At the root of all good theater is simple oral storytelling. So it goes in The Pillowman, a series of short stories from the fertile, feral brain of Ireland’s Martin McDonagh, directed by Miami’s Zoetic Stage artistic honcho Stuart Maltzer with a cast of four worthy accomplices. Unlike his usual darkly comic folk yarns set in remote rural villages of his native land … [Read more...]
2023-24 Season in Theater: A post-COVID lineup full of promise
With COVID safely in the rear mirror and audiences back attending theater, the 2023-2024 South Florida season looks quite promising, with full schedules, numerous world premieres and several companies celebrating significant anniversaries. Here’s how the theater scene is shaping up, moving geographically from north to south. With its playhouse expanded, the Maltz … [Read more...]
Intense central performances give Zoetic’s ‘Next to Normal’ profound impact
Lyricist-book writer Brian Yorkey and his composer partner Tom Kitt researched well bipolar disorder to write the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning musical Next to Normal, about one woman’s battle with the mental affliction and its effect on her family. And in his program note, Zoetic Stage artistic director Stuart Meltzer is very candid about his own history with … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2022-23: The season in theater
Now that the COVID 19 pandemic is in the rearview mirror --- we hope --- South Florida’s theaters are looking ahead to their first full season of productions in several years. So below is a look at what is scheduled, taken in geographic order from north to south, from Jupiter to Coral Gables. Last season, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre was hit with a double whammy of COVID … [Read more...]
Zoetic triumphs with powerful ‘American Son’
Lawyer-turned-playwright Christopher Demos-Brown, a co-founder of Zoetic Stage, is one of the area’s most prominent dramatists. That status took a quantum leap upward when this South Florida favorite son took his ripped-from-the-headlines play, American Son, to Broadway in late 2018. While some of the reviews were brutally negative, the production managed to play 97 … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2019-20: ‘Hamilton’ might be hottest ticket, but area theaters have plenty of worthy shows planned
There are plenty of interesting productions looming in the area this season, but the hottest ticket is unquestionably Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, at the Kravis Center in late January and then the Arsht Center the following month. Do what you have to to get tickets. You didn’t need that right arm anyway. A year ago, the Stage Door Theatre was readying a move to a larger, … [Read more...]
Reduced-forces ‘Sweeney’ still packs fierce punch at Zoetic Stage
Ever since Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s bloody brilliant, massive, large-cast Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street arrived on Broadway in 1979, subsequent takes on the show have grappled with how to deliver its oversized emotions and exquisite score on a reduced scale. That presents an enticing challenge for a director, as Patrick Fitzwater of Slow Burn … [Read more...]
Zoetic serves up fine, compelling ‘Curious Incident’
For a work brimming with pure theatricality, few plays can top The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the tale of an autistic teenage boy’s struggle to make sense of the world around him. Following critical and popular successes in London and on Broadway, the play is now available for stylistic reinterpretation by resident companies, which must have been catnip for … [Read more...]
Season Preview 2018-19: Theater
If you don’t watch carefully, South Florida theater companies will move around on you. Celebrating its 25th season, Stage Door Theatre has relocated from Margate to Lauderhill, a move westward and a little south, but also a move up in the world to the gorgeous new $11.6 million, 1,100-seat Lauderhill Performing Arts Center. And the nomadic Primal Forces troupe has moved … [Read more...]
Zoetic Stage’s ‘Fun Home’ a powerful journey
Alison Bechdel is deeply conflicted about her relationship with her father. As she puts it early in the remarkable musical Fun Home, “My dad and I were exactly alike. My dad and I were nothing alike.” That seeming contradiction defines the crux of the show, Alison’s struggle with her sexual identity and anguish over coming out as a lesbian to her parents. … [Read more...]