Don’t feel obligated to buy anything for The Wick Theatre but, boy, has it got a holiday present for you. It’s She Loves Me, the melody-rich musical romance set in a Budapest perfume store, based on the same source material as the 1939 film The Shop Around the Corner and the contemporary remake, 1998’s You’ve Got Mail. The show’s final scene takes place on Christmas … [Read more...]
Radio’s Sagal returns to playwriting career with ‘Most Wanted’ at FAU
Longtime followers of Florida Stage may recall Peter Sagal, whose plays Denial and What to Say were produced in the 1990s by the now-defunct theater company that specialized in new American works. These days, however, Sagal is more widely known as the host of the popular National Public Radio current events quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. For the past 20 years, Sagal … [Read more...]
‘Rose’: Look at Kennedy matriarch opens season for new theater company
Palm Beacher Laurence Leamer, a frequent biographer of the Kennedy clan, has transformed himself into a playwright with Rose, a one-woman work about the powerful and tragic family’s matriarch. It kicks off a four-play season at Boca Raton’s Mizner Park Cultural Center because its producer, Bill Spatz, went to the bathroom at the right time. As he tells it, he was … [Read more...]
At the Kravis: ‘Book of Mormon’ still blasphemous, hilarious
So many shows that initially are shocking soon lose that ability to startle and outrage us. Fortunately, six-and-a-half years after it first conquered Broadway, The Book of Mormon still feels as blasphemous and funny as it ever did. Now on its second visit to the Kravis Center through Sunday, the scabrous send-up of the loopy contemporary religion is well represented … [Read more...]
Stage Door unloads a powerhouse ‘Dreamgirls’
Broward Stage Door is rapidly becoming a theater company to reckon with. Over the years, its resources and artistic output have been nothing if not erratic, but the Coral Springs troupe keeps setting the bar higher, announcing its intention to do complex shows that seem way over its head and then flooring us with its achievement. Earlier this year, it mounted a miraculous … [Read more...]
Outré’s ‘American Idiot’ disappoints despite strong cast
By Dale King Outré Theater Company’s production of American Idiot, a rock opera spun from an album written and recorded by the rock group Green Day, has a lot of potential. The production, which closes with a matinee Sunday at Outré’s new home in the Pompano Beach Cultural Center, features a dozen actors with first-rate credentials and admirable voices. The show has a … [Read more...]
Gogol it: FAU’s ‘Government Inspector’ shows good satire never really dates
By Dale King Student actors in Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Theatre and Dance have finally been loosed from a hurricane-prompted delay that postponed the opening of their 2017-2018 season from October to the period just before Thanksgiving. As a result, the political satire, The Government Inspector, written by Nikolai Gogol in the mid-1830s and adapted … [Read more...]
Broadway’s Tune readies for Maltz one-nighter
“I would just love to do a musical comedy. I think the world needs a wonderful new musical comedy.” The speaker is Tommy Tune, the 10-time Tony Award-winning performer-director-choreographer who ruled Broadway in the 1980s and 1990s, churning out a succession of original hit musicals like Nine, Grand Hotel and The Will Rogers Follies. But it has been decades … [Read more...]
‘Born Yesterday’ a little creaky, but jokes, situation still speak to us
The selection of a Maltz Jupiter Theatre mainstage season is a lengthy process, so it is important to keep reminding yourself that Garson Kanin's political satire-screwball comedy, Born Yesterday, was chosen before the current resident of the White House – who shall go nameless here – was elected president. For this Washington-based romp concerns wealthy scrap metal magnate … [Read more...]
It’s not ‘Phantom,’ but you might love it just the same
The ads for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats used to claim “Now and Forever,” but it is his Phantom of the Opera that keeps running with no end in sight. Now in its 30th year on Broadway, the longevity record holder, this mega-popular musical has brought in an estimated $6.5 billion dollars worldwide. No wonder Lloyd Webber wanted to write a sequel to the tale of the horribly … [Read more...]