Another year, another spring trip to Broadway, timed to coincide with the annual Easter Bonnet Competition, which in turn is timed to coincide with the end of the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS fund-raising period which, not coincidentally, occurs just before the season’s Tony Awards deadline. The Bonnet Competition — about which I will talk more in a few days — is a snarky … [Read more...]
Pianist Ax’s Beethoven survey high point of Broward classical season
By Robert Croan Classical recitals are all too scarce in Broward County. A recital of the caliber of Emanuel Ax’s all-Beethoven program, in Broward Center’s Amaturo Theater on March 22, would be rare anywhere, anytime. Professionally, the Polish-born pianist, 67 this year, is at the top of his field, and as the present concert demonstrated, he is in top form technically and … [Read more...]
Twelve-year-old jazz pianist plays far beyond his years, peers
Most people who watched the venerable CBS program 60 Minutes on Jan. 3 probably weren’t blind, and didn’t tune in right in the middle of a playing segment by jazz pianist Joey Alexander. But if those possibilities aligned, anyone listening would’ve heard a musician playing with the creativity, dexterity and improvisational skills of jazz keyboard legends from Art Tatum and … [Read more...]
At GableStage: A career on the skids, told with triumph
GableStage produces plays year round, so it is often hard to tell where one season ends and the next one begins. Still, it is currently easy to sense that the summer is upon us by the lightweight, albeit entertaining, fare on view at the Coral Gables playhouse through the end of the month. The Carbonell Award-laden company usually goes in for hard-hitting, often political … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Dec. 5-7
Theater: You’ve already seen Fiddler on the Roof more times than you can recall, right? And if you’re like me, you love the show, but wish that its original director-choreographer, the late Jerome Robbins, would loosen the reins and allow other stagings. If so, then the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has a production you should not miss. Marcia Milgrom Dodge, whose Hello, Dolly! and The … [Read more...]
Riveting, creepy ‘Thrill Me’ impresses at Outré
The year was 1924, but the “thrill killing” of a 14-year-old boy by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb was so brutal and senseless that it was already being labeled “the crime of the century.” Over time, the case would continue to capture the nation’s imagination, in Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rope, Ira Levin’s novel Compulsion and John Logan’s play Never the Sinner. And most … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 4-5, 2014
Theater: Opening on Tuesday evening at West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center is that great folk opera, Porgy and Bess, reclaimed from elitist opera houses and reconceived as a Broadway-scale musical by director Diane Paulus, who has owned the Best Revival Tony Award for the past three seasons (Hair, Porgy, Pippin). In this case, the DuBose Heyward script has been shaken up by … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: ‘The Longing and Short of It,’ ‘Next to Normal,’ ‘Dial ‘M’ for Murder’
For more than 25 years, Lou Tyrrell has been discovering and showcasing new, young playwrights, developing their work for productions in South Florida and perhaps beyond. While the industry already knows Daniel Maté — the recipient of this year's Kleban Prize for most promising new lyricist and other awards — it is Tyrrell who has given Maté his first fully staged … [Read more...]
Theater roundup: Intense ‘Sweeney Todd,’ and ‘An Iliad’ tour de force
Stephen Sondheim is drawn to unconventional source material for his musicals, so it is hardly surprising that Slow Burn Theatre Company ― which gravitates towards the offbeat and challenging ― has an affinity for his shows. Now ending its fourth season, it tackles the great composer-lyricist’s masterwork, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a grisly but undeniably … [Read more...]
2012’s 10 best in a standout year for film
Most years at the movies there is a clear front-runner for awards and a struggle to fill the other nine slots in a 10 best list. For 2012, however, there are more than two handfuls of first-rate films and no clear number one in the ranks. Here is a highly subjective look back at what made the year just past a standout for moviegoing: 1. Lincoln: A cerebral history lesson of … [Read more...]