South Florida Theatre Scene

The Scene for May 24, 2013

2013-05-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

Did you survive last week's torrential downpours? As the official theater season winds to an end, the rainy season is just beginning.

Yes, the official theatre season is ending, but that doesn't mean theater is coming to an end for the year. South Florida has developed a robust summer theater season, and quite a few of the smaller companies don't even program by the season anymore.

So not only are there still plays running this holiday weekend, we even have new shows opening up across south Florida - just in time to get out of the rain!

Here's what's playing on the scene this weekend.

opening...

Thinking Cap Theater opens up WAAFRIKA at Empire Stage this weekend, through June 9.

Dancing at Lughnasa starts at Palm Beach Dramaworks, and runs through June 16. Get your tickets early, we expect this one to pack them in.

Outré Theater Company opens its fully realized production of tick...tick... BOOM! They did a staged reading a couple of years ago that got rave reviews. It's playing at the Mizner Park Cultural Center through June 9, 2013.

you still haven't missed...

White Rose Miami is performing The Pillowman somewhere around Miami. Check their Facebook page for details.

Cock plays at GableStage through June 16, 2013.

Road Through Heaven plays at New Theatre through June 2, 2013.

Actors' Playhouse presents The Fox on the Fairway at the Miracle Theater through June 2, 2013.
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Teatro en Miami Studio offers Chat through June 22nd.

Apparently, My Son The Waiter was extended through June 30 at the Broward Stage Door Theater.
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community and conservatory...

Andrews Living Arts Studio presents Rent through June 16.

Sylvia opens at the Delray Beach Playhouse this weekend, through June 2.

I’m Still Here!: Harold Prince – The Man Who Transformed Broadway (Part Two: 1970 – Present) also plays at the Delray Beach Playhouse through June 5.

for kids...

The Miami Children's Theater presents Legally Blonde at the Alper JCC through June 2.

Actors' Playhouse presents the original children's musical Excellent Conquest through May 25, 2013.

Inanna and the Huluppu Tree returns to the Miami Theater Center through June 2, 2013

Off Stage Conversations

2013-05-22T16:36:00.003-04:00

Hello Everyone -- it's Andie Arthur, executive director of the South Florida Theatre League and I'm back for this Wednesday's Off Stage Conversations. Apologies for missing last week. I've been pretty sick. (Bronchitis is no one's friend.)

A Look at How You Ask For Money

As artists and as those working in arts organizations, we ask for money a lot. We raise money through galas, grant writing, and the general ask in a curtain speech. But I think we as a community could do much better at targeting our asks. Sophie Hudson has a great piece in the Guardian about how to approach baby boomers for legacy gifts, citing how folks living longer and having uncertainty for their children and grandchildren will effect their giving. It's a very specific kind of ask to be smart about, but it opens up a good question of how we approach all our potential donors.

One of the ways we could be better about this is to make room for smaller donors. In the past year, I got an ask from an arts organization (that I personally really love) asking me for $1,000. That's about half my monthly income and more than my rent. I was flabbergasted and rather disappointed that they didn't think to target their ask. If they had asked me for $10, I probably would have given it. Compare that to the Obama campaign, who consistently asked me for $6 and ended up getting over $100 in $6 increments.

And even though the infrastructure for the Obama campaign is hard to replicate in a small non-profit, we can still find ways to target smaller donors, instead of treating them the same way as we do larger donors. Crowd funding is a great way to do this -- but even then, the projects that get funded are the ones that really give back to their small donors. My personal favorite kickstarter campaign ever was Travis Bedard's one for Messenger #4. I donated $10 to a production that I never got a chance to see because it was in another state, but I got a haiku. And I value that haiku far more than I would ever value my name in a program. I see so many crowd funding campaigns that ignore the potential of gaining donors via great perks and it makes me sad, because there is so much potential wasted. And perks should start low, as the majority of donors give $10-$25.

I understand that targeting asks takes time -- if you need to do a broad appeal, then focus on your story -- why is this art important. And preferably in a positive way. Kate Powers' Kickstarter for Rehabilitation Through the Arts that was featured on Mondays are Dark (due to Amazon's ineptness) really focuses on what this program does for the participants. And I donated my $10, mainly because I've been following her story on how transformative this work really is.

(Now let us see who comes to me with a $10 ask...and then I'll know who is reading the blog.)

Speaking of Telling Your Story

Howard Sherman has a great piece on advertising and how we should focus on what the story of the play is about in selling the play. How often do you take a good look at your advertising and check to see if it really reflects the play? I've heard a great story about a theatre class that thought a intelligent drama about the price of warfare was a children's show simply because that's the story they got from the poster. It's always good to check in with people who aren't in depths of the process with you to see if your advertising is getting the right message across. And even if you're doing Hamlet, you can't assume that everyone knows exactly what they're getting into.

What Arts Organizations Can Learn from Public Radio

Technology in the arts has a piece on what arts organizations can learn from public radio. Note... donor perks are one of the things they talk about.

National New Play Exchange

The National New Play Network (currently headed by Nan Barnett) has announced that they've gone a significant grant to build a New Play Exchange. The lit manager for Undermain Theatre weighs in on how this could transform the field.

Practical Social Media Advice

Why You Shouldn't Post to Facebook via Hootsuite

GableStage: Cock (reviews)

2013-05-21T21:12:00.000-04:00

GableStage opened its production of Mike Bartlett's award-winning play Cock on May 18, 2013.

A provocatively titled play about an unlikely love triangle that was a huge hit in London and New York. When a gay man takes a break from his boyfriend the last thing he expects is to suddenly meet the woman of his dreams. Filled with guilt and indecision, he decides there's only one way to straighten this out. A playful, candid look at one man's sexuality and the difficulties that arise when you realize you have a choice.

Joseph Adler directed a cast that included Ryan Didato, Julie Kleiner, Peter Galman, and Nicholas Richberg.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Describing the overarching quality of the newest play at GableStage as “taut” is rather like calling a tax audit “worrisome.” Neither word fully does justice to the swirl of complex emotions each is meant to summarize. Certainly, that’s true of Mike Bartlett’s provocatively titled Cock, which is meant to evoke a ferocious cockfight -- and more.

The actors stalk and circle each other but almost never come into physical contact. Yet their the in-the-moment descriptions of sexual experiences are vividly evocative, despite the fact that no one sheds so much as a shoe. Getting theatergoers to “see” and feel what the characters are going through is an act of collaborative imagination, one pulled off brilliantly by director Joseph Adler and his excellent cast.

Didato is appealing and empathetic in a role that might otherwise grow wearisome because of John’s waffling indecision. And, like his cast mates, he sports a convincing, unwavering British accent. Kleiner, though dressed in an oddly dowdy fashion by costumer Ellis Tillman (he makes the guys look much better), glows in the role of a young woman who probably ought to give more thought to her choice of mates.

Richberg is, simply, superb. As is often the case, the actor crafts a performance that is utterly convincing, complex and always compelling. His M possesses a quick, withering wit, a weapon he’s quick to wield in asserting his dominance over John. He’s amusing, at times bitchy, and he makes you see why M frustrates John. Yet when John cuts M to the quick, Richberg’s thrumming fingers and the set of his mouth signal his pain in a way that suddenly deepens an already rich play. Bravo.

Mary Damiano reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Cock... is filled with opportunities for characters to get naked, and GableStage artistic director Joseph Adler is known for getting his actors to show a substantial amount of skin on stage. Instead, characters stay completely clothed and engage in a version of oral sex — in this case, describing their sex acts aloud — while practicing the restraint of hardly touching at all. And guess what? It’s sexy. It’s very sexy.

As John, Didato embodies the character’s confusion as well as insecurity. Kleiner does well with her role of the everywoman fighting for her happily ever after. Peter Galman is funny and touching as John’s boyfriend’s father, who comes to dinner to help his son fight for John.

But the standout here is Richberg, who imbues his character with texture and soul. Even though John is the character in conflict, John’s boyfriend, in Richberg’s capable hands, is the one who seems to go through the most changes. Sometimes he’s catty, hateful and venomous, and sometimes he’s insightful, loving and vulnerable. Sometimes he oppresses, other times he seems the real victim of the piece. And Richberg’s performance is riveting.

Roger Martin reviewed for miamiartzine:

Last night I dreamt about cock. No, silly, not the appendage. The brilliant play Cock playing now at GableStage. Brilliance does that. It takes a little power nap right in your brain and then, snap, it's driving your dreams.

Ryan Didato as the young John never falls into the trap of annoying 'will he won't he' as he discovers his bi-sexuality; his pain as he seeks his place is real. His is a terrific performance in a difficult role.

Not that the others get to cruise. Julie Kleiner as the divorced and lonely W who falls in love with John brings an almost desperate sensuality and the scene in which she and John consummate their affair screams lust discovered without a trouser dropped or a dress hiked high.

Peter Galman as F brings everything you'd expect from an actor with his vast experience to a role smaller than the others but no less demanding.

But it is to Nicholas Richberg that the chops award must go. His abandoned lover, M, has the pettiness and the bite of a scared man, losing everything and knowing that the material offers no solace.

And tying this together is the outstanding direction of Joe Adler who brings out the tenderness of the obscenity laden, starkly sensual and very funny script.

John Thomason reviewed for The Miami New Times:

GableStage's production of Cock contains what might go down (pun intended) as the most arousing sex scene you'll see onstage all year. Except you won't actually see it. Contrary to the expectations of its saucy title, Cock is chaste as can be. Physical contact is limited to the occasional embrace of hands in this rendition, and even those moments seem to defy the strict orders of UK playwright Mike Bartlett.

But you could almost feel the entire auditorium grow a few degrees hotter during the play's central sex scene...

Cock is an electrifying exercise in audience imagination; we're often asked to literalize what we can't see, to create our own imagery from the ethereal metaphors percolating in its empty spaces. The magical balancing act between emotional openness and physical prohibition is vital to this challenging, self-reflexive play, produced with superb and creative direction by Joseph Adler.

Adler's cast is uniformly excellent, all of them Americans speaking with unflagging British accents. Didato makes his character's confusion, indecision, and repressed torment palpable, and Kleiner, though not necessarily resembling Bartlett's buxom, ultrafeminine creation, excellently captures W's warmth and sensitivity as well as her hidden feistiness and well-masked insecurity, even when she seems to be winning the competition for John's affections.

But it's Richberg who towers above both in a bravura performance of a man who is both dastardly manipulative and magnetically attractive. He finds humor in hurtful lines while capturing the vulnerability hidden beneath moments of brash bluster, rooting out all of the hidden meanings.

There is no logical way for Cock to end happily, and Bartlett deserves credit for not scripting a Hollywood ending. John's fateful choice is important, but his decision is less vital than the greater points Cock raises about the increasingly amorphous nature of sexual attraction and gender identity — about the outmoded status of orientations and pigeonholes, of even such a seemingly encompassing label such as "bisexual."

Ron Levitt wrote for ENV Magazine:

...an intelligent, astutely directed production with some of the finest acting seen in South Florida in many years.

This is Joseph Adler’s 92^nd production at the Biltmore site and his adroit direction is apparent as the four actors dominate the stage. It is by no means a simple reminder of why Adler has the most production and directing Carbonells of anyone else in South Florida. Once again, his mark of excellence is apparent.

...let us heap praise on both Didato and Richberg.... Richberg is truly brilliant as the deeply hurt partner – joining with the superb performance of Didato as the confused John – a frustrated fellow who doesn’t seem to know what he wants.

Kleiner... and New York actor Galman are up to expectations in their supporting roles, as well. Adler obviously chose this cast with care. It would be half as much fun in lesser hands.

Cock plays at GableStage through June 16, 2013.

New Theatre: Road Through Heaven (reviews)

2013-05-21T21:06:00.000-04:00

New Theatre premiered Ricky J Martinez's Road Through Heaven on May 17, 2013

Part of the Cuban Culture Week in NYC presented by The Cuban Artists Fund; also received readings at Teatro Paraguas, Repertorio Español, and Shotgun Productions. This poetic work questions unconditional love, the nature of self-development, and the willing of dreams into reality.

Margaret Ledford directed a cast that featured Evelyn Perez, Javier Cabrera, Ricky J. Martinez, Julissa Calderon, with Enzo Roque and David A. Gonzalez alternating in the role of the child.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

The script is the second in a trilogy by Martinez, the company’s artistic director. Though it has virtues and flaws (as so many new plays do), it’s a stronger piece than 2007’s Sin Full Heaven.

Since Martinez is appearing in the play as Victor, he has turned over directing duties to Margaret M. Ledford, who stages Road Through Heaven with lyricism, humor and grace.

Designer Amanda Sparhawk creates a tidily kept, modest island home for the rich-in-love family, underscoring their relationship with a wooden triangle set into the floor.

As a playwright, Martinez blends island superstition and ritual with the bedrock human longing to connect, be loved and build a family. Magical realism figures into the play, and the two characters outside the triangle are different but delightful life forces: María (Julissa Calderon), a strong and spirited neighbor who dreams of becoming an actress, and an energetic but silent little boy (Enzo Roque and David A. Gonzalez alternate in the role). The child, unseen by everyone except Dolores, is the spirit of her unborn child and a harbinger of danger

Perhaps, with some work on the trio at the play’s core, Road Through Heaven could move from the realm of fantasy and deepen into something richer, more complex and more moving.

Road Through Heaven plays at New Theatre through June 2, 2013.

Mondays are Dark

2013-05-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

Today's "dark" theater is the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Despite all the lights for their photo shoot, a theater without an audience is technically "dark."

The Arsht Center is the newest of the major south Florida Performing Arts Center in this class; The Kravis Center was first, followed a year later by the Broward Center. The South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center is much new, but it's not the same scale.

Here's your Monday reading list:

Tuesday Isn't Dark

Florida Theater On Stage reminds us that Tuesday is the 11th Annual Cappies Awards the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

Cool New Service

Need a Playbill for your school's spring musical? Or a community theater staging another classic comedy? Playbill has a new program to create.. programs.

Rising Up

Florida Theater On Stage reports that Ground Up and Rising as re-arisen.

The first production is Ground Up’s presentation of Hoch’s Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop slated for Mondays and Tuesdays, May 21,22, 27 and 28 at the O Cinema Wynwood...

Sounds a Little Like 'Lost'

The Drama Queen gives us some background on the new play at New Theater.

...Road Through Heaven is part of what Martinez calls In God's Land: An Island Trilogy. It is set on "a forgotten island" in the Caribbean, focusing on three people whose lives become entwined: Jesus (Javier Cabrera), a 21-year-old who was orphaned at the age of 12; Dolores (Evelyn Perez), a tough woman in her late 30s; and Victor (Martinez), a hard worker devoted to his woman and, increasingly, to the younger man.

Road Through Heaven opened over the weekend, and plays through June 2.

Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/drama_queen/2013/05/new-theatres-martinez-debuts-road-through-heaven.html#storylink=cpy

The Playslingers

Florida Theater On Stage tells us about another theater company that's reappeared; White Rose Miami ("Have Play, Will Travel") is taking a production of The Pillowman around town. And we mean just that:

Some of the venues in the third week still haven’t been nailed down, but negotiations are underway with storefronts on South Beach and galleries in Wynwood.

Maybe they'll buy a step-van and start a "play truck" trend.

In Hell With A Cell Phone

Playbill reports that a theater critic grabbed a theater patron's cell phone during a performance and hurled it across the room, resulting in his expulsion from the theater. CNN published reviewer Kevin Williamson's explanation of why he took the woman's cell phone. And frankly, the ushers tossed out the wrong party. We should all pay heed to Mr. Williamson's experience.

On the Boards with Alan Jacobson

Florida Theater On Stage links to a podcast of an interview of Alan Jacobson in partnership with Arts Radio Network.

The Scene for May 17, 2013.

2013-05-16T14:26:00.001-04:00

The official theater season is coming to an end soon, but you might not notice from all the offerings still listed on The Scene. It looks like we may have a seamless transition into the Summer Theatre Season.

We have a couple of plays openings down in Miami-Dade County this weekend, a few great shows closing, some classics playing at community theaters, and a scattering of excellent children's shows. So, something for everyone.

We understand that the South Florida Theatre League has worked out its schedule for appearances of their Coconut Grove Bed Race entry at member companies throughout the summer season - we'll be including those in our weekly outlook, so you know where you'll have the opportunity to Get In Bed With The Arts.

Here's what's playing on the scene this weekend.

opening...

New Theatre opens its world premiere production of Road Through Heaven at the Roxy Performing Arts Center, through June 2.

Gablestage opens the award winning Cock this weekend, through June 16.

you still haven't missed...

Actors' Playhouse presents The Fox on the Fairway at the Miracle Theater through June 2, 2013.

Teatro en Miami Studio offers Chat through June 22nd.

last chance to see...

The National tour of War Horse finishes its run at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts this Sunday, May 19, 2013. Do NOT miss this one

If you find yourself in Key West, The Waterfront Playhouse is offering Deathtrap through May 18.

Zoetic Stage's critically lauded production of Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation winds up its run at the Arsht Center through May 18, 2013.

Boca Raton Theatre Guild presents Avi Hoffman in Still Jewish After All These Years at the Willow Theater through May 19.

community and conservatory...

Sylvia opens at the Delray Beach Playhouse this weekend, through June 2.

Students perform Footloose at The Arts Garage through Sunday.

The Main Street Players offers Glengarry Glen Ross through May 19.
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I’m Still Here!: Harold Prince – The Man Who Transformed Broadway (Part Two: 1970 – Present) plays at the Delray Beach Playhouse through June 5.

for kids...

It's The Three Little Pigs at the Miniaci Theatre at Nova Southeastern University; Sunday only, but it's Family Fun Day!

Fort Lauderdale Children's Theatre offers Disney's The Little Mermaid this weekend.

Once Upon A Mattress plays at the Miami Children's Theater through May 18.

Sol Children's Theatre Troupe performs You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown through May 19, 2013.

Actors' Playhouse presents the original children's musical Excellent Conquest through May 25, 2013.

Inanna and the Huluppu Tree returns to the Miami Theater Center through June 2, 2013

Mondays are Dark

2013-05-13T10:53:00.002-04:00

This Monday isn't entirely dark; The Plaza Theatre in Manalapan presents Being Alive, the Music of Stephen Sondheim. It features the talents of Wayne LeGette and Mia Matthews. You can catch it tonight, and next week.

Lots of good stuff opening this week, be sure to check back Thursday for our weekly run-down of what's playing the local Theatre Scene

So without further ado, here's your Monday reading list!

Now Playing

Carol Kassie Theatrical Marketing re-posts an article about Avi Hoffman's Still Jewish After All These Years, which is presented by the Boca Raton Theatre Guild at the Willow Theater through this Sunday, May 19.

miamiartizine talks with one of the puppeteers from War Horse. It's playing at the Broward Center, and also ends on May 19. Don't miss it!

Garage Sale

The Wick Theatre is cleaning out all the stuff that the Caldwell Theatre Company left behind, according to Florida Theater On Stage.

Speaking of Closed Theaters

The Producer's Perspective wonders where all the dinner theaters have gone. In South Florida, we used to have the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre, the Jan McArt Dinner Theatre, and the Musicana Dinner Theater. Now we're down to Laffing Matterz. Except they're dark for the off-season. And they're not doing traditional fare, it's a sketch-comedy revue with funny songs. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Theater Re-Opening

The Palm Beach Daily News reports that the National Arts Institute should have a lease for the Royal Poinciana Playhouse in a matter of weeks.

Crowdfunding

A couple of different articles about crowdfunding; Mission Paradox reports the ins and outs of crowd funding, while 2AM Theatre can't even get their campaign posted due to bungled red tape.

Speaking of Revenue

The Houghton Library Blog delves into the history of theater's mainstay source of revenue; the ticket.

Win/Win

WLRN visits the Broward Center's Club Level during a recent performance of War Horse.

Eric Chirinsky stands at the bar of the Broward Center's new lounge Club Level, drink in hand, watching the Miami Heat battle the Chicago Bulls on a flat-screen TV.... But his wife, Katarina, isn't focused on pro basketball right now. She's sitting alone, enjoying a plate of hors d'oeuvres and a glass of bubbly.

"He's watching the game, I'm having my champagne and the children are home, so everybody's happy!" she exclaims.

We love happy endings.

Actors' Playhouse: The Fox on the Fairway (reviews)

2013-05-12T15:37:00.006-04:00

Actors' Playhouse opened its production of Ken Ludwig's The Fox on the Fairway on May 10, 2013.

...a charming screwball adventure about love, life, and man's eternal love affair with ... golf. Written by Ken Ludwig (Lend Me a Tenor, Moon Over Buffalo), the author hits a hole-in-one with his tribute to the great English farces of the 1930s and 1940s. Two rival country clubs, Quail Valley and Crouching Squirrel, prepare for their annual grudge match. A massive private wager is made between the two CEOs just before the best player switches teams. Filled with mistaken romance, dreadful attire, emotional mulligans and silly shenanigans, The Fox On The Fairway is a “tour-de-course” of rapid-fire chip shots and frenzied miscommunications.

David Arisco directed a cast that featured Ken Clement, Clay Cartland, Betsy Graver, Todd Allen Durkin, Margot Moreland, and Amy McKenna.

Michelle F. Solomon wrote for Florida Theater On Stage:

Playwright Ken Ludwig fashioned his play The Fox on the Fairway after high comedies of the 1930s and 40s — you know, Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You. And while shades of the Aldwych farces set the tone of the production now at Actors’ Playhouse, The Fox on the Fairway plays more like a 1970s sitcom.

Under David Arisco’s smart direction and the assemblage of a can’t-miss cast, Actors’ Playhouse has found a way to outfox this sometimes dimwitted homage.

Durkin is absolutely dastardly as Dickie, stealing every scene he’s in with his mixed-up metaphors and a slippery tongue that seems to have a life of its own... The actor also has the unmitigated pleasure of wearing some of the most hideous golf sweaters and loud golf pants ever to see the light of day (three cheers to costume designer Ellis Tillman for these gets ups and all of the delightful and spot-on costuming in Fox).

Cartland plays Justin to comedic crescendo... incredible feats of physical comedy, crashing through doors, falling over couches and dialing a phone with his arm hoisted in a sling.

Amy McKenna is absolutely fetching as the over-sexed Pamela Peabody, a member of Quail Valley, and Dickie Bell’s former wife.

Margot Moreland is the icing on the over-the-top cake as Muriel, the oppressive wife of Bingham and owner of Ye Olde Crock antiques store. Moreland’s comic timing, especially during her surprise entrance, is priceless.

Arisco and Actors’ Playhouse have taken on a challenge with The Fox on the Fairway... Ludwig calls for the cast to create Herculean feats of Marx Brothers mayhem... but Arisco, the cast and the production team are not only up for the task, they rise to the occasion.

Howard Cohen reviewed was sent by The Miami Herald:

Imagine an episode of racy Three’s Company in which Jack Tripper gets conned by Mr. Roper to masquerade as a golfer to win a bet, with ditzy roommate Chrissy Snow adding complications through a series of misunderstandings and pratfalls.

What works on a 30-minute farcical TV sitcom needs to be performed to near perfection, with crisp direction, to succeed as a two-act, two-hour live stage production. Fortunately, Actors’ Playhouse’s presentation features some standout talent on stage and off who give it their all — sometimes, too much of their all — so that Fox on the Fairway, for its few water traps, ultimately sends its audience home amused and entertained.

Arisco... gets the most out of Gene Seyffer’s attractively appropriate lounge set of woodwork, French doors and lobby furniture, upon which the cast races about. Alexander Herrin’s smart sound design makes the off-stage golf tournament come to life through clever panning of audio effects.

Arisco also gets fine performances from Clement who becomes so many club managers you’ve probably encountered, and snickered at, over the years. Cartland exhibits a likable bit of Steve Martin’s comic timing from The Jerk-era, and McKenna, who... proves she can handle slapstick comedy with aplomb. You’ll laugh as she attempts to fish out a wayward oyster from the confines of her bountiful décolletage or gets caught in a lip-lock with befuddled Justin just as Louise barges into the Tap Room. “It wasn’t me!” he innocently stammers. “She was using my lips.”

Actors' Playhouse presents The Fox on the Fairway at the Miracle Theater through June 2, 2013.

The Scene for May 10, 2013

2013-05-09T09:32:00.000-04:00

It's a busy week on the South Florida Theatre Scene! It seems everyone is trying to take advantage of Mother's Day on Sunday by giving you lots of options to take your mom to see a show.

We're taking our mother to see War Horse. But there's lots to see; be sure to check theater websites about Mothers' Day offerings, or ask at the box office. It's hard to pick from the plethora of fine productions; but it's great to have that kind of problem.

Here's what's playing on the scene this weekend.

opening...

Actors' Playhouse opens The Fox On The Fairway at the Miracle Theater, through June 2.

Boca Raton Theatre Guild presents Avi Hoffman in Still Jewish After All These Years at the Willow Theater through May 19.

you still haven't missed...

If you find yourself in Key West, The Waterfront Playhouse is offering Deathtrap through May 18.

Teatro en Miami Studio offers Chat through June 22nd.

Zoetic Stage presents its production of Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation at the Arsht Center through May 18, 2013.

coming and going...

The National tour of Memphis plays at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts through May 12, 2013.

The National tour of War Horse plays at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts through May 19, 2013.

last chance to see...

Waist Watchers the Musical has been packing them in at The Plaza Theatre - its extended run ends May 12, but look for it to return soon.

Laffing Matterz is winding up another successful season at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts; ask about their Mothers' Day Special.

community and conservatory...

The African-American Performing Arts Community Theater (AAPACT) production of Anne & Emmett plays at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center through May 12, 2013.

The Main Street Players offers Glengarry Glen Ross through May 19.
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I’m Still Here!: Harold Prince – The Man Who Transformed Broadway (Part Two: 1970 – Present) plays at the Delray Beach Playhouse through June 5.

for kids...

Sol Children's Theatre Troupe performs You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown through May 19, 2013.

Actors' Playhouse presents the original children's musical Excellent Conquest through May 25, 2013.

Inanna and the Huluppu Tree returns to the Miami Theater Center through June 2, 2013

Broward Center: War Horse (3 reviews)

2013-05-08T23:31:00.000-04:00

The national tour of War Horse opened at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on May 7, 2013.

England, 1914. As World War One begins, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped from England to France. He's soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary journey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.

Following the original direction by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, Bijan Shibani staged a cast that included Michael Wyatt Cox, Angela Reed, Cahd Jennings, Jason Loughlin, Andrew Veenstra, Brian Robert Burns, Jessica Krueger, Rob Laqui, Christopher Mai, Gregory Manley, Patrick Osteen, Jon Riddleberger, Derek Straton, Danny Yoerges, Laurabeth Breya, Catherine Gowl, and Nick LaMedica.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

The horrors of war are... brought into stark, heartbreaking relief by a play whose simple style allows its true stars — magnificent, life-sized horse “puppets” that become living, breathing beings in a matter of minutes — to shine as they enthrall the imaginative child within anyone who watches them.

Nick Stafford’s War Horse script keeps the focus on Albert and Joey, together and separately, and it effectively explores betrayal, loyalty and the cost of war. Its tension-relieving comic moments, however, feel superfluous.

What makes War Horse so magical, beyond the key ingredient of the remarkable horses created by Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones of South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company, is its simple yet powerful style. ...War Horse creates a complex world. Raging battles between the British and Germans in northern France are brought to life with little more than lighting effects, the sounds of gunfire, billowing smoke and a few men (and their horses) moving chaotically.

Staged by Bijan Sheibani (the original direction was by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris), the tour at the Broward Center features a versatile American cast, including actor-singer John Milosich, whose haunting voice at key moments is such a vital part of the show’s musical palette. Among the production’s scattered weaker elements are the way Morf plays Albert — he seems rather slow, not the determined young hero the story needs — and the casting of an obviously adult actress as the “little” French girl Emilie.
Theater lovers addicted to Broadway at its most lavish may find War Horse too simple. But folks who go to the theater hoping to get lost in a story and longing to be moved will feel utterly fulfilled by Joey and War Horse.

Bill Hirschman reviewed (and included a lot of cool facts) for Florida Theater On Stage:

War Horse is cherished by many of us who saw it at Lincoln Center in 2011 as one of the twenty or so most moving and brilliantly executed pieces of total theater we have been privileged to see. There are adjectives that have lost their pungency by their indiscriminate use by the verbally lazy. One is amazing and another is awesome. To have seen War Horse is to be reminded of the strict dictionary definitions.

...audiences continue to be thrilled by the geniuses who designed, built and now endow breath nightly into the larger-than-life puppets that nearly transmute into flesh-and-bone horses. And the creatures are only one element among superbly conceived and blended facets of stagecraft that produce a transporting night of theater.

The puppets are delightful, even seen in the sunlight as we did the morning before opening night. But it cannot be overstated that the triumph of War Horse is actually the superb melding of another half-dozen theatrical skill sets: minimalist but evocative settings, morphing lights and a sound design that is alternately subtle and overwhelming, affecting musical underscoring and folk songs performed live, perfect pacing recreated on the road by Bijan Sheibani (a former colleague of Miami’s Tarell Alvin McCraney) and above all, a visual sense of movement and spectacle that fuses into something you cannot experience anywhere else.

The acting is not especially stunning although absolutely serviceable, led by Alex Morf as Albert and Andrew May as German cavalry officer Friedrich Muller; bravura performances would probably detract from the illusion. But it must be noted that the thick Devon and German accents made a good deal of the dialogue unintelligible.

If the road production of War Horse falls just this side of paradise, to borrow a phrase, it’s still close enough to make the journey.

Roger Martin reviewed for miami artzine:

I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for a sob story. Sappy, soppy, lung squeezing tales get me every time. A boy and his dog, a boy and his bird, wait for it, even a boy and his horse... It’s War Horse! Now with sobs aplenty! Now playing at the Broward Center!

And it’s a bloody marvel..

Although the emotional manipulation is rampant, all is forgiven when the miraculous horses appear. Life size puppetry at its best. And the goose ain't bad, either.

The designers of War Horse have gone for simplicity; a bare stage...Sketches of the country side, dates, place names, flying mud clods and body parts from endless exploding shells, the flash of machine gun fire; all are superimposed on a suspended screen, that seems a rent in the fabric of life.

Tumultuous sound drives the affair. And the lighting, especially in the second act, becomes a flashing black and white opera of violent storms, exploding ammunition and the madness of the World War One cavalry charges.

There's a huge cast at work here, behind the scenes, on the stage and inside the horses and all live up to the reputation preceding them. Costumes are wonderful, accents spot on, and immersion is total.

War Horse plays at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts through May 19, 2013

Arsht Center: Memphis (3 reviews)

2013-05-08T23:26:00.001-04:00

The national tour of Memphis opened at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on May 7, 2013

Winner of four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical, MEMPHIS features a Tony-winning book by Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) and a Tony-winning original score with music by Bon Jovi founding member David Bryan. Directing is Tony nominee Christopher Ashley (Xanadu), and choreography is by Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys). Get ready to experience Broadway's most exciting new destination and what AP calls "The very essence of what a Broadway musical should be."

Christopher Ashley directed a cast that included Bryan Fenkart, Felicia Boswell, Rhett George, Julie Johnson, Horace V. Rogers, William Parry, and Will Mann.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

When the cast lines the stage in gold outfits and kicks out the anthem “Don’t let anyone steal your rock ‘n’ roll” and utters those deathless lines of poetry “Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, ” it’s a joyous validation for the Boomers that their rebellious embrace of “that music” a half-century ago was right all along. This Broadway Across America tour at the Arsht Center still gets the crowd on its feet long before the dictates of the now-standard South Florida Standing Ovation.

Essential to a successful production of Memphis is the casting of the two leads and the production has had phenomenal luck finding performer after performer to succeed each other in these roles that require not just strong singing chops but scorching charisma.

This round, Huey is played by Bryan Fenkart who was a stand-by in the Broadway production. Sporting a molasses drawl, Fenkart exudes the blinding and blinded enthusiasm of this illiterate social misfit who finally finds something he’s good at.

Felicia is normally played by Felicia Boswell, but on Tuesday, understudy Kelcy Griffin stepped in. If someone as strong as Griffin is the second-string, we can’t imagine what Boswell must be like. Besides being ravishingly beautiful, Griffin caressed every song with a voice of molten caramel...

Another major asset is Trujillo’s period choreography executed by a troupe that effortlessly glides, slides and spins.

Side note: Like most entries in Broadway Across America’s tours in Miami, Memphis is only at the Arsht for a week. We don’t know how well the shows are selling, so the economics may be prohibitive. But we wish shows would settle in for a longer run.

Howard Cohen reviewed wrote for The Miami Herald:

Memphis, the 2010 Tony winner for best musical, reveals its big, dumb heart early on in its brief run at the Adrienne Arsht Center.

Huey Calhoun (played with goofball charm by Bryan Fenkart) is an idealistic white boy in deeply-segregated Memphis of the early 1950s who is drawn to the soulful, electrifying music he hears streaming out of an all-black club, Delray’s, on Memphis’ famed Beale Street.

Joe DiPietro’s book and David Bryan’s lyrics predictably push familiar buttons without ever really tapping emotions. Christopher Ashley’s hurried direction doesn't build tension.

Bryan, keyboardist for popular New Jersey rock band Bon Jovi, composes facsimiles of R&B for Memphis that, like Bon Jovi’s rock music, is entertaining in a pinch. Unlike Bon Jovi, however, Memphis is graced with some amazing vocal talent that erupts out of nowhere on David Gallo’s multilevel set.

...Gator (Rhett George), traumatized into silence by his father’s lynching, suddenly finds his voice on the rousing anthem, Say a Prayer, as he lets loose with a sustained, pitch-perfect note. Mama Gladys (Julie Johnson), largely a cartoon, unleashes some voice-shredding testifying on Change Don’t Come Easy that would challenge Aretha Franklin in her prime. Boswell is a first-rate vocalist, especially on the smoldering Colored Woman and commercial Someday.

Roger Martin reviewed for miamiartzine:

... let me be the first to urge you to drop everything and jump on the first bus, train or plane and get on up to Orlando, the show's next tour stop. Don't walk. Run if you want to catch a musical that personifies excellence in every facet.

Even if R and B and Rock n Roll make your eyeballs vibrate in fury you're just going to have to love this piece. And I don't just mean the music, the singing, the dancing, the choreography, the acting, the directing. How about those slick as whale scales scene changes? The sets themselves? The lighting? The sound? You want fifties costumes, pony tails and bobby sox? You want every cliché in the book? Black girl, white boy, racist violence? It's all there.

Not to go overboard on Memphis, (too late), but here's a nosegay or two for the performers. How about simply terrific? Don't stop, I love it? The leads, Bryan Fenkart as Huey the white DJ and Felicia Boswell as Felicia the black singer. Horace V. Rogers as Delray, Felicia's brother and Rhett George as Gator and Will Mann as Bobby, his buddies. William Parry as radio station owner Mr Simmons. And Julie Johnson as Mama, who in an evening of show stoppers cracks the joint wide open. Twenty-nine people in the cast and nine in the orchestra and, you know, I didn't see or hear a weak link.

A must mention here of the excellent direction of Christopher Ashley and the spectacular choreography of Sergio Trujillo. As to the rest of the production team? I left the theatre wondering how do they do that? Mount what seems a flawless show.

Memphis plays at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts through May 12, 2013

Off Stage Conversations

2013-05-08T21:29:00.003-04:00

Hello Everyone, this is Andie Arthur, Executive Director of the South Florida Theatre League and Artistic Director of Lost Girls Theatre, and I'm here with this week's Off Stage Conversations, where I take a look at conversations happening in the national and international theatre community.

The Untenable Whiteness of Theatre

Clayton Lord presents a stark visual representation on diversity in the industry in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I'd be really fascinated by a similar graph for our location. (Yet another reason for a community database...)

I know I link a lot to discussions on diversity and gender parity (two great interviews touching on those subjects) -- but that graph shows why this conversation is important to be having. Not only is it a moral right to address these issues, but it's vital to our survival.

I think a lot of change can come from just admitting our biases. When I was at the APASO Conference, Leah Cooper (the executive director of the Minnesota Theatre Alliance) said that they had a meeting in the Minneapolis community after she called out the Guthrie for having an all white male season, an artistic director (and I sadly forget who) wanted to start the meeting with everyone introducing themselves, pointing out where they are privileged and where they are biased. For example, if I was joining this conversation, I could say that I'm privileged as a white person and biased in favor of younger people.

And simply by saying that, I'm more aware of my assumptions. And in being aware of my assumptions, I can make better choices and try to overcome my biases and check my privilege when I can.

I think a lot of our overreaching problems (including the scarcity thinking issue) if we spent more time acknowledging our assumptions.

Speaking of Checking With Your Assumptions

"Nonprofit board members grossly overestimate the importance of their own time and talent, and believe personal philanthropy to be the least of their responsibilities in the “time, treasure, talent” continuum."

Back to Abundance Thinking

Last week, I talked a lot about scarcity thinking and how I think it is the biggest problem facing our community. On Friday, Megan Gogerty wrote the Great Release, which is a beautiful post showcasing the shift to abundance thinking. It's playwright specific, because she's writing on her experience as a playwright, but this is the sort of shift that creates more pie. She has a follow up post, addressing many of the comments in the original post.

Critical Questions

Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood take readers' questions in the New York Times. There's a lot of interesting stuff here, but my favorite bit is Isherwood's take on awards:

We are certainly awash in theater awards these days, and I cannot claim to keep track of how the chips fall from year to year. Even the most esteemed award, which is probably the Pulitzer Prize for drama, has a far from perfect record in terms of selecting plays that, with time, have proven their enduring worth. Laurel-bestowing makes the award-givers and the award-getters feel good, but I’m not sure we should look to awards tallies for measures of true artistic merit. Maybe only history can give that verdict (and, heck, even history probably gets things wrong now and then).

Two Good Thoughts and One Questionable One

Donna Hoke has a new blog series called the Real Inspiration for Playwrights Project, collecting stories of how playwrights get produced, including talking to our own community's Ricky J. Martinez.

Melissa Hillman talks about why you need to hire a fight director for fight scenes. And not only that -- you should bring your fight director into the design process along with your set, costume, lighting, and sound designers.

Mike Lew wonders if theatres would gain more financial stability if they went from having 4 to 6 productions a year to 18. The assumption in the post is that the company has multiple venues, which isn't the case for the majority of South Florida Theatres. While I am a big champion of Never Be Dark, I would prefer a solution similar to Victory Gardens Theater's residency program that I talked about last week. It would provide the increase in volume that he is talking about, while not being a drain on creative energy. But it is an interesting thing to think about, and I love the point that so many plays could really take place on the same NYC apartment set.

Mondays are Dark

2013-05-06T13:40:00.001-04:00

And today? It decided I meant to save it as a DRAFT instead of a DELAYED POST. Sigh.
***********

So last week we had just about finished the reading list when we decided that one of the items deserved its own entire article.

So we copied the relevant data to a new post - or so we thought. We've mentioned that the latest version of Firefox has basically broken our favorite blog editor, so we were trying to make do with a different version of said editor that is supposed to work with the current Firefox. And it almost does. Except for the part when you start a new article without explicitly telling it to save the current project. The "New" version... doesn't.

Now we've regressed our version of Firefox to the version of Scribefire we know and love, that works properly (except for the ability to insert images).So here's an extra-long Monday reading list - enjoy!

Teeing Off This Friday
Broadway World fills us in on the next play at Actors' Playhouse; Ken Ludwig's The Fox on the Fairway. It opens this week at the Miracle Theater in Coral Gables.

Ain't No Punch and Judy
The Miami Herald fills us in on Warhorse, opening this week at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Make no mistakes; this is the show you don't want to miss. The puppets are amazing. The Broward/Palm Beach New Times spoke with some of the puppetteers.

"As a dancer, I feel that a lot of what we do is very dance-like," says Haskell, who also builds puppets and haunted houses in New York. "You have to constantly think, because if my partner chooses to do something, the rest of the horse has to go along with it. It's one of the hardest parts about doing it, to constantly be completely active, mentally and physically."

If you've spent any time around horses, you will be amazed at how well they succeed.

Speaking of the Broward Center
While we don't read the Sun-Sentinel anymore, someone sent us this excellent commentary that deserves sharing, even if the paper itself has generally rotten arts coverage.

Broward Center CEO Kelley Shanley deserves credit for managing the process, people, partners and moving parts of this multi-year negotiation with determination, flexibility and good cheer.

The proposal he takes before the school board Tuesday is well considered, well designed and well negotiated; it deserves approval.

In a few weeks, a number of Broward high schools will arrive at the Broward Center to hold their graduation ceremonies; an elementary school will spend a morning backstage to learn how math and science are used in live performance, and that same elementary school will perform its spring show there. Last week, students from numerous schools got to show their stuff on a world-class stage, and in a couple of weeks, South Florida high schools will hold their own awards ceremony for theater excellence, the CAPPIES. And this doesn't begin to cover all the workshops and masterclasses the Center has hosted over the years. AND - free musicals for students, all year long, all chosen to compliment the curriculum.

The arts are a good investment in general; the Broward Center is offering the school board a tremendous return on its investment.

The Business of Show Business
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the regional theater subscriber-based business model.

Other Approaches
HowlRound examines different ways to get around the shortcomings of funding and drawing an audience.

Effective Facebooking
Arts411 gives us five great tips on how to get more out of Facebook; most of these apply to social media in general. In particular, we here at The Scene have gotten a lot of mileage out of #1.

The Lowdown on Highlights
One Apostrophe At A Time grumbles about this year's Olivier Awards Ceremonies Highlights broadcast. But while many of his points are specific to the re-broadcast, they are an insight to what an awards ceremony ought to be accomplishing.

Surely the whole point of putting the Oliviers on television in the first place is to put a celebration of/commercial for the best our theatre has to offer in front of as wide an audience as possible? IF that was the aim – and it should have been – then the show was largely a miserable failure. We saw nothing at all of any of the nominated new plays, even though at least some of them are still running, and nothing at all (on the broadcast, at least) of some of the nominated musicals.

It's interesting that some of his complaints echo those of critics of the Carbonell Awards.

Making Mountains of Molehills
The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Broadway producer Scott Rudin "dressed down" a New York Times reporter who committed the sin of asking a Tony-nominated playwright how he felt about Rudin's decision to close the freshly-nominated play. We don't understand Mr. Rudin's ire (if ire there is); the question is fair; you've just received one of the highest honors possible for your play, and the producer decides to close the play; can you reconcile that? That's not a condemnation of the decision, it's simply a fair question.

And it goes to show; excellence and accolades do not guarantee attendance.

Mad Cat Moves to the Sandbox, and The Herald hires prudes
Mad Cat Theater Company has been resident with The Miami Light Project since the company's inception in 2000. And they even followed the Light Project when it moved from Biscayne Boulevard to Wynwood. But Florida Theater On Stage and Broadway World report that Mad Cat has announced that it will become a resident company at The Miami Theater Center, working out of that facility's black box studio - the one that was called The Sandbox back when that company was The Playground Theater.

The Drama Queen notes that the company will be staging Blow Me, which was part of the South Beach Comedy Festival under a much better if less shocking title. Of course, some idiot editor at The Herald thinks that "Blow" is a dirty word, because they blotted out two letters. It's not. Fucker is a dirty word. Shit is a dirty word. Blow is a completely innoccuous and common word. You blow a kiss, blow on your soup to blow away the blow flies hovering over it, an argument can come to blows, and it's an ill wind that blows when a major daily can't bother to hire editors who know the difference. You think Bl** Me is necessary? Well, f**k you.

But we concede that Blow Me is a title intended to batter your sensibilities; an unnecessarily offensive move, in our opinion. This title lacks the, um, charm of Charming Acts of Misery. If purpose of a title is to make people blot out letters because it is potentially offensive, why not go whole hog and call it The Fucking Junkie Bitch Who Shot Up Shit and Died Play? I mean, as long as you're going needlessly over the top in a shallow attempt to shock people, go all the way, right?

And Paul? I double-dog dare you to use that title. ;-)

Everything Has Its Season
While the Broadway revival of Pippin is garnering great reviews for South Florida native Rachel Bay Jones, The Examiner reports that Boca Raton Theatre Guild is opening up a production much closer to home. Along with a few other shows in its next season.

Speaking of Seasons
The Drama Queen has the City Theatre line-up for its latest incarnation of Summer Shorts, while Florida Theater On Stage has the line-up for the 60th season at Lake Worth Playhouse.

Meanwhile
...in Miami Beach, The Herald reports that they're going to keep the Jackie Gleason Theatre. Originally named the Miami Beach Auditorium, it produced hit shows on the south Florida theatre scene as The Miami Beach Theater of the Performing Arts, and was prominent in the early years of the Carbonell Awards. Known as The Fillmore Miami Beach over the last few years, there were plans to demolish the hall to make way for a new convention center. But no longer:

...with music and history lovers lined up in support of saving the theater, the team told The Miami Herald on Tuesday that its plan has changed.

“We listened to the community,” said Jack Portman, vice chairman of Portman Holdings and John Portman & Associates.

And how sweet it is.

The Scene for May 3, 2013

2013-05-02T20:55:00.001-04:00

You've probably noticed we're still running behind with The Scene, and Mondays are Dark never made it.

In fact, we had completed a MONDAYS ARE DARK reading list, and the last item was Karen Stephens winning her award. Then we decided that that should have a post of its own. And instead of saving the old post in drafts while we crafted the new post, this sad version of Scribefire simple lost the entire article. Hours of work, gone. We fully intended to recreate it the next day, but then this cold that's been going around the office kicked in, and suddenly it's Thursday.

So we'll have an extra-special post on Monday.

In the meantime, tra-la, it's May, and... well, you know how the song goes. We hope.

Here's what's playing on the scene this weekend.

opening...

If you find yourself in Key West, The Waterfront Playhouse opens Deathtrap, through May 18.

Teatro en Miami Studio opens Chat through June 22nd.

you still haven't missed...

Zoetic Stage presents its production of Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation at the Arsht Center through May 18, 2013.

Waist Watchers the Musical has been packing them in at The Plaza Theatre - it's been extended through May 12!

Laffing Matterz is back at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts; new show, new chef, new seasons of laughs.

coming and going...

My Heart in a Suitcase plays the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center on Friday night only.

last chance to see...

Stage Door Theatre Company 's production of Jeffrey at the Byron Carlisle Theater in Miami Beach,winds it up this Sunday, May 5. But it looks like someone hacked their Miami website. Ooops.

Fresh Theater Project presents Joe and Maria's Comedy Italian Wedding at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts through May 5th.

I’m Still Here!: Harold Prince – The Man Who Transformed Broadway (Part Two: 1970 – Present) plays at the Delray Beach Playhouse through June 5.

for kids...

Showtime Performing Arts presents Mulan through May 4.

Broward Center for the Performing Arts offers We're Going On A Bear Hunt on May 4 as part of its Family Fun Day; a perfect way to spend a rainy Saturday.

Intergalactic Nemesis plays at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts this Saturday. Not just for kids, we're told.

South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center offers The All Kids Included Family Festival this Saturday. Another great way to spend a soggy Saturday.

Tarzan swings into the Miami Children's Theater through May 18.

Sol Children's Theatre Troupe performs You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown through May 19, 2013.

Actors' Playhouse presents the original children's musical Excellent Conquest through May 25, 2013.

Inanna and the Huluppu Tree returns to the Miami Theater Center through June 2, 2013

Off Stage Conversations

2013-05-01T11:26:00.000-04:00

Happy Wednesday. I'm Andie Arthur, executive director of the South Florida Theatre League and I am here with this week's Off Stage Conversations, where I take a look at what's being discussed in the national and international theatre community.

Scarcity Thinking

If someone would ask me what is the biggest problem facing the South Florida Theatre Community -- I wouldn't say a lack of strategic planning or diminishing funding (though both are major issues), I would say scarcity thinking. Scarcity thinking is when we get into the trap that there is only a limited amount of resources (audience, money, time, etc) and that we're all competing for the same pie. And I really believe that most of our problems with fundraising, marketing, etc come from a scarcity thinking perspective. So we're all competing for the same audience, instead of looking to develop a new, untapped audience. Or we're all competing for the same twenty donors, instead of trying to reach out to new funding sources.

Last week, I went to a presentation at the Broward Center by the executive director of the Trey McIntyre Project, a dance company in Boise, ID, who achieved the ambitious goal of making their dance company as well-known and vital to their city as a local major sports team. They danced in bars and on the street. They went into hospitals and worked with patients. They commissioned local artists to paint pictures of each of the dancers and then auctioned those paintings, splitting the proceeds 50/50 with the artists. They talked a local bar into creating a drink for each of dancers. And now they're at the point that even if you're not one of their patrons -- you're aware of the Trey McIntyre Project the same way that local citizens are aware of the Miami Heat.

And I think the biggest obstacle keeping our local theatres from working in the community like the Trey McIntyre Project is black magical thinking. We're so caught up on the problems of the diminishing funding, traditional audience, and mainstream news coverage that we're not doing the work needed to make the arts as vital as the Miami Heat.

And I'm not immune to it. My biggest issue with scarcity thinking is time -- "I don't have time to do that." And while time is a finite resource, instead of getting bogged down into the minutia, I could look at ways of rationing time better and finding ways that others can help.

But over all, we need to stop thinking that there is only one pie and we all get a sliver of it. Instead of bemoaning that certain people get all the pie; we can focus on getting another pie.

A Good Example of Changing the Paradigm

Victory Gardens Theater recently announced that it was cutting back its season from five plays a year to three plays a year in order to better manage its finances, which have been unstable in recent years. When they are not producing, they are hosting four other smaller theatres in a resident theatre program. This way Victory Gardens saves money by cutting down on the number of productions, continues to earn a portion of box office income while they are dark, and gains to a new audience that might not have ever been to their traditional offerings. The resident company gains access to more resources for production, a new audience that might not have been to their smaller rental spaces, and the guidance that comes from with a larger institution.

Chicago already has a great example of a similar program at Steppenwolf, but it's interesting to see Victory Gardens adapt this model during a stress period, as a way to reduce costs.

Let Them Drink Beer

Charlie Miller and Emily Tarquin of the Off-Center @ The Jones talk about how they developed a new audience by embracing ALL the aspects of a theatre going experience.

Each show is created with the full experience in mind. Artistic, marketing, development, audience engagement, and production are all equal players in the creation of a show. What’s going on in the lobby? What’s happening online? What happens once the performance ends? What community partnerships can we develop to strengthen the experience and broaden our reach?

And they list some really great examples of how they engage younger audiences right as they walk in through the door. What message does your lobby send to your patrons? And does that message fit with both the art you're creating and your patron base?

In my experience, the theatre company that embraces this concept the most is the House Theatre of Chicago, though less so at the Arsht than in Chicago. The link goes to an older blog post of mine on how excited I was about The Sparrow two years ago, but I talk about what makes their shows stand out -- and a lot of it goes back to the idea that the show doesn't start when the house lights go down.

But embracing the idea of the whole theatre going experience doesn't just have to be about getting younger people in the audience -- TimeLine Theatre in Chicago, which does plays about history and how the past effects us today, have really intricate, museum quality dramaturgy displays on the historical event or person that the play surrounds. It's thinking about how to engage your audience in the entire experience and making theatre going memorable and exciting.

Trying New Things

The Royal Shakespeare Company and Google have partnered to do A Midsummer Night's Dream in real time, over a variety of online formats. Audiences will be able to interact with the characters via social media.

Practical Stuff for (Playwrights and Other) Theatre Artists

Gwydion Suilebhan has seven tips for playwrights to be successful on twitter. I think the advice is broad enough so that everyone can find it useful.

And then I wrote the following piece for the Dramatist Magazine on why EVERYONE should apply for Creative Capital.

Congratulations Are In Order

2013-04-28T18:09:00.002-04:00

Karen Stephens was awarded the 2013Randolph A. Frank Prize for the Performing Arts, along with Dan Guinn of the Boca Ballet Theatre.

Here is the press release:

FIFTH ANNUAL RANDOLPH A. FRANK PRIZE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
AWARDS PAIR OF WINNING ARTISTS

Steven Caras, Founding Chairman of the Randolph A. Frank Prize for the Performing Arts, has announced that two individuals whose dedicated work enhances the quality of life here in Palm Beach County have been selected by the Frank Prize Board of Directors (Steven Caras, Tracy C. Butler, Jo Ann Engelhardt, Ann Marie Rezzonico, Roy Bartolomei, and Craig D. Ames) to be the fifth annual, 2013 recipients. They will be awarded crystal trophies and a monetary prize at a private ceremony in their honor that will take place on May 20, 2013, at Nick & Johnnie's Patio Bar and Grill restaurant. The event is sponsored by Nancy and Jay Parker of Palm Beach.

Karen Stephens, a professional actor who has been awarded this year's Performing Artist Prize, is a native of West Palm Beach whose interest in the performing arts began with her study of violin. But subsequent rewarding experiences in public speaking through National Forensics and a high school drama club clearly determined the direction her future would take. Today, after many years working professionally in South Florida, Karen Stephens has established herself as an artist of note in her inspired work as an actor, writer, performer, and director. Most recently appearing in the Maltz Jupiter Theater's production of DOUBT, she also continues to perform regularly at many of South Florida's professional venues. In 2011, Ms. Stephens was featured in the regional premiere of Sarah Jones' one-woman show; BRIDGE & TUNNEL for which she was honored with the New Times Best Actress Award as well being nominated for a Carbonell Award in the category of Best Actress. She is also the recipient of numerous other honors including the Curtain Up, Silver Palm and Clyde Fyfe Awards for her outstanding work as one of our community's most respected and cherished performing artists.

Dan Guin, Executive and Co-Artistic Director of Boca Ballet Theatre, has been awarded the Performing Arts Educator Prize. After spending the summer of 1991 in Boca Raton devoted to establishing a summer dance workshop, Dan knew that the minute his dance career was behind him, he'd be back. Two years later, Dan returned to accept the position of Artistic Director of the newly formed Boca Ballet Theatre and from the onset, his significant contribution to our community as a motivating educator has been extensive and widely successful. Celebrating their 20th year, the dance company provides the community with exhilarating original productions, featuring all enrolled students with ballet super star guest artists inspiring both audience members and students alike. BBT's school continues to honor Mr. Guin's original mission in providing local dance students the very best instruction, making certain that no child is denied ballet training due to financial circumstances. First piloted in 1999, BBT's First Step Program provides at-risk children from economically challenging circumstances training in modern dance and classical ballet, while covering all related costs from dance clothes to transportation. Mr. Guin received the Colin Powell School of Promise Award for the development of this vital program. On April 22nd, 2013, in collaboration with the Mark Morris Dance Group and Brooklyn Parkinson's Group, the organization adds another important project to their mission. Boca Ballet Theatre will introduce BBT 4 PD which will offer free Monday classes to anyone living with Parkinson's, taught by dance teachers specifically trained to instruct individuals with the disease.

"I am both elated and humbled to be awarded this prize and honor. It is a validation of my work as artist and my commitment to the artistic culture of Palm Beach County. Receiving the Randolph A. Frank Prize will not only aid me in continuing my own work but will also help to further imprint my art on the cultural landscape. Thank you!"- Karen Stephens

"Without the support of our patrons and volunteers my vision and success could not have come to fruition. Receiving the Frank Prize is a tremendous honor for me and validates so many people’s unwavering support. I am truly grateful.” - Dan Guin

Congratulations to both recipients.

The Scene for April 26, 2013

2013-04-26T21:40:00.000-04:00

Sorry; we're really late this week. Even though the theater season is slowing down, our own work in theater has been very busy over the last few weeks.

Not a lot of new shows opening this week, save for one in Coral Gables.

It's the National Children's Theater Festival Family Day at Actors' Playhouse this Saturday. The centerpiece of the day's events is the premiere of the new children's musical Excellent Conquest. In addition, there will be magicians and singers and storytellers, as well as lots of hands-on activities.

Here's what's playing on the scene this weekend.

you still haven't missed...

Zoetic Stage presents its production of Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation at the Arsht Center through May 18, 2013.

Stage Door Theatre Company opens Jeffrey at the Byron Carlisle Theater in Miami Beach, through May 5. But it looks like someone hacked their Miami website. Ooops.

Fresh Theater Project presents Joe and Maria's Comedy Italian Wedding at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts through May 5th.

Waist Watchers the Musical has been packing them in at The Plaza Theatre - it's been extended through May 12!

Laffing Matterz is back at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts; new show, new chef, new seasons of laughs.

coming and going...

Priscilla Queen Of The Desert plays at the Kravis Center through April 28, 2013.

last chance to see...

Palm Beach Dramaworks' criticially acclaimed Exit The King winds up its run on April 28, 2013.

Broward Stage Door's upmteenh revival of Beau Jest through April 28.

community and conservatory...

South Pacific plays UM's Jerry Herman Ring Theatre through April 27.

Florida Atlantic University stages the classic Lysistrata, through April 27.

Lake Worth Playhouse presents Barnum through April 28.

The African-American Performing Arts Community Theater (AAPACT) production of Anne & Emmett plays at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center through May 12, 2013.

The Main Street Players offers Glengarry Glen Ross through May 19.

Over The River and Through the Woods plays at the Tamarac Theatre Of Performing Arts through May 5, 2013.

for kids...

Showtime Performing Arts presents Mulan through May 4.

Stage Door: Beau Jest (reviews)

2013-04-25T01:31:00.001-04:00

. The Stage Door Theater opened its production of Beau Jest on April 5, 2013.

When Sarah Goldman, a lovely young school teacher in Chicago, wants to please her parents, she invents a boyfriend whom she believes will be the man of her mother's dreams.

When her parents insist on meeting the man, Sarah hires Bob, an actor, to pretend to be her "beau". The masquerade works flawlessly for a time and brings comic situations, but in the end, their lives are irrevocably changed.

Michael Leeds direted a cast that included Matthew William Chizever, Sara Fetgatter, Sally Bondi, Larry Kent Bramble, Justin Lawrence and Mark Levy.

.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

... Beau Jest simply resonates in South Florida. So reviving it — particularly if the revival works as well as the Michael Leeds-directed one at Stage Door — makes sense.

Chizever does most of the comedic heavy lifting as Bob, an actor who gained most of his insights into Judaism from being in productions of Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret.. His Bob is always one blown line away from wrecking Sarah’s fiction, so Chizever makes the actor energized, nervous and very funny.

Fetgatter is a sweet and pretty Sarah... Bondi and Bramble are saddled with stereotypical characters... but the actors bring plenty of warmth to the senior Goldmans. Both Lawrence and Levy are effective in their far smaller roles.

Director Leeds keeps the comedy breezy and affectionate. Characters come into conflict, get hurt and come out the other side OK. Beau Jest is neither deep nor great, but Leeds and his cast explore and deliver its modest pleasures.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Beau Jest has been around so long that... The uber-Jewish farce may have been the first show Ponce de Leon saw on his first visit to these shores at the Fountain Dinner Theater.

But there’s a reason, as seen in Broward Stage Door’s revival. Despite a sentimental mechanical finale and humor so vaudevillian you can hear the rim shots, James Sherman’s may be script may be formulaic but it’s also truly funny, especially when enhanced by the skills of star Matthew William Chizever and director Michael Leeds.

Chizever, who nailed his dramatic roles last season in GableStage’s Venus In Fur and Naked Stage’s The Turn of the Screw, is emerging as a first-rate light comedian. He hasn’t always scored in some shows, but it’s becoming clear that when he has the right director, he has an easy charm that cloaks a gently subversive wit and a wicked sense of comic timing.

(ed. note - Bill obviously never saw Laffing Matterz when Chizever was a cast member; he was a practiced comic actor before striking out to land the dramatic roles)

The rest of the cast is pretty solid with troupers like Bondi and Bramble knowing exactly how to deliver dialogue so predictable that the audience knows what’s coming. Fetgatter is also a nice addition, investing a lovably hapless anxiety to the gatherings that seem to teeter on the brink of disaster.

But the real star is Leeds who keeps the farcical proceedings humming without seeming forced or rushed... He invents or allows his cast to inject scores of clever grace notes.

Beau Jest plays at the Broward Stage Door Theater through April 28, 2013.

Off Stage Conversations

2013-04-24T18:25:00.001-04:00

Hello, this is Andie Arthur, Executive Director of the South Florida Theatre League and I'm here with Off Stage Conversations, where I take a look at what the national and international theatre community is talking about.

Gender Parity

This week is Gender Parity Discussion week at HowlRound, with the weekly howl on twitter tomorrow afternoon. There's a lot of good discussion happening, both on HowlRound and off.

Brad Erikson (the executive director of Theatre Bay Area) interviews Carey Perloff, the artistic director ACT who talks about the management side of the gender parity issue and childcare.

Playwright Lauren Gunderson interviews playwright Lydia Diamond.

Lauren Gunderson also has some practical ideas on how to address parity.

And Monica Byrne points out that this is a practical issue and instead of focusing on hand-wringing -- we (as theatre artists) should do something practical in response. Boycott theatres not committed to gender parity in 2014. Change won't happen unless there is an incentive to change.

Auditions and Rejections

Melissa Hillman writes from a producers' perspective on why we have auditions. Meanwhile Rica Bramon Garcia writes for BackStage on why actors need to embrace rejection.

President Obama's NEA Budget and the Tax Code

Obama's Proposed Budget includes increased funding for the NEA, but arts advocates are concerned about the capping of income tax deductions.

If This Works, We're Doing It

Three Chicago Theatre Companies band together to hire a joint development director.

Stop Settling

Megan Reilly talks about how designers need to stop settling and create vivid designs with respect to their limitations.

TCG Takes on Audience Engagement

David Loehr of 2amt is now working with TCG on audience engagement. The post is mostly an intro post to David and 2amt, but I'm posting it here because it has this piece of great wisdom:

And for the love of God, if your company retweets people praising your company over and over, stop that. Your followers already like you, they don’t need convincing. Potential followers don’t want to see the hard sell, that’s an instant turn-off.

Both David and I have said this before, but it bears repeating. Do cool things and the social media audience will follow. There is even a cartoon about this.

AAPACT: Anne & Emmett (reviews)

2013-04-23T09:27:00.000-04:00

The African-American Performing Arts Community Theater (AAPACT) opened its production of Anne & Emmett at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center on April 20, 2013.

A one act play that explores an imaginary conversation between Anne Frank and Emmett Till, both victims of racial intolerance and hatred. The beyond-the-grave encounter draws the startling similarities between the two youths’ harrowing experiences and the atrocities against their respective races.

Teddy Harrell, Jr. directed a cast that included Shawn Burgess, Zasha Shary, Kandace Crystal, Sheldon Cohen and Tommy O’Brien.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

The African American Performing Arts Community Theatre (AAPACT) has just opened its version of Anne & Emmett at Miami’s African Heritage Cultural Arts Center. And, like the play itself, the production is uneven.

The most valuable asset director Teddy Harrell Jr. has in AAPACT’s Anne & Emmett is Burgess. The young actor gives a rich, credible performance as a teen whose vibrant nature and humor give way to traumatized stuttering and an understandable refusal to revisit his demise in words.

The rest of the cast is problematic. Shary, who is making her stage debut, has two chief emotional modes: angry and dreamy. She mispronounces some words (“Hedy Lamarr” becomes “Heidi Lamarr,” for example), and sometimes comes off as a petulant brat. Crystal gives an earnest performance as Till’s mother, but she’s so young (seemingly so close in age to Burgess) that she’s hard to buy in the role. Cohen fumbles and stumbles in trying to remember lines, undercutting his effectiveness. As J.W. Millam, one of Till’s acquitted killers, Tommy O’Brien spews unrepentant racism and hatred.

Michelle Solomon wrote for Florida Theater On Stage:

Director Teddy Harrell, Jr. lets Langhart Cohen’s piece speak for itself, adding staging that creates wonderfully framed pictures to the thoughtful script — this imagined crossing of paths.

Burgess as Emmett is the standout here. He’s likeable, adding a bit of adolescent swagger to the boy who hoped to grow up to be a comedian or a motorcycle policeman. His awestruck innocence is infectious when he closes his eyes to take us through a bit of modern Black History

Shary’s Anne Frank is solid as a rock, smart as a whip, and as determined as one might imagine this heroine to be. Her overwhelming emotion at the horror of Emmett’s story is heart-wrenching and real.

AAPACT’s Anne & Emmett is a beautifully constructed portrait of two young heroes who, unbeknownst to them, made a world of difference.

The African-American Performing Arts Community Theater (AAPACT) production of Anne & Emmett plays at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center through May 12, 2013.

Mondays are Dark

2013-04-22T06:00:00.000-04:00

Photo by Teddy Harrell

Today's "dark" theater is at The African-American Performing Arts Community Theater (AAPACT) at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center. The center's Wendell A Narcisse Performing Arts Theater is a black box that can seat up to 250. Located in the heart of Liberty City, it's actually fairly easy to get to, and does have off-street parking. And AAPACT does work worth seeing - don't let the "community" appellation put you off. They are currently running Anne & Emmett (see below).

Here's your Monday reading list.

Sheesh, what DIDN'T Ben Franklin Invent?
Butts In Seats tells us about the Father of Matching Grants. Who knew? But we're not surprised.

Attention Playwrights (aspiring and otherwise)
While it's South WEST Florida, Broadway World reports that the Gulfshore Playhouse's New Works Festival is looking for submissions from playwrights from all over. It's just across Alligator Alley...

NOT The Recommended Method
Stage Directions reports that a college theatre in Quebec got its pending renovation fast-tracked after their rigging system failed during a speech by the president of the college.

The college had budgeted for a replacement “within the next five years,” said Geoff Stock, project manager with J. R. Clancy, Inc. “While the president was doing a presentation in the auditorium, one of the hydraulic hoists slipped, and the pipe crept in behind him.”

Suddenly the replacement rose to the top of the agenda.

Quelle surprise.

Into The Thick Of It
Howround decides to engage in theatre criticism. But not in South Florida. YET...

You Know, For The Kids...
The Miami Herald reminds us that the 18th Annual National Children's Theatre Festival kicks off this Saturday from noon to 5pm at Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theater. And as usual, the centerpiece will be the wold premiere of a new musical. This year, it's the rock musical Excellent Conquest, by Earl Maulding and Scott Morlock.

Two Teens Who Never Met
The Miami Herald notes that The African-American Performing Arts Community Theater (AAPACT) is performing Anne & Emmett. Anne Frank and Emmit Till died on separate continents and decades apart, but both as a result of racial prejudice.

An Actor Talks about An Actor Walks...
The Drama Queen reminds us that Collin McPhillamy will be reading selections from his book, An Actor Walks Into China, at Palm Beach Dramaworks this Thursday at 2:30 pm. And if you have the chance to stay and see his performance in Exit the King that evening, do.

Meanwhile...
...in Miami, the Coconut Grove Playhouse is one step closer to becoming a reality, according to Florida Theater On Stage. Well, one very small step closer:

But the road to actually opening up a theater on the property is still long and complex, especially because of pending lawsuits from groups that claim debts owed by the non-profit Coconut Grove Playhouse’s board of directors. No public entity connected to the arrangement wants to incur any debt in the deal, spokespeople have said.

...in Palm Beach, Patrick Flynn may be gone, but his dream is living on, according to the Palm Beach Daily News:

“The theater guild never was Patrick Flynn,” he said. “It wasn’t a one-man show. A lot of people have invested time and money in the group. It was crystal clear that we could not just shut it down.”

The Palm Beach based National Arts Institute has signed a letter of intent to lease the Royal Poinciana Playhouse from Sterling Palm Beach, but no lease has yet been signed.

Miami Stage Door Theater: Jeffrey (reviews)

2013-04-21T13:09:00.003-04:00

Stage Door Theatre Company opened its production of Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey at the Byron Carlyle Theater in Miami Beach on April 12, 2013.

Jeffrey, a gay actor/waiter, has sworn off sex after too many bouts with his partners about what is "safe" and what is not. Suddenly, just after he's reconciled himself to celibacy, Jeffrey's flamboyant friends introduce him to the man of his dreams, who also happens to be HIV-positive. What follows is an audacious and moving romantic comedy with a difference—one in which the quest for love and really fabulous clothes meet, and where unflagging humor prevails even when tragedy might be just around the corner.

Dan Kelly directed a cast that included himself, Randy Charleville, Miki Fridh, Clay Cartland, Daniel Robert Rosenstrauch, and Frank Vomero.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Jeffrey, which has resurfaced in a buoyant, touching production by the Miami Beach Stage Door Theatre at the Byron Carlyle, swirls around the life of its titular hero.

Shane R. Tanner, Randy Charleville, Larry Buzzeo and Niki Fridh impressively play multiple men and women who move in and out of Jeffrey’s world, offering everything from come-ons to comfort.

Played by a less skilled actor, Jeffrey could quickly grow tiresome. Cartland gives him dimension and depth, helping the audience see the world through Jeffrey’s eyes. The actor rides Rudnick’s comic wave, but the richness he brings to the part is most powerfully on display at the end of the first act.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

It’s weird but wonderful that two full decades after the height of the AIDS crisis that Paul Rudnick’s touching but hilarious satire Jeffrey now revived at Miami Beach Stage Door Theatre feels a bit like a period piece.

The reason Jeffrey still works, Rudnick’s uninhibited wicked wit aside, is that the underlying themes are universal and timeless: the overriding importance of pursuing and savoring love despite the risk of loss, something that director Dan Kelley and his cast embrace fearlessly.

Kelley smoothly negotiates the transformation from the hilarious to the heartfelt by adjusting the amount of those two yin-and-yang elements in the mix. Both are always present.

Crucial to the production’s success is Cartland’s central performance. He exudes such an affable Tom Hanks kind of vibe that we can nearly forgive Jeffrey’s brusquely stiff-arming Steve’s open-hearted advances. Cartland has a wonderful stiletto twist with a dry line of humor, but it’s his quiet but intense anxiety that gives the play its emotional heart.

Rosenstrauch is also solid as the impossibly patient Steve, as is the entire cast playing multiple parts.

But the pleasure is watching Kelley as Sterling... it’s notable that while Kelley is terribly funny here, he never relies on vaudevillian shtick or over-the-top camping. His Sterling is real and relatable, and undeniably poignant in his sadness at the end of the play.

Stage Door Theatre Company presents Jeffrey at the Byron Carlyle Theater in Miami Beach through May 5, 2013.

The Scene for April 19, 2013

2013-04-19T15:52:00.001-04:00

One of the tools that has allowed us to serve you, the South Florida Theatre patron, so ably over the years has been a marvelous piece of software known as Scribefire.

It's a blog editor that installs as an add-on to Firefox, Chrome or Safari. While we're surfing the inter-webs, Scribefire opens in a little window either at the bottom or at the side of your blog window, allowing you to copy and drag text or images into it to compose a blog post.

Or rather, it used to do that. The developer (a college student) gave up on it a few years back, so it hasn't changed any. In the meantime, Firefox (and other web browswers) have continued evolving. Earlier this week, we discovered that Scribefire will no longer open, no matter how many time you click the icon, or press the soft-key. And right-clicking it brings you to a set-up wizard that won't accept any input.

Scribefire is effectively dead. And we're left with, oh yes, choices of blog editors, but none of them are integrated with our web browers.

This makes our process slower by many orders of magnitude. It also subtly changes the formatting, since the Blogger editor codes text in a slightly different (if more correct) manner.

Anywho, that's why we're so late. Here's what's playing on the scene this weekend.

you still haven't missed...

Zoetic Stage presents its production of Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation at the Arsht Center through May 18, 2013.

Palm Beach Dramaworks presents Exit The King through April 28, 2013.

Broward Stage Door offers Beau Jest through April 28.

Stage Door Theatre Company opens Jeffrey at the Byron Carlisle Theater in Miami Beach, through May 5. But it looks like someone hacked their Miami website. Ooops.

Fresh Theater Project presents Joe and Maria's Comedy Italian Wedding at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts through May 5th.

Waist Watchers the Musical has been packing them in at The Plaza Theatre - it's been extended through May 12!

Laffing Matterz is back at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts; new show, new chef, new seasons of laughs.

coming and going...

SPANK! The Fifty Shades Parody plays at Parker Playhouse tonight and Saturday only.

Kravis Center presents An Evening With Groucho tonight and tomorrow.

last chance to see...

The Slow Burn Theatre Company production of Sweeney Todd finishes its all too brief run at the West Boca Performing Arts Theater this Sunday April 21, 2013.

Outré Theatre Company presents An Iliad at The Black Box Studio at Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center through April 21, 2013.

The M Ensemble presents It Ain't Nothin' But The Blues at The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse through April 21, 2013

The Addams Family is altogether ookie at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts through April 21.

community and conservatory...

Area Stage Company offers An Evening Of One Act Plays through April 21.

South Pacific plays UM's Jerry Herman Ring Theatre through April 27.

Florida Atlantic University stages the classic Lysistrata, through April 27.

Lake Worth Playhouse presents Barnum through April 28.

Over The River and Through the Woods plays at the Tamarac Theatre Of Performing Arts through May 5, 2013.

for kids...

Showtime Performing Arts presents Mulan through May 4.

Off Stage Conversations

2013-04-17T11:27:00.000-04:00

Hello Everyone, it's Andie Arthur, Executive Director of the South Florida Theatre League with Off Stage Conversations, where I take a look at articles and ideas of interest in the national and international theatre community.

Last week, I was at the APASO conference, which was focused on innovation. It started a lot of conversations that I hope to continue having with folks in our community and has shaped what links I'm sharing today.

Arts Reformation

Ben Cameron of the Doris Duke Foundation and formerly of TCG, who is often called to speak arts events was one of the APASO speakers. Eventually, his speech at APASO will be available for me to share directly, but he did share one idea that he's spoken of in the past -- the idea that we are in the middle of an arts reformation. In the Protestant Reformation where people realized that they didn't need a priest to have a spiritual experience; with the arts reformation people are realizing that they don't need a traditional arts organization to have a creative experience.

But in a world of arts participation—a time in which participation is growing while traditional attendance is declining, and in which technology has democratized the means of both artistic production and artistic distribution for the first time in human history—how do we recognize the impulses and expectations that the internet promotes-expectation of transparency and participation, of personalization and customization? How do we think, not only about presentation, but about engagement—about interacting with this growing tsunami of creative energy that typically exists beyond the purview of our classrooms, our buildings and our performing arts centers? How do we engage audiences in the creative process, not merely in the finished work?

The Way We Look at Charity is Dead Wrong

Dan Pallotta's TED Talk discusses that what we value in charities are the wrong values -- we focus so much on low overhead, low salaries for non-profit employees, and limited marketing -- instead of focusing on how charities serve their mission. Pallotta specifically talks about how those in charities and non-profits are demonized for using for-profit marketing tactics and budgets, and how that undermines the industry.

Austin, TX

HowlRound is currently doing a series on Austin, TX. I've informally said to my board and to some others that I think Austin is a model we should look at -- like us, Austin is a community of primarily small and mid-sized organizations, and lacks a major regional theatre. Therefore, it makes sense to take a look at what we can learn from Austin.
My two favorite pieces so far is Travis Bedard's piece on how Austin isn't a theatre town, it's a maker town and the Rude Mech's piece on why they're lucky to be in Austin and how inspirational their audiences are.

Nifty Thing if You're Free Tomorrow

The Dramatists Guild and Howl Round are hosting a live webcast seminar with John Weidman on bookwriting for musicals, on April 18th starting at 6PM EST.

Community Storage and Space

The LA Stage Alliance is opening their own collective storage space. If you've ever talked with me or Margaret Ledford or Ann Kelly -- this is a big dream for the South Florida Theatre League. And we're going to talk with the folks in LA on how they made it happen.

Why Aren't Women Equals in Music Leadership and Innovation

Ellen McSweeney's article discusses why women aren't in the forefront of the music world, but her observations equally apply to our industry as well.

Slow Burn Theatre: Sweeney Todd (3 reviews)

2013-04-15T20:34:00.003-04:00

Slow Burn Theatre Company opened its production of Sweeney Todd at the West Boca Performing Arts Theater on April 12, 2013.

The rare instance of a musical thriller, Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s chilling, suspenseful, heart-pounding masterpiece of murderous barber-ism and culinary crime tells the infamous tale of the unjustly exiled barber who returns to 19th century London seeking revenge against the lecherous judge who framed him and ravaged his young wife. His thirst for blood soon expands to include his unfortunate customers, and the resourceful proprietress of the pie shop downstairs soon has the people of London lining up in droves with her mysterious new meat pie recipe!

Patrick Fitzwater directed a cast that included Matthew Korinko, Karen Chandler, Christian Vandepas, Kaela Antolino, Bruno Vida, Shawn Wayne King, Sean Dorazio, Ann Marie Olson, Rick Pena, Kaitlyn O’Neill, Courtney Poston, Daniella Newton, Rick Hvizdak, Christopher Mitchell and Michael Smith.

Hap Erstein weighed in for Palm Beach ArtsPaper:

It was probably inevitable that Slow Burn’s resident director-choreographer Patrick Fitzwater would produce Sweeney Todd, and he delivers it with all of the show’s full-throttle intensity, even if it is arguably the most mainstream musical from the non-union, low-budget, but wildly talented troupe.

He did not have to go far to find his Sweeney, the unjustly convicted barber who returns to London after serving time in Australia, obsessed with revenge against the crooked, lecherous Judge Turpin. Here he is played by co-artistic director Matthew Korinko, a strong brooding presence in good, deep voice, giving his best Slow Burn performance yet.

The entire score ― and Slow Burn performs the entire score, including a couple of numbers often excised for time or taste ― is rendered deftly by conductor-keyboardist Manny Schvartzman and his six-man band.

The Broadway Sweeney Todd and all subsequent productions had minimal choreography, but Fitzwater has found ways to inject a bit more into the show with the music hall ensemble. Without shortchanging the show’s macabre aspects, this is an audience-friendly take on the material, and one more reason why you really need to head to far west Boca and get to know Slow Burn Theatre Company

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

So much is right about Slow Burn Theatre Company’s scaling of that Everest of musical theater, Sweeney Todd, that there’s no shame to acknowledge that it’s a competent not a transporting production.

So many aspects of Slow Burn’s rendition work so well under the leadership of director Patrick Fitzwater that it’s difficult to pinpoint where it falls short. It’s missing the ambiance of a corrupt dog-eat-dog society perverted by a menacing evil. Almost everyone on stage lacks that deeply-buried dementia that makes you fear that blood could be shed at any moment. There is a sense of rage – certainly in Matthew Korinko’s Sweeney – but no sense that he or anyone else might suddenly come unhinged to snap the neck of a songbird or slit your throat.

That said, celebrate virtues like the freshness that Korinko and Karen Chandler’s Mrs. Lovett bring to the glorious English music hall pun-fest “A Little Priest.” Working with Fitzwater, they sidestep earlier incarnations of this waltz of Brechtian pragmatism and therefore make it a real scene of musical theater...

Or savor Korinko and Shawn Wayne King as the venal judge singing a soaring duet literally on the razor’s edge of bloody murder in “Pretty Women.”

Or enjoy how Fitzwater has deftly infused choreography (for the first time we’ve ever seen) in appropriate places such as a busker-inspired outburst among the customers in the second-act opener “God, That’s Good.”

And be grateful that Slow Burn has once again cast a cadre of darn good non-Equity singers and band musicians who do justice most of the time to Sondheim’s log flume ride of changes in tempi, meter, keys and his brilliant but sadistically difficult lyrics, thanks to the musical direction of Manny Schvartzman.

... for a show that’s being mounted literally 50 times around the world over the next four months, Sweeney is almost never done in South Florida. It may have been done by Florida Atlantic University and Pembroke Pines Theater of the Performing Arts, but that’s about it. So honor Slow Burn, who also did Sondheim’s Assassins, for resurrecting Sweeney from his grave with passion and commitment.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Since its birth with Bat Boy in 2010, Slow Burn Theatre has been quick to embrace some of musical theater’s most challenging works. Its second show, for instance, was Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, and in 2012 the company returned to Sondheim’s influential body of work for a production of Into the Woods. But those two were mere warm-ups for Slow Burn’s new production of Sweeney Todd.

Director-choreographer Patrick Fitzwater has a key asset in his fellow Slow Burn founder and co-artistic director, Matthew Korinko.

A strong actor with a supple baritone voice, Korinko often plays leads in Slow Burn shows, but that’s not favoritism at work — it’s talent. More than once, Korinko has been the standard-setter in Slow Burn productions, and so it is with Sweeney Todd. The actor plays the mad, tragic, vengeful barber with a mixture of fury and, when needed, a forced charm to disarm his soon-to-be victims. The way he lays out the reason for his character’s descent into madness, singing The Barber and His Wife, is haunting.

As Sweeney’s landlady, cohort and would-be Mrs., Karen Chandler doesn’t rise to Korinko’s level. She gets the crazy-funny part — after all, it’s Mrs. Lovett who dreams up the utilitarian idea of using Sweeney’s victims as filling for her substandard meat pies — but her voice is somewhat strident, except when she’s crooning Not While I’m Around to her slow but dangerous young helper...

...Vandepas has trouble with that difficult vocal leap at the beginning of Johanna, but he plays the smitten suitor well, and Antolino is a persuasive damsel in distress.

Ann Marie Olson as the mysterious, crazy Beggar Woman greatly enriches the show’s vocal palette. Sean Dorazio as Judge Turpin’s equally corrupt Beadle, Rick Peña as Sweeney’s rival Pirelli, the steampunk-style ensemble — Kaitlyn O’Neill, Courtney Poston, Daniella Newton, Rick Hvizdak, Christopher Mitchell and Michael Smith — and the principal actors make the opening and closing Ballad of Sweeney Todd a thunderous, chilling summation of the doom we witness.

All told, Sweeney Todd, which runs just one more weekend, is another impressive effort from Slow Burn.

Editor's note:

We were sent a link to a psuedo-review in the South Florida Gay News, but determined that it was too amateurish an effort to include in our round-up. Polling the audience is no way to structure a proper review; we expect the critic to use their own standards, not those of random people standing around them.Write the review, and let the random people comment on it.

The Slow Burn Theatre Company production of Sweeney Todd plays at the West Boca Performing Arts Theater through April 21, 2013.