Even the greats of government service will eventually succumb to the physical and mental ravages of age. So it is with Francis Biddle, the former attorney general under Franklin Roosevelt and chief American judge of the Nuremberg war trials. By the time we meet him in Joanna McClelland Glass’ biographical play Trying, he is 81 and a decrepit shell of his former self. … [Read more...]
Dramaworks’ ‘The Messenger’ proves powerful, topical
By Sharon Geltner Palm Beach Dramaworks is achieving a lot of significant firsts. It is emphasizing new plays. And it just staged (it ran Dec. 8-24) the world premiere of The Messenger, scripted by its first residential writer, Jenny Connell Davis. The four-character, 100-minute play is about a Hungarian Holocaust survivor teaching math in Southern California who is … [Read more...]
Dramaworks takes ‘natural’ step, hires in-house playwright
At a time when many regional theaters are decreasing their staffs because of COVID, the economy and shrinking attendance, Palm Beach Dramaworks has a new hire. Producing artistic director William Hayes has announced the addition of the company’s first resident playwright, Jenny Connell Davis, whose Holocaust-themed drama The Messenger will have its world premiere at the … [Read more...]
Older, but still relevant: ‘Twelve Angry Men’ heads to Dramaworks
Although written 68 years ago, Reginald Rose’s jury room melodrama Twelve Angry Men is surprisingly apt to our current social and political Zeitgeist. So says Palm Beach Dramaworks’ producing artistic director William Hayes, who had been planning to revive the play two years from now during the stage company’s 25th anniversary season. “With all that’s going on, the gender … [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...]
‘The People Downstairs’ is a smart new take on Anne Frank’s story
One of the great works of literature of the 20th century is The Diary of Anne Frank, a saga of courage and endurance in the form of a journal by a 14-year-old Jewish girl who hid from the Nazis with her family and others in a cramped Amsterdam attic. But what about those non-Jews in the office below who heroically risked their lives abetting these stowaways? That is the … [Read more...]
Dramaworks emerging from lockdown with robust 2021-22 season
Early last year, when the pandemic we have come to know as COVID-19 first hit, disrupting the nation’s live theaters, closing their doors and halting their seasons, Bill Hayes of Palm Beach Dramaworks did the opposite of almost every other non-profit stage company. “One thing I had noticed very early on is many non-profits were immediately soliciting for funds,” says the … [Read more...]
Dramaworks returns, virtually, with Dickinson show ‘Belle of Amherst’
There are two plays that feature Emily Dickinson and by early April Margery Lowe will have played the reclusive poet in both. Three years ago, the area actor appeared at Palm Beach Dramaworks in the world premiere of Edgar and Emily, Joseph McDonough’s fanciful and improbable meeting of Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe. Lowe returns to the character April 2- 6 in the better … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 19-20, 2020
Film: Playwright August Wilson began his chronicle of the African-American experience throughout the 20th century, one decade at a time, with 1984’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a fictional look at the so-called “Mother of the Blues” in a tension-filled recording session at a Chicago race label in 1927. Now director George C. Wolfe has brought the tale to the screen, with a pair … [Read more...]