It is one thing to recognize the dramatic potential in a New York Times article about the disintegration of working-class communities and its devastating toll from one generation to the next, as playwright Carter W. Lewis did. It is quite another thing to make the imaginative leap and turn that material into The Science of Leaving Omaha, about a teenage dropout working in a … [Read more...]
Tragicomic ‘Last Night in Inwood’ gets skillful debut at FAU Theatre Lab
Comedy, as they say, is tragedy that happens to someone else. And the calamities that are happening just beyond an apartment in Inwood, N.Y., and all around the globe — the effects of climate change, economic distress, the rise of white supremacy militias, rioting and looting — are nothing if not calamitous. Yet in Last Night in Inwood, now receiving its world premiere at … [Read more...]
LW Playhouse’s ‘Guys and Dolls’ winningly shows off large, able cast
By Dale King After recently toying with a variety of theatrical genres, Lake Worth Playhouse has chosen to kick off the 2023 portion of its 70th season with a tried-and-true classic, Guys and Dolls. This stage staple centers on Depression-era gamblers and their women, referred to without objection as “dolls” and “broads,” whose major goal in life is to marry and raise … [Read more...]
‘Last Night in Inwood’: World premiere play suggests an all-too-real nightmare
The year was 2016 and graduate student Alix Sobler needed to write a play for her master’s thesis. “I write comedy, but the world was in a real state at that moment,” she recalls. “The election between Clinton and Trump was at its height. Things felt really off-balance and I wanted to reflect that onstage in a way that was going to be accessible to audiences.” The … [Read more...]
Wick’s ‘Anything Goes’ a vintage bubbly delight
When the sublime, sophisticated songsmith Cole Porter collaborated with Brits P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton on the enduring confection Anything Goes, the time was 1934, seven years after Show Boat demonstrated that musicals could take on weighty material. Porter and his writing team – which eventually included play doctors Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse – knew perfectly … [Read more...]
Powerful ‘Time Alone’ at Boca Stage charts two kinds of imprisonment
Anger and pain are the shared emotions that link widow Anna Jackson and convicted killer Gabriel Wayland. They also share the stage — but never the same space — in Alessandro Camon’s powerful play of dueling monologues, Time Alone. Beyond their well-earned rage, these two lost souls have another unexpected connection, revealed only in the final moments of the 90-minute … [Read more...]
‘Sweet Charity’ a sparkling must-see at the Maltz
Sweet Charity, the tale of three-named Charity Hope Valentine, the dance hall hostess with a heart of gold and terrible luck with men, requires a triple-threat performer who can sing, dance and act, seemingly without effort. After all, the show’s original director-choreographer, Bob Fosse, created the show in 1966 for his wife and muse, Gwen Verdon, the reigning female star of … [Read more...]
Grim energy of ‘Hadestown’ brings Kravis audience to its feet
By Dale King Hadestown, the grim, garishly compelling musical that fuses characters from Greek mythology with imagery from a hellishly demonic industrial underworld, continues through Sunday at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach. On opening night Tuesday, a full-house audience rewarded the starkly entertaining performance with a sustained … [Read more...]
Dramaworks reaffirms relevance of ’12 Angry Men’ in searing production
By Sharon Geltner “One man is dead. The life of another is at stake. I urge you to deliberate honestly and thoughtfully. If there is a reasonable doubt --- then you must bring me a verdict of ‘not guilty.‘” The judge’s instructions open Twelve Angry Men, the classic American drama by Reginald Rose, set in a dingy conference room in 1954. The Palm Beach Dramaworks … [Read more...]
‘Aladdin’ is a world of wonders in Kravis run
By Dale King The latest iteration of Aladdin, one of the oldest and most told and retold tales in literary history, is being performed through Friday at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach. The production, based on Walt Disney’s 1992 animated film, is festooned with colorful characters, a pleasing, often powerful musical score and amazing … [Read more...]