By Dale King The names Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller are not necessarily household monikers in today’s pop music or theatrical worlds. But switch over to an oldies station, or check out an AM radio channel’s Top 40 list from 50-plus years ago and you’ll find lots of Leiber and Stoller works – ballads, novelty tunes, R&B, pop, jazz, and, most notably, rock & roll. Working … [Read more...]
‘Finding Neverland’: Fine cast brings some magic to weak material
Few stories are as familiar and beloved as J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. So much so that it has spawned a host of tangential and ancilllary versions, from prequels (the movie Pan, the play Peter and the Starcatcher), to a film told from the villain’s viewpoint (Hook), to a Disneyfied animated feature and a couple of stage musicals. No, make … [Read more...]
2017’s Top 10 in local theater
2017 was a strong year for theater in South Florida, particularly for musicals, though it wasn’t until I started to compile my 10 best list that I noticed how many musicals were among the standouts. Here is my highly subjective look back on the past 12 months from where I sat. 1. Arcadia, Palm Beach Dramaworks – Thermodynamics, mathematical algorithms, chaos theory and … [Read more...]
Vibrant Irving Berlin revue offers welcome doses of optimism, patriotism
By Dale King If your holiday shopping route has taken you from Interstate 95 to the Gardens Mall by way of PGA Boulevard, you’ve passed an opportunity to enjoy a musical show at a struggling but determined performance center trying hard to establish itself as a destination of theatrical choice. Since Nov. 30, the PGA Arts Center has been presenting Irving Berlin Salutes … [Read more...]
Sagal’s ‘Most Wanted’ a triumph at FAU Theatre Lab
Welcome back, Peter Sagal. True, the host of National Public Radio’s current events quiz show, Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!, has hardly been out of the public eye lately. Wait, wait, make that “out of the public ear.” But when he began the show 20 years ago, he stopped writing plays, and if you want to measure the size of that loss, head to Florida Atlantic University … [Read more...]
Maltz makes first-rate show out of second-rate ‘Newsies’
The Maltz Jupiter Theatre has demonstrated many, many times that it can produce a superlative show when it has worthy material. The harder task is to succeed with second-rate goods, but that is exactly what it is doing currently with its explosive, high-energy take on a so-so musical, Disney’s Newsies. Yes, adaptor Harvey Fierstein made some substantial improvements to … [Read more...]
Well-cast ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ sparkles at Rinker
In 1982, long before movies became the source of most stage musicals, the puckish songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken took as their inspiration a schlocky sci-fi flick from the low-budget factory of Roger Corman. To them, Little Shop of Horrors, the tale of a man-eating plant from outer space that changes the life of a nebbishy flower shop clerk, had doo-wop … [Read more...]
Community theater: ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ enlivens Delray Playhouse
By Dale King Delray Beach Playhouse steps back to the 19th and early 20th centuries to revisit an American icon, sharpshooter Annie Oakley, in its presentation of the Broadway favorite, Annie Get Your Gun, which boosted singer Ethel Merman’s status and gave composer extraordinaire Irving Berlin a chance to notch what many consider to be his best show score. Director Helen … [Read more...]
‘Billy and Me’ at Dramaworks: The plays weren’t the only thing
Located at the thematic intersection of sexual attraction and professional jealousy is Billy and Me, a new play by Terry Teachout (Satchmo at the Waldorf) about the uneasy friendship of playwrights Tennessee Williams and William Inge. As the title implies, Williams is the narrator of the tale, “a memory play about a memory play,” whose first act is set in 1944 Chicago, as … [Read more...]
Two playwrights take center stage in world premiere ‘Billy and Me’ at Dramaworks
Two years ago, Palm Beach Dramaworks’ producing artistic director Bill Hayes was doing his usual detailed research in preparation for staging William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize winner, Picnic. And he came upon the intriguing fact that Inge saw a tryout performance of The Glass Menagerie by a young, brash writer with the unlikely name of Tennessee Williams. Seeing that play … [Read more...]