By Dale King Delray Beach Playhouse certainly loves a mystery. The venerable showhouse on the shore of Lake Ida opens its 76th season with a production of Villainous Company, a show whose title literally screams that something illicit is afoot. And it certainly is, as the audience gradually, but, in the end, surely finds out in this 90-minute production played with no … [Read more...]
With strong central performance, Wick’s ‘Cinderella’ still works its magic
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, which first enchanted TV audiences in 1957, is based on a fairy tale by Charles Perrault that has been captivating children of all ages since it was first written in 1697. Nevertheless, when the musical was poised to make its Broadway debut in 2013, playwright Douglas Carter Beane was enlisted to give the script a makeover, injecting … [Read more...]
‘Forum’ a loose-limbed delight at the Maltz
The late, great Stephen Sondheim is best remembered for his boundary-busting musicals brimming with angst and ambivalence. But you would never guess that from the first Broadway show to feature both his music and lyrics, 1962’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Sunny and silly, yet displaying early evidence of Sondheim’s verbal mastery and penchant for … [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...]
Something familiar, but fresh: ‘Forum’ to open at Maltz
After begrudgingly writing only the lyrics for his first two Broadway shows — West Side Story and Gypsy — the great Stephen Sondheim at last penned both words and music for 1962’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. A rare musical comedy that is actually funny, it ran 965 performances, a brief run by Phantom of the Opera standards, but it remains the longest run … [Read more...]
Literature provides connection in touching ‘Dorothy’s Dictionary’
Words and books are the cherished domain of Dorothy Ross, a former librarian now confined to a convalescent home with an unspecified but serious medical condition and failing eyesight. She is at the center of Dorothy’s Dictionary, a touching, charming, funny and sad new play by E.W. Lewis, now receiving its world premiere in a gently effective production at Florida Atlantic … [Read more...]
‘On Your Feet!’: Estefan jukebox musical not profound, but it is peppy
The creators of the musical biography of Gloria and Emilio Estefan knew what they had when they chose On Your Feet! as the show’s title, out of the many song hits she and her back-up band, the Miami Sound Machine, made famous. For the prime asset of this light-on-its-feet jukebox musical are the energetic dances that decorate the history of the Estefans’ personal and … [Read more...]
‘Dorothy’s Dictionary’: Premiere play at FAU explores power of literature, connection
Ellen Lewis is not really sure what started her writing Dorothy’s Dictionary, the two-character play that will have its world premiere at Florida Atlantic University’s Theatre Lab next week (Nov. 19), but she knows she wanted to create a script about “books and words and libraries and the power of stories. All that is kind of what I’m made of,” she says. What emerged … [Read more...]
‘The Thin Place,’ at Boca Stage, is more puzzling than creepy
Unlike horror movies, which want to scare the bejesus out of us, Lucas Hnath’s cerebral ghost story The Thin Place merely wants to creep us out and perhaps have us think about the possibility of an afterlife. Whether or not you are persuaded by this curiously structured play, which demands several leaps of faith by its audience and ultimately ends on theatrical gimmickry, … [Read more...]
Reflecting Fools bring back political parody at fraught time
Among the victims of COVID-19, at least in the world of entertainment, has been the popular political satire troupe, The Capitol Steps, which could not survive the two years of performance pause. But since nature abhors a vacuum, a new company, dubbed DC’s Reflecting Fools, has cropped up to take its place. And since the Fools feature song parodies by Mark Eaton – who … [Read more...]