, but this reboot of the franchise based on the late novelist Tom Clancy’s CIA analyst action hero is still pulse-racing entertainment, far better than expected. Chris Pine, the young Captain Kirk of … [Read more...]
Theater roundup 1: ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ brilliantly remade; mixed-bag diversity from ‘Mixtape 2’
It may be unfair, but one is judged by the company one keeps, and GableStage is currently in very good company. Long a booster of Miami-raised playwright-director Tarell Alvin McCraney, the Coral Gables theater is currently presenting this hot property’s latest audacious venture, his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. But at least as important as the work — … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘9 to 5’ dated, but still makes a fun show at Stage Door
By Dale King Dolly Parton is more than just a dwarfish country vocalist with conspicuous curves and an explosion of blonde hair. Inside that yellow-coiffed cranium is the brain that concocted money-maker Dollywood. And it also crafted the words and music to the 2008 show, 9 to 5: The Musical, now playing at the Broward Stage Door Theatre in Coral Springs. And while the … [Read more...]