Opting for pre-sold familiarity, so many musicals these days are based on popular movies. But not all of them justify the insertion of songs into the story line, serving more as filler than increased emotional impact. Take An Officer and a Gentleman, The Musical, or rather, don’t bother to take it. Based on the 1982 Richard Gere-Debra Winger flick about the Naval Officer … [Read more...]
Maltz gets underway in new house; companies announce 22-23 season
After two postponed productions and a third delayed by a week, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre opened in late March with critical acclaim for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and for its renovated and expanded playhouse. With much of the stress of construction deadlines over, producing artistic director Andrew Kato paused long enough to discuss the new, improved theater and the upcoming first … [Read more...]
Words matter, and are the matter, in Boca Stage two-hander ‘The Sound Inside’
It is no accident that Bella Baird, the central figure in Adam Rapp’s compelling, though arch, play The Sound Inside, is a professor of creative writing at Yale University. For Rapp, himself a former novelist, needed a character obsessed with literature, meticulous with words, someone whose self-conscious dialogue sounds carefully composed, as if written down before it is … [Read more...]
FAU’s ‘Richard III’ a formidable reading of the Bard
By Dale King It’s encouraging to see that drama students at Florida Atlantic University haven’t lost their interest in performing plays written several centuries ago, despite interruptions wrought in FAU’s theatrical schedule by COVID-19. The energetic performers in FAU’s Department of Theatre and Dance wrapped up the 2021-22 season with a formidable performance of … [Read more...]
Accomplished cast lifts slight Sedaka musical at Wick
Neil Sedaka was a prolific singer/songwriter of the 1950s and 1960s, but few of his catchy hit tunes could be described as theater music. Yet for the past 15 years, thanks to that frequently popular subgenre known as the jukebox musical, he has enjoyed a new revenue stream from a show of his collected songs called Breaking Up Is Hard to Do. The title also happens to be the … [Read more...]
In New York: Messing shines in otherwise sticky ‘Birthday Candles’
You can understand why Debra Messing (of TV’s Will & Grace) was drawn to play Ernestine, the central character of Noah Haidle’s new multi-generational comic drama, Birthday Candles. The character spans 90 years – from age 17 to 107 – from high schooler to great-grandmother, from young love to heartbreak and divorce to unexpected late life romance. It is a role with built-in … [Read more...]
In New York: Exhilarating ‘Six’ gives Henry’s wives unstoppable grrrl power
Within seconds, the audience for the high-energy faux-history lesson, Six, is whipped into a rock concert frenzy. Except for a couple of ballads, that frenzy does not let up for the show’s brief, but exhausting 80-minute running time. And you wouldn’t want it any other way. The title, of course, refers to the half-dozen wives of the English King Henry VIII. By a quirk of … [Read more...]
You’ll be glad you met Esther in Dramaworks’ powerful ‘Intimate Apparel’
Playwright Lynn Nottage has two Pulitzer Prizes to her credit (Ruined and Sweat), but Esther Mills of Intimate Apparel is arguably her most memorable character. Esther is a seamstress who makes delicate lingerie, corsets and other intimate apparel for clients ranging from Mayme (Krystal Mosley), a black prostitute, to Mrs. Van Buren (Gracie Winchester), a white society … [Read more...]
Sharp, funny ‘Scoundrels’ a welcome reminder of Maltz’s skill
They call it musical comedy, but few shows are actually laugh-out-loud funny. One exception is Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the tale of a couple of unscrupulous con men out to fleece rich women on the French Riviera. It earns its audience guffaws thanks to the unexpected lyrics of composer David Yazbek — who else would come up with the almost-rhyme of “castle” and … [Read more...]
Lake Worth Playhouse’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ tracks movie and book classic agreeably
By Dale King For most of us in the age-55-and-over bracket, a visit to “the merry old land of Oz” used to be a once-a-year excursion provided by one of the three sole TV networks that broadcast the classic 1939 film of author L. Frank Baum’s fanciful story, The Wizard of Oz, on our 12-channel, antenna-on-the-roof television sets. Today, folks can find the same video … [Read more...]