By Dale King Students in the Department of Theatre and Dance at Florida Atlantic University have picked up where their predecessors left off nearly two seasons ago when a COVID pandemic forced FAU to curtail public performances and required young actors to hone their talents behind the scenes. Last weekend, a new troupe of budding thespians – 10 of them pursuing master’s … [Read more...]
Shakespeare Fest sticks to basics in impressive ‘Twelfth Night’
I never thought I would be able to use this word to describe a Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival production, but its latest take on Twelfth Night – the company’s fourth version – is “conventional.” In a good way. Perhaps producer/director Seth Trucks had no interest in setting the plot-initiating shipwreck on Mars or turning it into an air crash on a South Pacific island, as … [Read more...]
‘We Will Rock You’ offers killer Queen tunes, sharp performances at LW Playhouse
By Dale King We Will Rock You, the jukebox musical that throws an aural spotlight on the poperatic music of the British rock group Queen and their flamboyant frontman Freddy Mercury, is shaking walls, vibrating scenery and winning over audiences at the Lake Worth Playhouse. The single summer entry at the Lake Avenue performance center spreads 20-plus powerful Queen tunes … [Read more...]
Maltz to open its post-COVID season with ‘Jersey Boys’ at Roger Dean stadium
Never accuse the Maltz Jupiter Theatre of thinking small. During the past year, when most resident stage companies were idled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Maltz was busy demolishing its theater chamber and rebuilding an improved, larger complex to the tune of $36 million. The new theater could eventually house pre-Broadway tryouts, and in a later phase an expanded … [Read more...]
Tight actorly quartet brings vivid life to Delray Playhouse’s ‘Doll’s House, Part II’
By Dale King The 20th century saw major feminist movements such as the suffragettes' quest for the right to vote in the early 1900s and the women’s liberation drive of the 1960s. The 21st century is following in its stead, dealing with complex matters such as the #MeToo movement, LGBTQ representation and questions of gender identity explored in a “woke” culture. … [Read more...]
Powerhouse performances make for gripping ‘Hedwig’ at LW Playhouse
By Dale King Catharsis and storytelling mix musically and, in the end, triumphantly, in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a turbulent, gender-unspecific narrative being staged with passion and powerhouse music at the Lake Worth Playhouse through much of June – LGBTQ+ Pride Month. The show concludes the downtown venue’s successful effort to pull together an in-person season of … [Read more...]
TV’s ‘Shirley,’ Cindy Williams, to debut one-woman retrospective at Wick
A not-so-funny thing happened to Cindy Williams on her way to the Wick Theatre. COVID-19. Not only did the comedienne most closely associated with the long-running sitcom Laverne & Shirley contract the deadly virus — she’s fine now — but the production of Nunsense that would bring her to Boca Raton had to be canceled. As Williams recalls, it was Dan Goggin, the … [Read more...]
Dramaworks emerging from lockdown with robust 2021-22 season
Early last year, when the pandemic we have come to know as COVID-19 first hit, disrupting the nation’s live theaters, closing their doors and halting their seasons, Bill Hayes of Palm Beach Dramaworks did the opposite of almost every other non-profit stage company. “One thing I had noticed very early on is many non-profits were immediately soliciting for funds,” says the … [Read more...]
Fine Delray Playhouse cast mounts touching ‘Steel Magnolias’
By Dale King Steel Magnolias is a fact-based story focusing on women, their inner fortitude, outward traits and inner abilities to handle humor, tragedy and all of life’s glitches, big and small. It focuses on a group of lady friends in a small Louisiana town who are not exactly Southern belles, but they sure know how to have a good time. The play, by Robert Harling and … [Read more...]
Poignant ‘Lady Day’ at LW Playhouse beautifully captures legendary singer
By Dale King The youngster who grew up to become music icon Billie Holiday was born Eleanora Fagan in 1915. The daughter of an unwed teenage couple spent her youth living with her mother in a brothel, subjected to sexual abuse, squalid surroundings, rape and specters of rape. Woes — drug and alcohol abuse among them — refused to let go of her when she stepped out of the … [Read more...]