South Florida Theatre Scene

The Scene for February 3, 2012

2012-02-02T08:31:00.001-05:00

It's hard to believe that it's already February; the good news is that means that the Theatre Season is in full swing.

But alas, there's some not-so-good news;

Anagram Entertainment has had to delay its opening of Top Gun: The Musical due to an illness in the cast. We know you're heartbroken, but you'll be able to see it starting Thursday February 9th at Empire Stage. And then you'll believe a jet can fly.
Sadly, we might have to wait a bit longer for the next show at The Women's Theatre Project, which recently lost its venue. It hasn't been able to find a suitable alternative, so it's postponed the rest of its season. But we have no doubt that they'll be back on the scene eventually.

In the meantime; here are shows that are playing around South Florida...

opening...

The New Theatre presents yet world premiere play, Winter, by Robert Caisley.

The Miami Acting Company presents The Odd Couple at The South Miami-Dade Cultural Center through February 19. We're not familiar with this company, but the show's director is Ken Kurtz, former chair of the Theatre Department at UM.

you still haven't missed...

Parade Production's inaugural production of Donald Margulie's Brooklyn Boy will play through February 12, 2012.

The Stage Door presents Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers at its Coral Springs location through March 4. We have also learned that they cast Ken "Cast Ken!" Clement.

The critics are raving about Next to Normal at Actors' Playhouse. It plays through February 12, 2012.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity plays at the Caldwell Theatre Company through February 12, 2012. Another favorite with the critics!

Laffing Matterz plays the Broward Center's Abdo New River Room, for its third season of dinner and comedy.

last chance to see...

The GableStage's critically acclaimed production of The Motherfucker with the Hat ends its run on Sunday February 5, 2012. You might meet playwright Stephen Adly Guirguis if you do, according to The Drama Queen.

Snoopy! The Musical winds up its run at Area Stage on February 5, 2012.

Second City in Laugh Out Loud plays February 2 only at the Aventura Arts and Cultural Center.

coming and going...

Shakespeare Miami offers up its yearly outdoor offering; A Midsummer Night's Dream. It plays this weekend at The Young Circle Amphitheater in Hollywood.

Miss Abigial's Guide to Dating Mating and Marriage plays three performances only at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on February 3rd and 4th.

passing through...

Divorce Party: The Musical plays at the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse through February 19, 2012.

for kids...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland returns to The Playground Theatre through March 11, 2012.

Actors' Playhouse offers Alexander, Who's Not Not Not Not Not Going to Move! through March 9, 2012.

Sol Children's Theatre Troupe presents Narnia the Musical through February 5.

Snow White: An Enchanting Musical plays at Showtime Dance and Performing Arts Theatre through March 10.

Mondays are Dark

2012-01-30T05:14:00.003-05:00

We hope you had a great weekend; we managed to catch the show at Gablestage, and all we can say is that it was fucking awesome. (That's just for you, Joe.)

Actually, We Can Say This, Too
Terry Teachout, the Broadway theatre critic for The Wall Street Journal, liked GableStage's production of The Motherfucker with the Hat more than he liked Cynthia Nixon in the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of Wit. He blogged about the actual trip to Florida on About Last Night.

We were still low enough that I had no trouble picking out the six-story apartment house where I live, a few blocks south of the Cloisters. I held my breath as the familiar landmarks slipped past me, all shrunken to the size of my thumb: Yankee Stadium, Lincoln Center, Central Park, the Empire State Building, the great gash of Ground Zero.

Who is Miss Abigail, Anyway?
Miss Abigail's Guide to Dating, Mating and Marriage, opens this week at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts for a brief two performances. This national tour opened in Rochester NY, and makes its first stop in Fort Lauderdale. Entertainment Weekly reviewed the off-Broadway production;

...all of Miss Abigail's advice skews a little old school, but that's entirely the point — and also why the script, from the clever minds of Ken Davenport (Altar Boyz) and Sarah Saltzberg (25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee), works so well. Press materials describe Plumb's Miss Abigail as ''Dr. Ruth meets Emily Post,'' and it's a spot-on designation.

Unfortunately, the tour doesn't feature Eve Plumb, (who played the hottest of Brady sisters, in our opinion).

Speaking of Ken Davenport
The Broadway Producer who authors The Producer's Perspective tells us how a jaunt to a Connecticut casino led him to this;

We created BroadwayRoadTrip.com, and on Saturday, February 4th, a bus full of people will depart Sturbridge, MA, come to see the Godspell matinee, get a talkback from me, and then return home that night.

My hope and my dream is that they enjoy their day with us so much, that when we ask them if they want to come see another show in a month or two... they’ll fill up another bus again, and bingo, bongo, we’ve got brand new multi-musical buyers.

Arranging bus tours to see shows is nothing new, at least not in Florida; but creating a destination portal to book them is.

Miami Made
The Miami Herald reports on The Miami-Made Festival 2012, coming in March.

Separated this year from Miami Light Project’s annual Here & Now Festival (which runs Feb. 2-11 at The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse), the stand-alone Miami Made is again free.

News Round Ups.
These are articles with too many separate stories to list, but Florida Theater On Stage has one out, and so does The Drama Queen.

Happy Birthday
The Examiner reports that New Theatre is hosting a birthday party for its managing director Eileen Suarez and artistic direct Ricky J. Martinez on February 8. We hope it's not a surprise party or not.

Getting it Together
Collaboration is key in producing theatre; Florida Theater On Stage talks with the team behind The Promethean Theatre Company, co-founders Margaret Ledford and Deborah Sherman, about their partnership with Nova Southeast University.

“One of the benefits in synergy with Nova is our proximity to… the young emerging artists and that opens our eyes to more possibilities,” Ledford said. “It also makes us look at our craft harder, and put into words what excited and still excites us and share that with them. (It’s) a fluid exchange of electricity, energy and excitement that can be both initiation and rejuvenation.”

Anyone who has seen a Promethean show can attest to the successful results.

Forward To Your Representatives
Education.com tells us Why Children's Theater Matters, and it's worth forwarding to your state and federal representatives - particularly, if you'll pardon the phrase, if they're Republicans.

...study after study has shown that the arts are more than fluff. Longitudinal data of 25,000 students involved in the arts, conducted at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education by Dr. James Catterall, shows that consistent participation greatly improves academic performance and significantly bumps up standardized test scores. Students who make time for the arts are also more involved in community service, and less likely to drop out of school. And we’re not just talking about upper middle class kids. These facts remain, regardless of a child’s socio-economic background.

Speaking of Children's Theatre
BroadwayWorld.com tells us about Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, opening this week at The Playground Theatre.

In this adaptation, directed by Stephanie Ansin and designed by Fernando Calzadilla, time, space and cultures collide as Alice tackles the challenges of her ever-changing dream world, with video projections enhancing every step of the way. Contemporary costumes, sounds, and objects infuse this classic tale with modern metropolitan Miami life.

You've Already Missed This....
... but The Sun-Sentinel, which can't be bothered to review a milestone production of Next To Normal at Actors' Playhouse, did manage to talk to the creative team of A Woman's World, presented by Infinite Abyss Productions at Empire Stage. It's a local production, performed with local talent; this is as South Florida as you can get. It closed yesterday.

You can still catch Next to Normal, the Pulitzer-Prize winning play that the Sun-Sentinel can't be bothered to review, at Actors' Playhouse through February 12.

BTW, we're delighted that A Woman's World received this attention; we'd like to see more stories like this in The Sun-Sentinel. But we expect them to print their own fucking reviews instead of barfing up ones we've already read in the original source. You want more subscribers? Write your own damned reviews.

Pardon our French.

Speaking of South Florida Talent
BroadwayWorld reports that Raul Esparza is coming to The Arsht Center for an encore of his Lincoln Center concert.

They Need A Theatre League of Their Own
The Guardian asks Why Don't Theatres Talk To Each Other?

Last week I popped into the Southbank Centre, looking for a London International Mime festival, assuming I'd easily find one because the venue hosts a number of shows. But I couldn't find one in any of the many displays I found of the venue's own branded publicity and leaflets .

Thanks to the efforts of The Theatre League of South Florida, many companies do have leaflets for shows in other venues on display in their lobbies. The League's website, South Florida Theatre.com, also has a searchable listings page to help patrons find what's playing. But it's woefully underused at the moment. The easiest way to be listed on The Scene is to be listed on the League's website.

But we can do more; I know that Mosaic posts recommendations for shows at other theaters while they're dark. Perhaps theaters in close proximity could develop a discounted ticket to encourage patrons to attend plays at both venues; imagine getting a discount to see a matinee at Actors' Playhouse and an evening show the same day at Gablestage - or vice versa. Wouldn't it be great to make a day of it?

Speaking of Matched Productions
BroadwayWorld.com notes that both Palm Beach DramaWorks and The Broward Center for the Performing Arts are about to open plays by Lee Hall. The Pitmen Painters opens at Dramaworks on February 17th, while the National Tour of Billy Elliott The Musical opens at the Broward Center on February 29. Sounds like an excuse to see both shows to me. Like you need one.

Make It A Night
2AMTheatre suggests that we facilitate post-show discussion of the night's performance.

An audience of 40 or so watched the movie. Afterwards, most of this group walked from the movie theater to the town’s art gallery, next door, where there was some wine, snacks, and a circle of metal folding chairs. After 10 minutes or so of mingling, we each took a seat in the circle. The two hosts of the evening, the same ones who booked the quality films on Monday nights in this small town, set the simple rules of conversation: we would go around the circle and each speak briefly about our impression of the movie, whether or not we liked it, what we thought. Then we went around the circle a second time, with any concluding thoughts.

Here was a space for setting all of that aside, not just communally in a darkened theater but in a conversation. The movie itself had only done part of that work. The art was only part of the experience. If the lights had come up in the movie theater and, as usually happened, we had all filed into the street with those we had arrived with, the greater connection would not have happened, and the town and the lives of those who live there would be worse for it.

Sounds like something worth considering.

Composer Needs Singers

2012-01-29T14:05:00.001-05:00

Composer and musical theater playwright Mark Hagan is looking for musical theater performers to perform demos of his work that will lead to national exposure, and hopefully, productions of the work.

He wrote to The Scene:

...I am a composer/musical theatre playwright living in Wellington. I have a few exciting projects that have been in development for several years, but i haven't been able to connect with any musical theatre performers in the area.

If you could post my contact information in your blog or If you know of any performers who might be interested in getting involved, I would be most grateful.

His projects include Ripper, "an original musical based on the Jack the Ripper mystery. The show's website includes a sample of the music, as well as his bio and contact information.

www.RipperMusical.com
www.NAJMrecords.com

Contact MCHM@MCHMmusicals.com if you are interested.

Parade Productions: Brooklyn Boy (reviews)

2012-01-29T13:48:00.002-05:00

Parade Productions launched itself into the South Florida theatre scene with Donald Margulie's Brooklyn Boy, which opened at The Studio at Mizner Park on January 26, 2012.

Brooklyn Boy has been called one of Donald Margulies’ funniest and most moving plays. With sparkling dialogue, humor, and just the right amount of poignancy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright examines the consequences of success and reminds us that nobody’s journey through life can be made without some bad decisions, wrong directions, or regrets.

Kim St. Leon directed a cast that included Avi Hoffman, Blaze Powers, Jacqueline Laggy, Michael Gioia, Sy Fish, Ryan Didato, and Candace Caplin.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Hoffman’s performance is one of the virtues in the promising but flawed inaugural offering from Parade Productions, a professional company performing in Mizner Park under the aegis of Artistic Director Kim St. Leon and Executive Producer Candace Caplin. There’s a lot of talent here working very hard, but not a lot of electricity emanating from the elegiac, mildly funny, mildly moving tale.

Bravo to Hoffman for exploring serious roles such as the disillusioned Boomer in GableStage’s Superior Donuts last season. His natural geniality wins over an audience and he makes us see Eric’s shortcomings are outer manifestations of inner angst. Admirably, Hoffman avoids the comedy techniques that he does as well as anyone; the closest he gets are some mild slow burns and looks askance that are perfectly justified.

St. Leon elicits mostly solid performances, notable since all of the parts are far more difficult that they appear. Sy Fish has the hardest role. He makes the father’s injurious comments so thoughtlessly organic that we may resent him, but we understand that he is simply clueless to the pain he is causing.

One sign of how the show sometimes sags is the contrast when Blaze Powers (forgive the pun) jolts the energy level back up with her vivid portrait of the blunt-speaking young woman who happily accompanies Eric back to his room after a book reading. While Margulies makes her the stand-in for everything wrong with the shallow youth culture (“Fiction is so over,” she says), Powers makes the most of when the script gives her three dimensions to play.

Ryan Didato nails a cartoonish character so different than his assistant Ken in Red last fall at GableStage. Margulies, St. John and Didato deliver one surprise as Tyler reveals he actually has acting chops.

The weakest performance comes from Caplin as a stereotypical.. caricature of a driving Hollywood producer... Caplin lacks the essential whipsnap speed and bite... The tempo and energy of the play sags badly at this crucial moment in the second act.

The whole production has a professional feel under St. Leon’s leadership. This extends from David Sabel’s sound design to Sean McClelland’s scenic design set against the iconic vision of the brick stanchions and metal cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Though the company is new, the talent involved in this inaugural production mostly consists of seasoned South Florida theater professionals.

Kim St. Leon, the company’s artistic director (Caplin is its executive director), is a smart veteran director. And set designer Sean McClelland has done a deft job of creating the play’s multiple locations against the symbolic backdrop of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Brooklyn Boy has some funny moments, but Hoffman – a double Carbonell Award nominee for his 2011 performances in Superior Donuts at GableStage and Hairspray at Actors’ Playhouse – isn’t playing a comic role here. That fact seemed to throw some of his more chatty fans on opening night, but Hoffman is a solid serious actor whose proven musical and comedic abilities aren’t his only tools.

Brooklyn Boy, which could benefit from some judicious trimming, isn’t the greatest play from a man whose work also includes Sight Unseen, Collected Stories and Time Stands Still )a play that will be produced at GableStage in May). But it certainly contains resonant, sobering truths, and is a promising debut for Parade Productions.

Parade Production's Brooklyn Boy will play through February 12, 2012.

Kravis Center: Divorce Party The Musical (reviews)

2012-01-27T00:12:00.000-05:00

Divorce Party the Musical opened at The Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts on January 27, 2012.

Still reeling from her divorce, Linda is rescued by her three friends who have come to turn her despair into a weekend of hilarity. Using popular songs with clever new lyrics, the ladies sing and dance their way through the wildest divorce party ever. From the Producer who brought you the off-Broadway hit Menopause the Musical, it’s the ultimate Girls’ Night Out, coupled with a healthy dose of comic mayhem and a touch of “naughty.”

Jay Falzone directed a cast that included Janna Cardia, Janet Dickenson, Felicia Finley, Soara-Joye Ross, Stacey Todd Holt, Scott Ahearn, Andrea Conte, and Samara Dunn.

Jan Sjostrom reviewed for the Palm Beach Daily News:

Granted, Divorce Party: The Musical is being performed for the first time at the Kravis Center’s Rinker Playhouse. There are bound to be wrinkles that need to be ironed out.

The first thing this show needs is a significant trim. It’s as though creators Mark Schwartz, Amy Botwinick and Jay Falzone, who’s also the show’s lyricist, director and choreographer, couldn’t figure out what to cut, so they left everything in.

The trouble is that there’s really not enough wit in this show to keep it from being kitschy and simple-minded. There are times when it’s downright crass — as when the male character appears dressed as a vibrator. To top it off, the show wanders off into discordant cheerleading about the value of sisterhood and self-worth. The performers, who are competent singers, dancers and actors, deserve better.

There are some bright moments. Oddly, both deal with ex-husbands, rather than the sisterhood. In one, Carolyn (Felicia Finley) imagines her ex-husband pouring out his heart to a pal to the tune Feelings. Ahearn plays that with just right touch of irony.

Hap Erstein reviewed for Palm Beach ArtsPaper;

Divorce Party The Musical seems cynically devised to attract the Menopause audience and cash in on that earlier show’s success. It too relies on parody lyrics to existing pop songs to celebrate female empowerment.

As with Menopause The Musical, director/lyricist Jay Falzone opts for fairly predictable rhymes and rarely develops anything past the single joke of the initial verse. In truth, none of the audience members I observed seemed to mind the uninspired writing.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about Divorce Party is that the audience appeared to be adequately entertained by it, so there is reason to believe it could become as successful as Menopause.

Divorce Party the Musical plays at The Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse through February 19, 2012.

The Scene for January 27, 2012

2012-01-26T06:00:00.003-05:00

A lot of great shows closing this week; if you've been putting off seeing them...see them now! It'll be a while before you see The Effects of Gamma Rays or Urinetown again; and while someone might do Cabaret in the next year or two, it won't be anywhere near what they've done with this one.

But there are also some exciting things opening, and a lot of great plays to see.

opening...

Parade Productions launches itself into the theatre scene with Brooklyn Boy, its first production at The Studio at Mizner Park.

The Stage Door opens Neil Simon's Last of the Red Hot Lovers at its Coral Springs location.

you still haven't missed...

The critics are raving about Next to Normal at Actors' Playhouse. It plays through February 12, 2012.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity plays at the Caldwell Theatre Company through February 12, 2012. Another favorite with the critics!

Snoopy! The Musical plays at Area Stage through February 5, 2012.

The GableStage's critically acclaimed production of The Motherfucker with the Hat plays through February 5, 2012.

Laffing Matterz plays the Broward Center's Abdo New River Room, for its third season of dinner and comedy.

last chance to see...

The Slow Burn Theatre Company production of Urinetown plays at the West Boca Performing Arts Theater through January 29, 2012.

The Theatre Scene's current most-reviewed play is Palm Beach DramaWorks' critically lauded production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-on-the-Moon Marigolds, which winds up its run this January 29.

The Prisoner of Second Avenue finishes at the Broward Stage Door Theatre on January 29, 2012.

Cabaret plays that the Maltz Jupiter Theatre through January 29, 2012.

Infinite Abyss Productions winds up its original production of Snow White Trash at Empire Stage on January 28, 2012.

Infinite Abyss Productions other show, A Woman's World, also at Empire Stage, ends on January 29.

passing through...

Shakespeare Miami offers up its yearly outdoor offering; A Midsummer Night's Dream. It plays this weekend at Shell Lumber in Coconut Grove, and The Young Circle Amphitheater in Hollywood the following weekend.

Soul Doctor: Journey of a Rock-Star Rabbi finishes at Fort Lauderdale's Parker Playhouse January 29.

The smash hit Jersey Boys plays on in the Au-Rene Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts through January 29, 2012.

Divorce Party: The Musical plays at the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse through February 19, 2012.

for kids...

Actors' Playhouse offers Alexander, Who's Not Not Not Not Not Going to Move! through March 9, 2012.

Sol Children's Theatre Troupe presents Narnia the Musical through February 5.

Snow White: An Enchanting Musical plays at Showtime Dance and Performing Arts Theatre through March 10.

Mondays are Dark

2012-01-23T06:27:00.001-05:00

We've been busy collating all the reviews that have been pouring in all week, but we still managed to pull together your Monday reading list.

On Brooklyn Boy in Boca
The Palm Beach Post talks with actor Avi Hoffman and director Kim St. Leon about the upcoming Broadway Boy, which launches Parade Productions in a couple of weeks.

Speaking of Avi
TheatreMania reports that Boynton Beach Club: A New Musical in Concert is set to play at the Park Vista Theatre next month. It took us a few moments to realize that this is the theater at Park Vista High School that was home to Avi Hoffman's late New Vista Theatre Company.

New Tour
Broadway World tells us about the national tour of Miss Abigails Guide to Dating, Mating, and Marriage!, which started in Rochester NY and makes its first stop at The Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

South Florida Represents I
Miami Children's Theater headed up to Atlanta to participate in The Junior Theater Festival, and Groundlings was in their company.

On Friday (the 13th of course) a bunch of MCT kids, directors and chaperones got on a morning flight to Atlanta for the Junior Theater Festival. JTF is an awesome yearly event that's sponsored by MTI, the amazing agency that licenses all kinds of shows including the growing Broadway Junior Collection.

South Florida Represents II
The Drama Queen tells us about some other South Floridians heading out of state; Dave Barry has a musical opening on Broadway (we are not making this up!), and the legendary Barbara Lowery is being honored at The Sundance Film Festival.

South Florida Collaborates
The Roxy Theatre Blog talks about how the Roxy Theatre Group is working with the Greater Miami Youth Symphony to present How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

A Kwiat Moment
Miami Artzine shares some of the poetry of David Kwiat, actor, theatre professor, writer, and, well, poet.

A Tale of Two Plays
Palm Beach Arts Paper examines two plays that opened last week (Love, Loss and What I Wore at Parker Playhouse, and Divorce Party The Musical at Kravis Center), and comes to a not-so-startling conclusion:

‘Love, Loss’ minor, but it’s Shakespeare compared to ‘Divorce Party.’

Ouch.

South Florida Gay News talks with Divorce Party's creator, Jay Falzone

Falzone describe the show as a parody about a phenomenon that has swept the country in recent years, divorce parties. In this new show, three women throw their own divorce party for a longtime friend who recently divorced...
The result is a show packed with plenty of comic mayhem and even a touch of “naughty,” as the characters, including one who is a lesbian, go through this new ritual to move forward with their lives.

Back with Broadway, Soon In Broward
BroadwayWorld.com reports that Seth Rudetsky's Broadway Chatterbox is back with all new interviews with Broadway celebrities. Rudetsky is coming to the Broward Center with his Big Fat 70's Show in April, where he'll also give a master class on auditioning.

A List of its Own
South Florida Theatre News seems to have started a reading list of its own, the Actors' Blog Watch.

Meanwhile...
...in Miami, the Coconut Grove Playhouse is still closed. Miami Today reports that it will be discussed by the Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners on February 7.

According to Jorge Luis Lopez, an attorney representing the playhouse, the state has asked the county to work to expedite renovations on the theater. It asked that the county transfer ownership to the state, the former owner of the playhouse, should delays continue. Before the county can assume control of the playhouse and begin renovations it must agree to appropriate $20 million in existing designated funds toward the project and settle outstanding title issues

...in Palm Beach, the Royal Poinciana Playhouse is still closed. The Palm Beach Daily News reports that an inspection of the property, carried out by order of the Landmarks Preservation Commission two weeks ago, may not have been legal.

Trouble is, commissioners stepped on shaky ground when they authorized such an interior inspection, because there was no prior evidence that neglect was taking its toll, Town Attorney John “Skip” Randolph told the board this week. That would typically involve a code-inspection officer or, perhaps, another official observing evidence that a structural problem likely exists.

“Structural” is a key word here, Mr. Randolph warned. Whether or not any problem inside the building might prevent it from being reopened as a theater — a question of the building’s “use” — is beyond the commission’s purview.

I hope they sell peanuts at the commission meetings, because it sounds like it's a real circus up there.

Slow Burn Theatre: Urinetown (3 reviews)

2012-01-22T14:49:00.002-05:00

Slow Burn Theatre Company opened its production of Urinetown on January 20, 2012.

Urinetown? What kind of musical is that? Well, it's just one of the most uproariously funny musicals in recent years, that's all! And don't let the title fool you - it's rated PG!! In a time when evil corporations control the world's toilets, a revolutionary hero emerges to save mankind from their wicked grip. An inspired, exuberant, wickedly funny romp with a Tony-winning musical score. This one is sure to be the talk of the town! My town! YOUR town! Urinetown!

Patrick Fitzgerald directed a cast that included Matthew Korinko, Jaimie Kautzmann, Larry Buzzeo, Cindy Pearce, Daniel Schwab, and Lindsey Forgey.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Slow Burn Theatre’s production of Urinetown the Musical marks another milestone in the young troupe’s evolution as a reliable purveyor of edgy, offbeat musical theater that few other mainstream companies have the courage to produce.

Urinetown qualifies as perhaps their strongest overall production with a corps of strong voices delivering production numbers with verve, witty performers who know how to put across deadpan comic lines, solid musical direction by Manny Schvartzman, and above all, inventive staging and choreography by Slow Burn co-founder Patrick Fitzwater.

Slow Burn also has a talent for finding talent we’ve never heard of but will make a point of watching for in the future. The find in this show is Cindy Pearce as the pee palace proprietor Penelope Pennywise , a short and stout dynamo with a clarion Merman-like singing voice and a Mae West swagger. The way she snaps out the name, Bobby (Bahb-bay), at every opportunity with an exaggerated topspin is hilarious in and of itself.

We feel we have to point out that Cindy Pearce has appeared in a large number of children's shows around South Florida in the last few years. It's not the first time Bill has pronounced an old hand to be a new discovery (Amy Anderson springs to mind); the reality is that there's a lot of great talent working on shows that reviewers never manage to see. Just sayin'.

...the cast is filled with solid performers: Daniel Schwab as the hero who does a mean gospel roof-raiser, Run Freedom Run; Slow Burn co-founder Matthew Korinko as the droll narrator Officer Lockstock; Larry Buzzeo who graduates from Slow Burn’s flamboyant Dr. Frank N. Furter to the stylishly smooth Cladwell.. Nova Southeastern University student Jaimie Kautzmann in the linchpin role of an obviously grown up “Little” Sally; and Slow Burn vet Lindsey Forgey as the slightly naïve but ever earnest heroine Hope.

Slow Burn was given a Silver Palm Award last month as Outstanding New Emerging Theater Company. Urinetown just underscores the wisdom of that call.

John Lariviere reviewed for Talkin' Broadway:

A five-piece orchestra accompanies a well sung show, and Patrick Fitzwater again provides very clean direction. He gets the comic style of the musical across with panache. The production also benefits from strong lighting and sound design by Lance Blank and Traci Almeida.

Matthew Korinko has a wonderful comedic touch as Officer Lockstock. His aside moments with Jamie Kautzmann as Little Sally are some of the funniest in the show, and also important in establishing the feel of musical. Jason Edelstein as Lockstock's sidekick, Officer Barrel, admirably finds a way to make an odd role interesting with his jittery, home-boy portrayal. Daniel Schwab does a nice job as the scruffy, under-dog Bobby Strong. Lindsey Forgey as Hope Caldwell is one of the strongest actors in the show, as she really gets all of her comic moments. Cindy Pearce is hysterical as Penelope Pennywise. She milks every possible double-take, double-entendre, entrance and exit in a nearly scene-stealing performance that makes it hard to watch anyone else when she is on stage.

This production of Urinetown is sheer fun from start to finish.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Urinetown had its South Florida premiere in 2007 at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables, earning three Carbonell Awards. Now Slow Burn Theatre in west Boca Raton is delivering its version of a funny, thought-provoking musical that isn’t all that shocking, the cringe-worthy title notwithstanding.

Slow Burn director-choreographer Patrick Fitzwater has assembled a large, young-skewing cast that collectively delivers the powerhouse vocal goods under the fine musical direction of Emmanuel Schvartzman ...the story gets told (and well sung) on Ian T. Almeida’s facility-filled set.

Matthew Korinko, Slow Burn’s co-artistic director and the company’s frequent star, is impressive as the comically villainous Officer Lockstock... Buzzeo is a gleefully over the top Cladwell, Cindy Pearce his female match (with Mae West overtones) as potty operator Penelope Pennywise. Lindsey Forgey is high-kicking and sweet-voiced as Hope Cladwell, the UGC “heiress” who falls for not-so-bad-boy Bobby.

Slow Burn is a musical theater company with moxie.... Sometimes, the choices tax Slow Burn’s resources, but somehow Fitzwater and Korinko manage to deliver musicals that entertain, provoke or do both. With Urinetown, Slow Burn demonstrates again it’s a company that is definitely heating up.

The Slow Burn Theatre Company production of Urinetown plays at the West Boca Performing Arts Theater through January 29, 2012.

Stage Door Theatre: The Prisoner of Second Avenue (2 reviews)

2012-01-22T10:09:00.000-05:00

The Stage Door Theatre opened its production of The Prisoner of Second Avenue at the Byron Carlyle Theatre in Miami Beach on November 4, 2011. The show ran through November 27, and then re-located to their Coral Springs location for a December 23rd opening.

New York City is in the middle of the worst heat wave in decades, and a garbage strike is in full swing. Mel Edison is being driven crazy by the two stewardesses who live next door and their all night parties. Just when he thinks it couldn’t get any worse, he gets robbed, and his psychiatrist dies with $23,000.00 of his money. Don’t miss this wildly funny Neil Simon comedy..

W.F. Wilson directed a cast that included Dan Kelley, Derelle Bunn, Bob Levitt, Phyllis Spear, Gail Byer, and Margie Elias Eisenberg.

John Lariviere reviewed for Talkin' Broadway:

At the time this admittedly dark comedy was written, the improbability of all that befalls the Edisons is what made it comical. It was a time when the corporate world was strong and companies did not just go out of business overnight. Today the tale is one told all over the United States. An upside-down housing market, high unemployment, companies cutting benefits, retirement funds disappearing, Occupy Wall Street, and a recession that is not yet over make The Prisoner of Second Avenue a far darker comedy than originally intended.

As the downtrodden Mel, Dan Kelley wrings out every possible ounce of comedy in his performance. His rubber-faced antics, character quirks, and fast-paced responses help lighten the play considerably... Bob Levitt as Mel's brother Harry has a nice moment in the second act when he scrapes off a bit of his crusty nature to reveal his feelings about Mel for probably the first time in his life. Phyllis Spear, Gail Byer and Margie Elias Eisenberg are well cast as the three sisters. They titter like birds sitting on a fence as they speak over one another with the comfortable familiarity born of long acquaintance.

Derelle Bunn as Edna conveys a warmth and affection for Mel amidst all he concern for his mental health. Both actors thankfully find the bittersweet humor of the play in the last scene. It is Neil Simon's version of survival by merely laughing through it all.

Ron Hagwood wrote for The Sun-Sentinel:

Imagine someone — today — dropped a bucket of water on you from the 1970s and the first thought you had was, "Wow, that water is still bracing after 40 years."

That's kind of how you might feel watching The Prisoner of Second Avenue at Stage Door Theatre in Coral Springs.

"The Prisoner of Second Avenue" really hums along when it's just Mel and Edna in the first act. Simon's dialogue comes at such a rapid pace and Kelley has a real knack for blending punch lines seamlessly into the dialogue so it all avoids hokeyness. Bunn takes a while to ramp up, but hits it solidly by the second act, which may perhaps be more due to the script than the decisions of director W.F. Wilson.

Aaah, the second act. That's when Simon — normally a very canny writer — sends in the cavalry, even if the plot hardly needed a rescue. I would have loved to watch Mel and Edna bat it around a bit more, just the two of them. Instead we get Mel's brother and three sisters for a funny, if not an altogether unnecessary, intervention

The Prisoner of Second Avenue plays at the Broward Stage Door Theatre through January 29, 2012.

Actors' Playhouse: Next To Normal (4 reviews)

2012-01-21T12:22:00.002-05:00

Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theater opened its production of the Pulitzer Prize winning musical Next to Normal on January 20, 2012.

One family is about to face the music. Next to Normal is an emotional powerhouse of a musical about a family trying to take care of themselves and each other. It is about one woman's struggle with manic depression and the toll it takes on her family. Next to Normal's surging score is intense, emotional and ultimately hopeful of how the family comes to terms with their past and faces their future. A truly remarkable, moving and powerful new musical.

David Arisco directed a cast that included Jodi Langel, Mark Sanders, Eddy Roiseco, Sarah Amengual, Nick Duckart, and Ben Liebert.

Roger Martin reviewed for Miami Artzine:

Every piece of music in next to normal is listenable...and enjoyable. And that's an awesome feat in modern musicals. And every line of dialogue rings true, because its written that way and because almost every line is sung beautifully by the terrific cast at Actors' Playhouse.

Jodie Langel, Mark Sanders, Nick Duckart, Sarah Amengual, Ben Liebert and Eddy Rioseco are simply bloody marvellous. As each enters you think ah, good, more pleasure. Such great theatre.

Eric Alsford leads musicians Martha Spangler, Roy Fantel, Sandy Poltarack. Elena Alamilla, Bogdan Chrusczc and Jill Sheer through an evening of gorgeous listening. And many, many thanks to sound designer Alexander Herrin who kept the levels and mix exactly right. Every word, every note, perfectly clear.

John Lariviere reviewed for Talkin' Broadway:

Jodie Langel's portrayal of Diana is an acting triumph of beauty and pain... Sarah Amengual turns in a strong performance as her attention-starved teenage daughter Natalie...

...the level of musicianship displayed by every member of the cast is worthy of praise. They demonstrate a real understanding of sharing their musical space. As vocal melodies and themes overlap and weave together, they are mindful of dynamic shaping, so that the most important line is always the one that is heard. Such contentious ensemble singing is rare, and both the ensemble and music director Eric Alsford deserve credit for performing a difficult score so well.

Next To Normal is not standard musical theatre fare. The dark and disturbing nature of the storyline rules this show out as an appropriate choice for children, teens or even a date... As oppressive as this may be, it succeeds powerfully in wringing empathy from the audience, effectively creating a memorable if disturbing theatrical experience.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Easily among the finest shows the company has presented in its long history, the musical by composer Tom Kitt and lyricist-playwright Brian Yorkey offers an intense examination of a woman’s struggle with bipolar disorder and the familial toll that fight takes. This is musical theater as serious as it is glorious, an insightful and moving drama that happens to be exquisitely sung.

Kitt’s music, so beautifully performed by the onstage orchestra led by musical director Eric Alsford at the baby grand, taps into rock idioms on songs like Make Up Your Mind/Catch Me I’m Falling, the angry Superboy and the Invisible Girl and the defiant I’m Alive. But the score also boasts the tender waltz I Dreamed a Dance, as well as ballads and contemporary theater songs that paint a harrowing portrait of a family in crisis.

Director David Arisco has assembled a cast and production team that serves this challenging, illuminating show in every way. The “family” members, plus Ben Liebert as Natalie’s would-be boyfriend Henry and Nick Duckart as two of the many doctors who try to hit on just the right treatment for Diana, have Broadway-quality voices that blend exquisitely. Alexander Herrin’s sound design is a triumph of clarity, blend and moment-to-moment levels that help make a complex show completely comprehensible.

The performances, particularly Langel’s brilliant portrayal of the passionate, suffering Diana, are on par with the best work you can find at the country’s top regional theaters, in exceptional touring companies or in first-rate New York shows. This production really is that good, that special.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Artistic Director David Arisco long ago proved his expertise at staging mainstream crowd-pleasers and there’s nothing wrong with a purely entertaining evening.

But next to normal and a handful of atypically adventurous Actors Playhouse productions show that Arisco can mount sublime theater when he is inspired by challenging material and is teamed with equally skilled colleagues.

...every aspect – the magnificent acting, the adroit direction, the music, the lyrics, the band, the lights, the sound – all seem transformed into the unified yearning of an outstretched arm reaching for salvation.

Musical director Eric Alsford has longed to do this show since seeing it, twice, on Broadway, and he makes the most of this opportunity. The score often involves two or even all six actors singing differing melody lines or harmonies or vocal accompaniments. Alsford smoothly melds them like streams feeding into a single waterfall, yet with the separate streams still identifiable.

Every single (cast member) is superb and clearly in love with the work – fine strong singers who lace their voices with passion and their acting with a recognizable humanity.

First among equals is Langel... This is a killer role both in its emotional demands and its vocal requirements, but she is up to it.

Sanders is perfect as the stolid if solid spouse... His warm baritone, often pushed into the falsetto stratosphere to express anxiety, gives the entire show a grounding. His penultimate number “I Am The One,” a duet with Gabe, is shattering.

Amengual has a preternatural talent for such a young woman. She has an expressive angelic voice living alongside an actor’s talent... She is fine throughout, but the intelligence, fury and angst she invests in “Superboy and the Invisible Girl” is a standout moment.

Rioseco is equally impressive as a joyfully anarchic tempter and destabilizer... His rendition of the blazing “I’m Alive” is, no pun intended, electrifying.

The creative team members are all Actors’ veterans, but this is some of their best work. Patrick Tennent’s lighting is a marvel of the art... Ellis Tillman’s costumes, seeming simple, perfectly express character. Gene Seyffer’s jungle gym setting of the bones of a house, made up of pipes and platforms, is as if an X-ray has exposed what goes on in the suburban house next door.

Special kudos are due to sound designer Alexander Herrin. After the disastrous sound at last fall’s Hairspray, the sound here is as crisp, clean and comprehensible as the aging hall, the cacophonous score and the singers’ sometimes imperfect diction allowed.

A last kudo to producers Barbara and Larry Stein for taking a huge risk with such a powerful and thought-provoking work.

Next to Normal plays at Actors' Playhouse through February 12, 2012.

Arsht Center: NE 2nd Avenue (reviews)

2012-01-20T22:37:00.001-05:00

Teo Castellanos' NE 2nd Avenue played at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts for a short run, January 18 through January 21, 2012.

Voted Best Solo Performance by Miami New Times and Edinburgh Fringe Festival Winner, NE 2nd Avenue conveys the profoundly rich and textured mix of real Miami neighborhoods.

The emotional, often humorous one-man play depicts the lives of a Puerto Rican small time drug dealer, a deprived African-American young lady, a Haitian jitney driver, a Cuban-Jewish grandfather, Rasta Man, African American adolescent trying to find his footing in life, a Cuban rafter and a gay man, who each take the audience on a memorable journey through the intense streets of Miami.

Michael John Garcés directed playwright Teo Castellanos in his one-man show.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Now Castellanos has returned to his breakthrough piece for a too-short run in the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami’s Arsht Center. The venue, which didn’t exist when he created his play, seems fated to host it: After all, the west side of the building that contains the Carnival Studio Theater is on the street that gives NE 2nd Avenue its title.

Castellanos, simply switching hats, shoes, accents and his physicality, morphs into eight characters the young man meets on a journey that will take him from Wynwood to North Miami.

Castellanos, who looks the same and moves as easily as he did a decade ago, has altered and updated the show a bit, mentioning such things as Art Basel and President Obama. Certainly, life along NE Second Avenue and in the larger world has changed in myriad ways over the past 10 years. But the playwright-performer and his insightful, multicultural Miami-made play are as engaging as ever.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Teo Castellanos’ shape-shifting depiction of eight denizens of Miami’s polyglot culture in NE 2nd Avenue is remarkable for how his body language physically defines radically different people.

But far more remarkable is his mastery of these diverse characters’ idiosyncratic sound: the vocabulary, the rhythms, the intonations and timbres – each resulting in a unique music.

This one-man show at the Arsht Center, funny and profound literally at the same time, is a sociological-anthropological field trip as if Castellanos was a hip-hop Margaret Mead. It takes us on a tour of the adjacent neighborhoods on the titular boulevard highlighted by encounters with a variety of inhabitants.

This entry in the Arsht’s campaign to produce local shows, Theater Up Close, is only here through Saturday but the shows may be sold out.

NE 2nd Avenue plays at the Arsht Center through January 21, 2012.

The Scene for January 20, 2012

2012-01-19T07:48:00.002-05:00

The Carbonell Award Nominations are out, and there's a lot of pleased hubbub about how many smaller companies made the cut this year; the awards ceremony will be April 2 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, so save the date!

In the meantime, here are the entries for next year's Carbonell Awards....

opening...

The much anticipated Next to Normal opens at Actors' Playhouse.

Slow Burn Theatre opens its production of Urinetown this weekend.

Infinite Abyss Productions opens A Woman's World at Empire Stage, through January 29. It's running in conjunction with Snow White Trash, so you can make a night of it.

you still haven't missed...

Snoopy! The Musical plays at Area Stage through February 5, 2012.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity plays at the Caldwell Theatre Company through February 12, 2012.

Cabaret plays that the Maltz Jupiter Theatre through January 29, 2012.

Infinite Abyss Productions presents its original production of Snow White Trash at Empire Stage, through January 28, 2012.

Palm Beach DramaWorks critically lauded production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-on-the-Moon Marigolds plays through January 29.

The GableStage's critically acclaimed production of The Motherfucker with the Hat plays through February 5, 2012.

The Prisoner of Second Avenue plays at the Broward Stage Door Theatre through January 29, 2012.

Laffing Matterz plays the Broward Center's Abdo New River Room, for its third season of dinner and comedy.

last chance to see...

The Entr'Acte Theatrix production of Godspell winds up at the Borland Center for the Performing Arts this weekend.

passing through...

NE 2nd Avenue makes a dash through the Arsht Center.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore plays at the Parker Playhouse through January 22, 2012.

Women Fully Clothed plays the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, one night only, January 19.

The smash hit Jersey Boys plays on in the Au-Rene Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts through January 29, 2012.

Divorce Party: The Musical plays at the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse through February 19, 2012.

for kids...

Actors' Playhouse offers Alexander, Who's Not Not Not Not Not Going to Move! through March 9, 2012.

Parker Playhouse: Love, Loss, and What I Wore (reviews)

2012-01-18T21:45:00.002-05:00

The National Tour of Nora and Delia Ephron's Love Loss, and What I Wore opened at the Parker Playhouse on January 17, 2012.

Finally a play that dares to ask: “Can’t we all just stop pretending anything is ever going to be the new black?” LOVE, LOSS, AND WHAT I WORE opens the closet on this and other sartorial queries by using clothes as a metaphor for matters far deeper than the average walk-in closet. This intimate collection of stories by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron is based on the best-seller by Ilene Beckerman, as well as on the recollections of the Ephrons’ friends.

Karen Carpenter directed an all-star cast including Emily Dorsch, Daisy Eagan, Sonia Manzano, Loretta Swit and Myra Lucretia Taylor. Produced by Daryl Roth.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Like The Vagina Monologues, the play features performers who sit at music stands with the script in front of them, allowing actresses to do short runs of the show without having to learn lines or memorize movement.

But that doesn’t mean there’s no acting going on in Love, Loss and What I Wore. Far from it.

Swit, slender, pale and chic, plays the engaging Gingy, a woman of a certain age and the gal who ties the evening together... Charting the ups and downs of Gingy’s life, Swit is always a radiant presence.

Eagan and Dorsch have a lovely, touching scene in which they play brides searching for the perfect outfit for their special day. Manzano, so well known as Maria on Sesame Street, gets two particularly pithy characters, one a politician with a rebellious past, the other a breast cancer survivor. The chameleonic Taylor is poignant as she shares a story about the meaning of a bathrobe, grandly hilarious as she sputters out a tale about her problems with purses.

Love, Loss and What I Wore, which had intermittent ear-splitting sound problems on opening night, doesn’t have the depth, emotional resonance or writing quality of The Vagina Monologues. But a versatile cast and relatable subject make for an enjoyable 90 minutes of theater.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

The evening features five women telling 90 minutes of stories, touching and uproarious, about how everything from Birkenstock shoes to an old bathrobe provide the touchstones of the authors’ lives. It often seems less theater so much as eavesdropping on a dish-fest that lingers over coffee in a restaurant after a two-hour lunch.

Helmed by director Karen Carpenter, the five women interact with each other, portray secondary characters in someone else’s story, often fire off examples of a theme like “The Closet” in what sometimes seems like a choral performance of contrapuntal voices. They also pay attention to each other, smiling as broadly at the tales as the audience members.

Beckerman’s ongoing story, told by Swit and augmented with her own drawings, is interrupted and enhanced with recollections written by 18 other women including Rosie O’Donnell, Alex Witchel, Mary Rodgers and Merrill Markoe. Other than Swit, each actress plays women of different ages, ethnicities and social backgrounds. Each tells their stories with a savor in their voice usually reserved for gourmet food.

...easily the high spot was the routine about how purses reflect the interior disorder of their owners’ lives. Taylor’s perfectly cadenced and paced storytelling was uninterrupted hilarity.

But the evening also ties clothing to more sober occasions such as Manzano’s story of a woman who faces a mastectomy dressed to the nines to reaffirm her control and dignity, and whose imagining of a lacy white bra got her through reconstructive surgery.

Love, Loss and What I Wore is a surprisingly satisfying evening in the theater of reaffirming self-recognition.

Love, Loss, and What I Wore plays at the Parker Playhouse through January 22, 2012.

Promethean Theatre: Boeing-Boeing (4 reviews)

2012-01-17T13:01:00.004-05:00

The Promethean Theatre opened its production of Boeing-Boeing at the Nova Southeastern University Don Taft University Center Black Box Theatre on January 13, 2012.

The uproarious jet-propelled comedy that had audiences and critics cheering in London and on Broadway in a 2008 Tony-winning production, is coming in for a landing on the TPT stage!

Revived on Broadway in 2008, this 1960's French farce features self-styled Parisian lothario Bernard, who has international fiancees, each beautiful airline hostesses with frequent "layovers". He keeps "one up, one down and one pending" until unexpected schedule changes bring all three to Paris and Bernard's apartment at the same time. Grab your boarding pass for a rollicking good time.

Margaret Ledford directed a cast that included Sally Bondi, Lauren Butler, Matthew William Chizever, Mark Duncan, Monica Lynne Herrera, and Rachel Lomax.

John Thomason wrote for The Broward/Palm Beach New Times:

Margaret Ledford directs the play like the perpetual-motion machine that it is, but this oft-staged classic isn't as manic or zany as the best farces (think Lend Me a Tenor, Noises Off). A strong ensemble sells the familiar material with gusto and good humor. Chizever plays Bernard like an old Jack Lemmon archetype — flushed, flustered, and reaching the end of his tether. Rachel Lomax generates the most laughs as Bernard's Teutonic paramour, and Mark Duncan steals many scenes as his impossibly anxious estranged friend turned partner in crime. Only Sally Bondi, as Bernard's maid, fails to meet expectations, with an inconsistent French accent that leaves on a jet plane whenever it pleases.

J.W. Arnold reviewed for South Florida Gay News:

The challenge with farce is timing and, under the direction of Margaret Ledford, the cast is largely successful with the gags as one girl emerges the instant another is shoved unwillingly out the door. But, despite a brisk pace, the play—two acts and nearly two and a half hours with intermission—labors on at times and could benefit from some editing. It’s a 30-minute TV sitcom on steroids and we all know that steroids sometimes have some unintended side effects.

Chizever is a dashing Bernard, but it’s the deadpan performances from Duncan and Bondi that steal the show as his unenthusiastic co-conspirators. Butler, Herrera and especially the jack-booted Lomax also provide plenty of laughs, all dressed in their stylish period airline uniforms, courtesy of costume designer Ellis Tillman.

Until Mad Men returns to the airwaves in March, Boeing Boeing is the best option to get your retro fix, farce or not.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald, but starts off with a qualifier;

Some folks love farce. Others think farce belongs in a category with mimes, interactive theater and root canals: things we know exist but wouldn’t jump to experience. With a few exceptions... I’m with the latter group.

And now on to the review:

Director Margaret Ledford tries mightily to keep the play airborne on Kelly Berry’s swingin’ ‘60s set. The actors push hard to achieve the physical comedy farce requires, but too much of the movement looks strained or uncomfortable rather than artfully choreographed.

Chizever and Bondi, two very good actors, are out of their element here. His Bernard comes off as a blustering bull in a china shop, and her Bertha (sporting a pitiful French accent) is more bored beatnik than wily housekeeper. Butler’s Gloria and Herrera’s Gabriella are so over-the-top obnoxious that their “charms” remain thoroughly hidden. Only the lanky Lomax and milquetoast Duncan make their odd-couple characters work.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Promethean and its house director Margaret M. Ledford, best known for thought-provoking dramas and campy summer musicals, enter new territory with an out and out comedy that requires skill and discipline. As proven by the copious laughter in the hall, they acquit themselves well.

There’s a nagging indefinable something missing that would make it a home run. Maybe it’s a tautness, that feeling of an intricate watch spring whirring. It even sags a few times. But overall, Ledford and the cast deliver as entertaining a comedy as we’ve likely seen this season.

Duncan gives Robert a sad-sack puppy dog expression that bespeaks a virginal loneliness. He starts just a little too nebbishy to be credible and his character’s reticence slows down the first fifth of the play. But when the plot heats up and Duncan has developments to react to, so does his performance.

Chizever puts across a carefree confidence in the early scenes and then the appropriately unhinged terror as it all comes apart. Bondi is just okay here as the put-upon, muttering maid.

The women are as delightful as they are lovely. Herrera is soon to graduate from Nova Southeastern University... But she seems much older and more experienced an actress with her creation of the Italian spitfire who smolders and rages at her fiancé’s inexplicable behavior.

Butler, a recent Nova grad, is terribly funny as the supremely self-possessed, aggressive and lusciously sexy partner – a 1960 adolescent’s fantasy.

But the standout in the entire cast is the tall, willowy Lomax who chews up the scenery and everything else in sight with her wonderfully way over-the-top characterization... Her performance underscores the tone of the rest of the show: Boeing Boeing is a comical Rat Pack Roadrunner cartoon.

The Promethean Theatre production of Boeing-Boeing plays at the Nova Southeastern University Don Taft University Center Black Box Theatre through January 29, 2012.

Area Stage: Snoopy!The Musical (3 reviews)

2012-01-16T18:47:00.002-05:00

Area Stage Company opened its production of Snoopy! The Musical on January 14, 2012.

Join Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty, and the rest of the Peanuts gang in a romp through the struggles and joys that they endure in their daily life. With a wonderful cast of the characters you know and love, Snoopy! The Musical is a fun, kind hearted show that is great for the whole family!

Snoopy is a musical comedy by Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady, with a book by Warren Lockhart, Arthur Whitelaw, and Michael Grace.

Arthur Whitelaw directed a cast that included Joshua Gobarganes, Giancarlo Rodaz, David Harrison, Marilyn Caserta, Brigid Kegel, Marc Alvarez, and Anamari Mesa.

Michelle Solomon reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Arthur Whitelaw, who co-authored the book for Snoopy! The Musical, directs Area Stage Company’s production that features the Coral Gables-based company’s conservatory members and mixes in professional actors. It is quite a coup to have Whitelaw, whose credits in the professional theater and television span more than 50 years and who has won every major industry award.

Whitelaw can be credited with how comfortable the cast is with their roles both individually and as an ensemble in Snoopy! And it’s this ease, plus the hard work of the cast that saves the day.

Joshua Dobarganes as Snoopy is a showman, but his eager beagle should/could have a bit more muscle and a tad less sneer. While Snoopy’s character has always been overzealous and overly confident, he’s still likeable.

Standouts in the cast include Marilyn Caserta as Peppermint Patty whose natural talent shines through in her solos... and Marc Alvarez as Linus who has the audience sympathizing with his plight as his beloved blanket goes to the laundry in “The Vigil.” Giancarlo Rodaz steals the show as the hyperkinetic, yellow haired Woodstock.

While Snoopy is the stuff of comic strip legend as the coolest beagle around, Snoopy! The Musical just doesn’t live up to Joe Cool standards.

Roger Martin reviewed for Miami Artzine.com:

Snoopy! The Musical is almost as old as Snoopy, the dog, who was first drawn by Charles Schultz in the Peanuts comic strip in 1950. Co-written by Arthur Whitelaw who also produced and directed, Snoopy! The Musical premiered in 1975. And Arthur Whitelaw is here, directing this version at Area Stage, as part of their professional team.

It may be an old show, this Snoopy! The Musical, but the cast is young. High schoolers, collegians and a couple of professionals, one equity. They're a talented group, enthusiastic and joyful, who do well by the twenty songs of Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady.

There's not a highly involved plot going on here... But for all that, Snoopy! The Musical is likeable family fare that showcases some kids who might go far in musical theatre.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Area Stage Company, a pioneering Lincoln Road company admired for its strong productions of challenging plays, has lately carved out a niche in its larger Coral Gables home with ambitious musicals performed by conservatory students.

With its new production of Snoopy! The Musical, Area is easing back into professional fare, tapping some of those talented students and a couple of pros for its blended cast. The seven actors have worked with a director who knows the material as well as anyone: Arthur Whitelaw, the veteran producer, actor, writer and director who helped write the musical’s script. Whitelaw also produced and staged the original Off-Broadway production in 1982 and directed a 2004 London production.

Whitelaw’s direction is fine, David Graden’s set and costumes are cartoon colorful, and the actors are mostly up to the not-too-taxing demands of the script and songs.

The performers handle Michelle Petrucci’s choreography well, crisply tapping to When Do the Good Things Start? to end the first act. ...Patty’s Poor Sweet Baby is overflowing with faux tenderness, thanks to the impressive Caserta, who clearly has a future in musical theater.

Dobarganes, the only member of Actors’ Equity in the cast, gives a big comedic performance in the title role, as he should. Yet more than once he wanders off-key, like Snoopy breaking free of a leash.

Snoopy! The Musical plays at Area Stage through February 5, 2012.

2011 Carbonell Awards Nominations

2012-01-16T15:11:00.002-05:00

As noted in Mondays are Dark, the nominations for the 2011 Carbonell Awards have been announced. And as we mentioned then, it's a competitive field.

There have been complaints over the years that the process is flawed, and polical; that some are nominated for political reasons instead of on merit: and those complaints are not without some merit. After all, Arnold Mittelman recieved an acheivement award the day before his theatre, the Coconut Grove Playhouse, was shuttered. There was a movement suggesting that the attendees stand and turn their back on him as he was awarded, and there was a very strained smattering of applause.

The Nomination is the Reward
But that was then; with new criteria to recommend shows for consideration and a year of unparalleled production quality, it's hard to argue that any nominee isn't worthy.

Florida Theater On Stage comments on some of the past controversy:

An overwhelming 43 nominations were racked up by Palm Beach County theaters. That eclipses the 30 for theaters in Miami-Dade County, which has usually been the strongest concentration of competitors in a program most theater people hate to consider a competition. Even Broward County posted a strong showing with 26 nominations.

The inescapable irony to longtime Carbonell insiders is that Palm Beach theaters have long criticized the awards for giving short shrift to the work done in the northern county.

Bill Hirschman also gives us a peak into the difficulties choosing just 5 nominations for each and every category:

Full disclosure: I am one of the ten judges who debated and joked and looked askance at each other from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 or so Sunday. The quality of the past year’s work was evident in the many impassioned discussions by well-meaning colleagues over categories that started out with as many 21 names on the table. One category took five ballots to settle on five rather than six nominees as required by the rules.

Well, Maybe Not EVERY Nod...
The Miami Herald expresses surprise at one omission:

Notably absent from best musical contention is the boisterous production of Hairspray done at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables. The show’s director and leading “lady” David Arisco (he played big mama Edna Turnblad) was also snubbed.

In a field where Promethean's Song of the Living Dead earned five nominations, that's worth noting.

Having seen both productions, let's reflect upon it.

The Playhouse has more resources to put into it, but Promethean had to overcome its limitations.
Hairspray's set was far more polished, but Living Dead had more special effects.
Hairspray had amazing big dance numbers, and Living Dead had... zombies.
Living Dead was the greater unknown of the two productions, so Promethean took the greater risk... except that they're based at a college during a renaissance of zombie stories.
Everyone who went to Living Dead expected to have fun - and did.
But we've talked to a few people who wouldn't have gone to see Hairspray
except to see Dave or Avi (or another friend in the production) and
came away amazed at how much fun they wound up having due to the energy
pouring off that stage.

On reflection, we can't help but think that the tabulating still needs some tweaking.

Short List
The Examiner reports that while all ten of its list for Best Live Professional Theater received nods, 6 theaters didn't make their list. Richard Cameron also has a list of "upsets."

The Carbonell upsets are no nomination for HBO's The Sopranos star Ray Abruzzo for Best Actor in Lombardi for Mosaic Theatre and Broward Stage Door known for it's canned music has mutiple nominations for The Light in the Piazza thanks to Director Michael Leeds who may be the only Broadway local credited Director that our Florida theatres continue to hire. Once again Director Joseph Adler nominated for Red at GableStage is a sure Top Pick as GableStage production choices and production values continue to be the best for plays in south Florida with Mosaic Theatre falling close behind.

How many other Broadway directors are living in South Florida, anyway?

Thing That Make Us go Hmmm...

If Jupiter Theatre wins for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat last year (but this season), what does it do the chances for the Actors' Playhouse production, opening in a few months? A number of years ago, Theater Club of the Palm Beaches won best production of a play for Eleemosynary; the following season, Miami Shakespeare mounted a production of Eleemosynary that was a cinch to win - but it didn't. As TD of the production that DID win - Theatre Club's The Stickwife - I can tell you they got gypped. Should the fact that a play won the year before enter into discussion for the next year's crop of nominees?
The Director is the person who brings all the elements of a production together; how is it that year after year, the list of nominated directors doesn't match up with nominated best productions?

All this said, we're very pleased with the spread of the nominations; it's hard to argue that "the same people" get nominated over and over again when there are so many new names on the list this year.

Mondays are Dark

2012-01-16T06:17:00.008-05:00

The nominations for the 2011 Carbonell Awards were published by the Carbonell Awards Organization last night.

In a year filled with extraordinary and varied theatre presentations, nominations were spread throughout the region, from Jupiter to Coral Gables, with 13 companies receiving nominations, and 28 of the 68 eligible shows that opened in 2011 given recognition.

Palm Beach County theatres soared ahead with 43 nominations, followed by Miami-Dade with 28, and Broward County with 27 nominations.

The awards ceremony will be held at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on April 2, 2012. And this year, there are no forgone conclusions; it was a year of incredible high production value, and it's the first time we can recall where every single nominee makes complete sense.

When you're finished with the list, here's some other stuff to read:

Busy Busy Busy
The Miami Herald reports that it's the peak of theatre season in South Florida.

...this month is insanely busy on South Florida stages. More than a dozen local professional productions are running or soon to open, augmented by that reliable powerhouse Jersey Boys and other touring fare.

Shuffling those Tiles
Mosaic Theatre announces a change in its season line-up.

Speaking of Changes
Florida Theater On Stage reports that Costume World won't be buying Stage Door Theatre after all.

Costume World's CEO Marilyn Wick confirmed Wednesday that the deal has stalled, although both parties said a slight possibility exists of salvaging the deal sometime in the future.

Since The Drama Queen reports that Stage Door just announced a 2012-13 season in the Coral Springs venue, we wouldn't recommend that anyone hold their breath.

Speaking of Season Announcements
The Alliance Theatre Lab announces their 2012 season; and it's bold.

We are extremely proud to announce that our 2012 Season will be dedicated to solely presenting original works. After the success of last season's Brothers Beckett, we couldn't be more thrilled to embark on this exciting adventure!

Note that this isn't the niche filled by the late Florida Stage, which produced soley NEW works. Alliance is talking ORIGINAL works, which means they're creating plays from scratch. Like we said, BOLD.

Cabaret Comes to Life
Edge Miami goes behind the scenes at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. Their production of Cabaret opened to rave reviews this past weekend.

"This is the 1998 revival that is more powerful and grittier than the movie we all remember so well," Kato said. "We are really lucky to be able to bring this to South Florida with B.T. Nicholl, the premier director authorized to produce this version."

Everybody Loves a Parade
The Sun-Sentinel talks with the founders of one of South Florida's newest theatre companies.

"When you grow up dreaming of theater, you aren't thinking of competition," said Caplin with a laugh last Thursday afternoon from the sun-lit dining room of a Starbucks in Boca. As her friend and Parade partner Kim St. Leon watches on, Caplin bends over a turkey patty flecked with shredded lettuce and flicks the floppy kaiser bun across the plate. She carves off a piece of patty and takes a mouthful ("I'm a starving actress," she adds with a smirk) before continuing.

"You're thinking of creativity. Theater is a vital part of the human experience, the mirror that shows us what society is about. The key is, you want more theater than you fear the economy," she said.

Candace Caplin and Kim St. Leon's Parade Productions kicks off next week with Brooklyn Boy.

Speaking of New Theatre Companies
Talkin' Broadway talks with the founder of another new company in town; Alan Jacobson, who is opening The Plaza Theatre in Florida Stage's old digs at Manalapan's Plaza Del Mar.

Jacobson hopes to be self-sustaining, covering basic operating expenses through ticket sales and classes. His operating budget has not yet been set but he will be opening his first season with a small staff as he establishes the new theatre. The scheduled March closing of the nearby Ocean Avenue bridge for lengthy repair may slow traffic a bit, but not Jacobson's optimism. He has already received a $10,000 donation and is fielding multiple calls from parties interested in bringing their shows to The Plaza Theatre.

Shockingly Good
The hot ticket this month is Next To Normal at Actors' Playhouse, and it hasn't even opened yet. The Miami Herald explains what all the fuss is about.

The searing, shimmering rock musical Next to Normal, which began as a 10-minute musical workshop piece on electroconvulsive therapy (ECT, today's version of shock therapy), is an extraordinary addition to that genre. With a Tony Award-winning score by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, the musical about a woman's struggle with bipolar disorder was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

The 2010 Pulitzer, bestowed by the award's board (which bypassed the drama jury's three suggested finalists, including Kristoffer Diaz's The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, now playing at Boca Raton's Caldwell Theatre Company), was an unexpected thrill for Kitt and Yorkey. Theirs is just the eighth musical to win the drama Pulitzer, after Rent, Sunday in the Park With George, A Chorus Line, How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Fiorello!, South Pacific and Of Thee I Sing.

We've heard from Playhouse insiders that the music wafting from the rehearsal hall is amazing.

New Theatre's Winter
BroadwayWorld tells us about New Theatre's next play; Robert Caisley's Winter, opening at their news space at The Roxy Performing Art Center.

Under the direction of Artistic Director, Ricky J. Martinez, the Winter's family saga comes to life with New Theatre veterans: Scott Douglas Wilson, Annemaria Rajala and Barbara Sloan and making her New Theatre debut Nicole Quintana. The company is rounded out by New Theatre Production Stage Manager, Jerry Jensen with Scenic Designer: Nicole Quintana; Costume Designer: K. Blair Brown and making their New Theatre debut Sound Designer: Alexis Bonilla and Lighting Designer: Eric J. Cantrell.

Yet Another (noun) The Musical Production
The Shiny Sheet has the story of a how musical about divorce came together; Divorce Party the Musical is playing at The Kravis Center. Speaking of which, why hasn't Dave Arisco directed Musical of Musicals (the Musical) yet?

Wonderland Returns
BroadwayWorld reports that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is returning to The Playground Theater in Miami Shores.

Original cast members Linda Bernhard and Marjorie O'Neill-Butler from South Florida are joined by New York actors Emily Batsford, Josh Carpenter, and Jeremy Greenbaum, Chicago actor Makeba Pace, and South Florida actors Troy Davidson, Edson Jean, and Nikki Lowe for the highly anticipated return of ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND.

1-2-3; More Poetry
Conundrum Stages announces its 3rd annual evening of poetry on January 28.

A Joyful Noise
BroadwayWorld tells us about the Entr'Acte Theatrix production of Godspell, which played last weekend at someplace called The Borland Center, and plays this weekend at the Flagler Campus of the Palm Beach Day Academy. It's an appropriate space: it used to be a Unity Church.

Meanwhile...
...in Palm Beach, the Royal Poinciana Playhouse is still closed. But The Palm Beach Daily News reports that it's likely to remain standing for the foreseeable future.

Building Official Jeffrey L. Taylor has determined the Royal Poinciana Playhouse appears to be in good shape, though it needs a new fuse panel... Commissioner William Cooley pushed for the inspection in December, suggesting that the landmarked building's owner is allowing demolition by neglect.

...in Miami, The Coconut Grove Grapevine reports that vandals broke into the long-shuttered Coconut Grove Playhouse.

Well, the little skater boys decided to get in and destroy the place, you can't see it from the exterior, but they broke all sorts of glass inside, including computer monitors and other things.

The Grapevine also mentions that squatters were in residence at some point.

Caldwell Theatre: The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (6 reviews)

2012-01-15T13:37:00.005-05:00

Caldwell Theatre Company started previes for its production of The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity on January 8, 2012, and opened on January 11, 2012.

Fresh from its Pulitzer Prize nomination, The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is the comedic look into the world of professional wrestling but told through a thoughtful examination of race relations, geopolitics, and personal introspection. Unlike anything you’ve ever seen, one moment you’re awed by the spectacle, another you’re laughing uncontrollably and finally, you’re rethinking America’s place in the global landscape.

Clive Cholerton directed a cast that featured Brandon Morris, Donte Bonner, Gregg Weiner, Matthew Schaller,and Adam Bashian.

Roger Martin reviewed for Miami Artzine:

Well, I'm just plain sorry, boys and girls, but Chad didn't do it for me. It's... two hours of a show that you'd probably turn off after ten minutes of late night television. Sooner if they threw in the political innuendos of The Elaborate Entrance etc.

It's briefly fun to watch the actors fling themselves around the ring and their carefully choreographed athleticism is certainly to be admired. So is the direction of Clive Cholerton, who handles this spectacle like old Cecil B. The set by Tim Bennett, the lighting by Thomas M. Shorrock, the costumes by Alberto Arroyo and the projections by Sean Lawson rock the staid Caldwell like never before.

John Lariviere reviewd for Talkin' Broadway:

...Donte Bonner as Chad Deity has the smooth and cocky swagger of a wrestler at the peak of his popularity. He manages to capture the crowd's attention like a beautiful but spoiled child, which really is exactly what Deity is. Adam Bashian has great street cred as Paduar. His energy, accent, and body language all work together to make the character believable. Brandon Morris establishes the strongest relationship with the audience. He is ever present, monitoring and encouraging their response, without any of it effecting his pacing. His feel is personable and conversational, and while his character shares his observations of the situation, he manages to do it without steering them toward any conclusion but their own.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is surprisingly entertaining. Our visit with the colorful world of wrestling provides a bit of a breath of fresh air. The meaningful message behind the premise sneaks into our conscious mind as it is presented in an unexpected way.

John Thomason wrote for the Broward/Palm Beach New Times:

...the cheeky story is a wry, smart, and self-effacingly witty deconstruction of the wrestling world.

...the play is narrated by Macedonio Guerra, AKA Mace (Brandon Morris). Mace is a lower-tier wrestler in the fictional THE Wrestling federation. In industry jargon, he's a "jobber" — meaning a talented craftsman who helps promotes marquee wrestlers by artfully losing to them. It's a breathless, breakthrough turn for Morris, exposing how the pro-wrestling sausage is made with the perfect mixture of enthusiastic pride and stupefying self-awareness. He recites his lines with the spontaneity of someone who's just thinking this stuff up for the first time.

In a role that is flash over substance (Chad Deity), Bonner finds the substance in the flash.

Tim Bennett's set design is straight out of Monday Night Raw, with a wrestling ring stationed in front of a walkway leading from automatic, sliding metal doors enhanced with smoke and lights and bookended by giant projection screens — the stuff of countless elaborate entrances by countless musclebound wrestlers the world over.

That said, this is the kind of the show in which you come for the pro wrestling and stay for the social commentary. The Elaborate Entrance is a great play for the same reason Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was such a surprisingly successful comedy: It's a politically incorrect satire that uses its juvenile premise to critique xenophobia and puncture American exceptionalism and egocentricity.

Phillip Valys wrote for The Sun-Sentinel:

Early on in Kristoffer Diaz's play about pro wrestling, middle-ranked Macedonio Guerra – ring name The Mace – growls villainously from beneath his Luchador mask.

Guerra is a perpetual middle-card wrestler and jobroni to the stars; that is, a professional fall guy who loses to top-tier wrasslers, ones who make up for lesser talent with unbridled charisma. For, as Guerra (a wonderfully eloquent Brandon Morris and the play's narrator) explains in his sort of anthropologically intelligent style, in the pseudo-sport of pro wrestling, sweaty men can't body-slam other sweaty men without the full "communion" of both.

...Chad Deity, a drama tackling an American pastime rarely captured for the stage and a play once shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010, morphs the art of pro wrestling into a adrenaline-fueled satire of American excess.

Kudos to scene designer Tim Bennett, whose compact lone ring is spotlit with blinding Klieg lights and surrounded by grated mesh steel panels slapped to the wall like a actual WWE arena. As each wrestler smacks the canvas, every thump's a sharp reality check that these performers take lumps.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Hidden by the crisscrossing spotlights, the blaring fanfares, the handfuls of cash flying through the air, the billowing smoke (was there smoke? I’m not sure) and the sound of semi-buff bodies crashing to the mat of a wrestling ring, the Caldwell Theatre’s hilarious satire The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity sneaks a critical rabbit punch at the solar plexus of society.

Kristoffer Diaz’s play – a Pulitzer finalist in 2010 – is a risky choice for a theater whose audience prefers a title they have at least heard of, if never seen. But Artistic Director Clive Cholerton is betting heavily on word of mouth for this wacky but thought-provoking work in which performers tossing each other around is just the decorative icing on an incisive script featuring long philosophical monologues and rapid-fire repartee.

Cholerton has elicited joyful nose-thumbing performances from his cast.

Handsome Brandon Morris makes Mace a perpetually bemused observer who has absolved himself of any responsibility for advancing the racist storylines he disparages as self-evidently objectionable.... The actor breezes through pages of monologues as if they were ideas naturally occurring to him that he thinks will amuse us. He deftly bounces like a tennis ball in a video game between droll conversations with the audience and frustrated dialogue with the promoter.

Donte Bonner, who oozes raw sex appeal, is appropriately over the top as the brash, seriously ego-centric Chad Deity. Bonner embodies a character who savors the rewards of a game he knows is rigged in his favor and who feels not the slightest bit guilty...

Adam Bashian as Paduar is a revelation. Frankly, he was so wooden in Broward Stage Door’s recent Guys and Dolls that I feared for this show. But in fact, he proves here to be a winning, engaging actor who captures Paduar’s charm and intelligence.

...Gregg Weiner makes the promoter Olson the embodiment of the crass and crude businessman who sold his scruples so long ago. Weiner’s Olson is so certain of his ability to predict the lowest common denominator taste of the public that he is blithely ignorant that his morality is reprehensible.

Special credit goes to fight arranger Pablo Marquez and to Matthew Schaller, an actual wrestler who spars with the actors through much of the show – ironically making the stars of this show look good.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Chad Deity is theater gold. It’s fast and flawlessly paced, insanely funny, a little sobering at the end when its message – like the play’s most defiant wrestler – kicks you in the gut. The script works on several levels at once, turning a normally quiet and observant audience into a bunch of rowdy wrestling fans who can’t stop grinning. This is a play full of physical, emotional and intellectual heft, one staged flawlessly by artistic director Clive Cholerton.

Last seen at the Caldwell in The Whipping Man, Morris (The Mace) is first among equals when it comes to a cast full of superb performances... Relaxed, sardonic, deeply funny, Morris seems to speaking off the top of his head – though of course, given the complexity and intricate timing of Chad Deity, he is not. He has never been better.

The Mace... has plenty about which to wax sarcastic. Like the new character that his boss, Everett K. Olson (or E.K.O., played with slick-huster panache by Gregg Weiner), comes up with...

...E.K.O. takes The Mace’s find, Vigneshwar Paduar or V.P. (Adam Bashian, Morris’ equal in seducing the audience), and repurposes him as an America-hating Muslim wrestler he dubs The Fundamentalist. Never mind that V.P. is an Indian-American with hip-hop swagger, a guy born and raised in Brooklyn.

...Bonner manages to make Chad both self-adoring and self-aware, striking a comically charismatic balance that keeps the audience hooting and rooting for him. Matthew Schaller, the cast’s one actual pro wrestler, plays several American-stereotype opponents while lending the production wrestling authenticity. If there is such a thing

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity did not, as noted, win the 2010 Pulitzer, which was awarded by the full Pulitzer board to the powerful rock musical Next to Normal (opening Jan. 20 at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables). But the drama jury that recommends finalists and winners was oh-so-right in singling out Chad Deity for recognition. The play is a not-to-be-missed treasure from a thrillingly fresh voice in theater.

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity plays at the Caldwell Theatre Company through February 12, 2012.

Broward Center: Jersey Boys (5 reviews)

2012-01-15T13:36:00.004-05:00

The national tour of the Broadway hit musical Jersey Boys returned to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts on January 10, 2012.

This is the story of how four blue-collar kids became one of thegreatest successes in pop music history. They wrote their own songs,invented their own sounds and sold 175 million records worldwide – all before they were 30! (winner of the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album and the 2009 Olivier Award for Best New Musical)

Des McAnuff directs a cast that includes Joseph Leo Bwarie, Preston Truman Boyd, John Gardiner, and Michael Lomenda.

Jersey Boys has played South Florida before; here are the reviews from Broward Center 2009 (it sold out at a whopping 104%!), and Kravis Center 2010. We have no reviews on file for the 2011 stop at the Arsht Center.

Roger Martin reviewed for Miami Artzine.com:

Good heavens, what are you going to say when you see a show in which everything is as good as or better than you expected? How about, “Fabulous, darling”. “Terrific.” “Truly professional.”

...the show's writers, Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, have put together a story that's totally engrossing. When you add the music of Bob Gaudio and the lyrics of Bob Crewe and the performances of Preston Truman Boyd (Bob Gaudio), Joseph Leo Bwarie (Frankie Valli), John Gardiner (Tommy DiVito) and Michael Lomenda (Nick Massi), you get a wonderfully entertaining evening. And the nice thing is you really pull for these young men, good actors, good musicians; you want them to succeed.

There's a large supporting cast whose acting and singing are every bit as impressive as the leads. The technical aspects, the set, the lighting, the sound, the projections, the costumes, the band, are all one could wish for. A brilliantly staged and performed show under the direction of Des McAnuff.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

After gigs in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and all over the country, New Jersey’s most famous quartet is back onstage at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. And oh, what a night the guys deliver. Matinees too.

Jersey Boys, the hit-packed story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is one of those musicals that could and should tour for years.

The show features a terrific streets-to-stardom script by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, craftsmen who are adept at weaving facts, drama and laughs into a compelling whole. Director Des McAnuff keeps the show flowing as flawlessly as a Four Seasons classic, building to the moment when Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi don matching jackets and blast into pop music’s stratosphere with Sherry.

The real Valli is still out there entertaining his fans at 77... But Jersey Boys has its own impressive version of the singer in actor Joseph Leo Bwarie, who has played Valli for almost four years. Bwarie can alter his natural voice (which you can hear on his debut CD Nothin’ but Love, produced by former Four Seasons member-arranger Charles Calello) so that he sounds much like Valli, whether singing in a normal register or that soaring falsetto. He’s a fine actor too: Watch as he registers Valli’s thrill when the crowd goes wild for the Four Seasons, a moment Bwarie has played hundreds of times.

Michael Lomenda is back as the funny, slightly eccentric Massi, the bass player who abruptly quit and group and has since passed away. John Gardiner is a brash, controlling Tommy DeVito, the group member who was exiled to Las Vegas after getting the Seasons into double trouble over huge loans and delinquent taxes. Preston Truman Boyd, last seen on tour as the monster in Young Frankenstein, is a beguiling boy genius as Gaudio.

John Lariviere reviewed for Talkin' Broadway.com:

Joseph Leo Bwarie is flawless as the golden-voiced Frankie Valli in the perfect marriage of the right performer to the right role. He transitions seamlessly into song after song, and is also the cleanest dancer of the four men. John Gardiner as the troubled Tommy DeVito is perhaps a bit forced in his attempt to capture the "wiseguy" image of his character. Preston Truman Boyd has a warmth and vulnerability in his portrayal of Bob Gaudio that makes his character most likeable. Michael Lomenda as Nick Massi is particularly entertaining in a scene in which his character suddenly vents his years of frustrations with fellow band member DeVito.

Bwarie, Boyd, Gardiner and Lomenda sound wonderful together in song after song, and the most thrilling moments in the show are the ones in which they are recreating the stage performances of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. As the four characters take turns telling their version of the group's journey, one recalls that the music is just the centerpiece of the colorful story being told. The twists and turns of the careers and friendships of the original four members of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons unfold with humor, heartache and warmth. It is a story and a production well worth seeing and hearing.

Phyllis Green ~~reviewed~~ gushed for ENV Magazine:

Thousands of cheering fans floated through the Broward Center of Performing Arts after seeing a phenomenal performance of the 2006 Tony Award winning musical “Jersey Boys”. For an audience made up of the generation that sang, danced and romanced to the Rock and Roll predecessors of the British invasion, it is over two hours of dazzling fun.

Frankie Valli, played flawlessly by Joseph Leo Bwarie began as a young nerdy kid with a good voice, that blended perfectly with guys from the neighborhood... The unique harmony with Musical Direction by Ron Melrose plus Sergio Trujillo’s sensational Choreography, which looked more like dancing, kept the pace soaring.

(as opposed to choreography that looks nothing like dancing? -ed.)

But it wasn’t just the songs; the story of the highs and lows of traveling on the road, the accusations, getting along with each other, plus their own personal lives, interwoven through compelling narratives told by each of the principals, created a plot that held together in riveting fashion. The highlighted scene for this writer comes late in the first act when Frankie and his wife cannot stay together; she exits up the small circular staircase, leaving him alone on the stage to chant the lilting “My Eyes Adored You”.

...it’s no wonder that it became a blockbuster phenomenon with companies touring all over the world...

Beau Higgins ~~reviewed~~ gushed for BroadwayWorld.com:

...this musical, based on the life and careers of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is thrilling, masterful, and certainly unforgettable. I tossed and I turned remembering magical pieces of stage craft, goose bump inducing performances and everything else that makes up this Tony winning Best Musical; indeed one of the best musicals of all time.

The last time I reviewed JERSEY BOYS, I raved about Joseph Leo Bwarie’s Frankie Valli, writing that every home should have a Joseph Leo Bwarie. Mr. Bwarie has still not visited my home, but he continues to be impossibly magnificent as the star of JERSEY BOYS. His performance is electric, it is moving. Frankly, it is an astonishing feat Mr. Bwarie accomplishes with his every moment giving us the intensity of opening night.

Now to a certain Mr. Preston Truman Boyd (don’t you just love the name?) As Bob Gaudio, one of the original Four Seasons and the writer of the music to their songs, Mr. Boyd is absolutely delicious. His performance is so delightful, he joins Mr. Bwarie in giving an unforgettable JERSEY BOYS performance.

I could go on and on about the wonder that is JERSEY BOYS, but there are not too many adjectives left for me to use. John Gardiner and Michael Lomenda are spot on perfect at the other two Seasons; heck, there is not a weak link to be found in JERSEY BOYS at the Broward Center.

The smash hit Jersey Boys plays at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts through January 29, 2012.

Maltz Jupiter Theatre; Cabaret (4 reviews)

2012-01-14T11:34:00.002-05:00

The Maltz Jupiter Theatre opened its production of Cabaret on January 10, 2012.

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome! Take your seat for this energetic, politically charged, seductive, and daring Tony-award winning production that is ranked among the greatest American musicals. Featuring a memorable Kander and Ebb score, Cabaret is set amid the decadence of 1929 Weimar Germany’s netherworld and follows the unlikely romance between writer Cliff Bradshaw and performer Sally Bowles.

B.T. McNichol directed a cast that included Christopher Sloan, Kate Shindle, Aaron Bower, Bruce Linser, Fred Rose, Angie Radosh, and John Felix.

John Lariviere reviewed for Talkin' Broadway:

Christopher Sloan nears perfection in his portrayal of the Emcee. As lewd as his character may be, there is just enough of an impish twinkle in his eye to make him almost endearing... Kate Shindle is equally well cast as Sally Bowles... Shindle appropriately gives us a Sally that is a hot mess in the end. Her rendition of the title song is not a sequined and spot-lit eleven o'clock number, but a tortured song of self loathing and revelation. As Cliff, Bruce Linser brings a great deal of clarity to a role that is often played as boyish and callow. The thoughtfulness of his acting beats brings needed depth to the character and his observations of what lies ahead for those around him.

Director BT McNicholl has structured many of the scenes and focus changes as cleanly as a camera take in a movie. Five musicians are assisted by nine cast members playing instruments on stage. This nicely reinforces the feel of a nightclub, particularly in the entr'acte at the top of act two. Supporting actress Angie Radosh is compelling as Fraulein Schneider, with some nice moments with John Felix as Herr Schultz; however, he does not fare well vocally. Though it is regrettable that their dancing is not stronger, tattered costumes, harsh makeup, tattoos and track marks help create the tawdry and desperate feel of the Kit Kat Klub girls and the world around them. Very strong performances by Sloan and Shindle, and a solid ensemble make this production of Cabaret the show to see.

Hap Erstein reviewed for the Palm Beach Post:

In part because the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has served up such polished and elaborate productions in recent years, it has had a hard time convincing its subscribers that these are not touring shows intended for a larger audience.

That misunderstanding can only increase with its current, otherwise excellent offering... For the theater has chosen to reproduce the revelatory concepts and staging of the 1998 Tony Award-winning revival which upped the decadence, depravity and darkness quotients of the show which looks at the insidious rise of the Third Reich in prewar Berlin.

...director Sam Mendes – whose work is echoed here by BT McNicholl – placed added emphasis on a character called the Emcee (played with a seductive, crotch-grabbing edginess by Christopher Sloan). He insinuates himself into most of the musical numbers, turning the story songs far less conventional and fuzzing the line between onstage and off.

On its literal level, Cabaret is the story of American would-be novelist Cliff Bradshaw (a worthy Bruce Linser), who falls for quirky, politically naive club headliner Sally Bowles (Kate Shindle, 1998′s Miss America). In a parallel doomed romance, Cliff’s landlady Fraulein Schneider (a surprisingly musical Angie Radosh) comes close to marrying Jewish fruit peddler Herr Schultz (an affecting John Felix) until she bows to the rising tide of anti-Semitism.

Shindle handles (the title tune) very effectively, delineating Sally’s emotional breakdown, and she grabs us by the throat with a simple, aching rendition of “Maybe This Time”. She succeeds in the role, even if she is too physically imposing to convince us of Sally’s waifishness.

...the evening belongs to the leering Sloan, who turns “Two Ladies” into a gender-bent romp and who delivers the previously cut ballad “I Don’t Care Much” with a haunting vocal shrug. The ensemble, sporting body bruises and doubling as the show’s orchestra, looks great executing Jennifer Werner’s energetic choreography.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

The Maltz Jupiter Theatre is a Carbonell Award-winning company in the northernmost part of South Florida’s sprawling, vibrant tri-county theater scene. Getting there from Miami-Dade or Broward counties involves a mini road trip, for sure. But at the end of that road, through the end of this month, is a reward: a glorious production of Cabaret.

The cast of the Maltz’s Cabaret, a mixture of Broadway, regional theater and South Florida actors, is full of triple- and quadruple-threat performers, people who can act, sing, dance and play instruments. Fred Rose, for example, plays the initially charming Nazi operative Ernst Ludwig and serves as the cellist at the top of the second act. Each of bruised, used-looking Kit Kat Klub boys and girls jumps in and out of the orchestra, the Jennifer Werner-choreographed dance numbers, songs and scenes – impressively so.

Christopher Sloan gets the showiest role in Cabaret, the Emcee... A playful sexual provocateur with a strong voice, Sloan pushes a little too hard at the beginning. But as he slips into a beaded gown to sing the haunting I Don’t Care Much and then reveals more shocking attire in the show’s chilling finale, Sloan’s work becomes devastatingly powerful.

The production’s Sally Bowles is Kate Shindle, the 1998 Miss America who has built an impressively varied career on Broadway, in regional theater, in film and TV. Her opportunistic British ex-pat is no slumming beauty queen; rather, this Sally becomes a belting singer and lost dreamer whose drug use, drinking and moral flaccidness make her both symbol and victim.

As the husky-voiced prostitute Fraülein Kost, Aaron Bower is transformed into a ruined beauty, and she’s such a dazzling singer that you wish her character were featured more. Bruce Linser is earnest and impassioned as Sally’s sexually malleable beau, American writer Clifford Bradshaw. As the older couple whose late-in-life romance is doomed by the gathering Nazi storm, Angie Radosh as Fraülein Schneider and John Felix as the Jewish fruit vendor Herr Schultz are exquisitely sweet and ultimately heartbreaking.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

With its new edgy production of Cabaret, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre takes an often thrilling left turn into adult, thought-provoking theater that this home of mainstream crowd-pleasers rarely attempts.

It’s resonances are deafening.

This near-clone of the Roundabout Theatre’s 1998 revisionist revival – the Sam Mendes/Rob Marshall vision of a sleazy Hell on Earth with nipple rings – is among the finest work this company has yet produced.

The Maltz edition, directed by Mendes’ associate BT McNicholl and starring actors who have played the leads for Mendes, answers not just how Hitler could come to power but how it could happen again. Here. Today.

...perhaps the finest moment in the show is the title song delivered by a collaboration among McNicholl, musical director Alexander Rovang and Kate Shindle as the party girl Sally Bowles... Shindle and company nail the song as it has never been nailed before in this critic’s hearing, even the fine rendition by you-know-who in the film version. This Sally sings the oft-perverted lyrics as she struggles in shame at the inescapable knowledge of her failing, weaknesses that she still enables even when she knows they will provide fatal. Trembling physically and vocally, she clips the notes rather than hold them.

Although McNicholl has intentionally copied – and credited – the Mendes/Marshall version, he has deftly and smoothly helmed this iteration with the new contributions necessitated by new cast members, producers and creative team. But his experience directing it at least four times around the world pays off in an assured in-depth knowledge of the material and how to put it across to an audience.

He has not allowed anyone in the cast to echo even a shred of imitation of Liza and Joel, or Natasha and Alan, or anyone else. These are original and unique creations.

Christopher Sloan... is a sensation from the moment his Emcee strides to center stage with a grin that revels in crass and crude libidinous anarchy.

John Felix, a South Florida favorite, can barely sing his part as the nebbishy Jewish grocer who courts Cliff’s middle-aged landlady. But (original director Hal) Prince’s choice, Jack Gilford, couldn’t sing either. Felix solidly land the character by injecting Herr Schultz with the essential goodness of the man and a likeability that makes us fear for his future, especially when he fails to see that that Nazism is fatal because he sees himself as a German as well as a Jew.

Aaron Bower is a wonderfully desiccated and dissipated prostitute, Fraulein Kost... A Florida actress who reputedly doesn’t read music, she taught herself to play the accordion for the role.

...last but not least is the glorious Angie Radosh as Fraulein Schneider. Besides having a wonderful world-weary singing voice far stronger than Lotte Lenya’s original... Radosh’s portrait makes clear how “good Germans” enabled Hitler and the Holocaust.

Cabaret is a welcome watershed in which the Maltz is saying, to heck with it, we’re going to do an adult show with adult themes that make you think. Bravo.

Cabaret plays that the Maltz Jupiter Theatre through January 29, 2012.

The Scene for January 13, 2012

2012-01-12T07:41:00.002-05:00

The hits just keep on coming; GableStage and Palm Beach DramaWorks have both received accolades for their current productions. The Maltz and Promethean both have openings this week; Broward Center and Kravis Center are each hosting a major national tour AND a second production in their smaller halls.

You have a lot of choices on The Scene this week; enjoy!

opening...

The Maltz Jupiter Theatre opens its production of Cabaret, which plays through January 29, 2012.

Snoopy: The Musical! opens at Area Stage, through January 29, 2012.

The Promethean Theatre opens its production of the hilarious Boeing-Boeing this weekend; it runs through January 29 at the Black Box Theater at Nova Southeast University.

Entr'Acte Theatrix opens Godspell at the Borland Center for the Performing Arts, this weekend and next weekend.

you still haven't missed...

The Stage Door Theatre production of Irving Berlin's I Love A Piano plays through January 15.

Infinite Abyss Productions presents its original production of Snow White Trash at Empire Stage, through January 28, 2012.

Palm Beach DramaWorks critically lauded production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-on-the-Moon Marigolds plays through January 29.

The GableStage's critically acclaimed production of The Motherfucker with the Hat plays through February 5, 2012.

Pulitzer finalist The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety plays at Caldwell Theatre Company through February 12, 2012.

The Prisoner of Second Avenue plays at the Broward Stage Door Theatre through January 29, 2012.

Laffing Matterz plays the Broward Center's Abdo New River Room, for its third season of dinner and comedy.

last chance to see...

If you find yourself down by Key West, check out August: Osage County at The Waterfront Playhouse. It closes Saturday, January 14.

The Stage Door Theatre production of Irving Berlin's I Love A Piano closes this Sunday, January 15.

passing through...

The Kravis Center presents HAIR through Sunday, January 15.

Capitol Steps: Desperate Housemembers puts the mock in democracy at the Broward Center's Amaturo Theater, through January 15.

The Two and Only plays at Delray Beach's Crest Theatre through January 15th.

The smash hit Jersey Boys plays on in the Au-Rene Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts through January 29, 2012.

Soul Doctor: Journey of a Rock-Star Rabbi plays at Fort Lauderdale's Parker Playhouse through January 29.

Divorce Party: The Musical plays at the Kravis Center's Rinker Playhouse through February 19, 2012.

for kids...

Showtime Dance & Performing Arts Theatre presents The Prince of Egypt through January 14, 2012.

Actors' Playhouse offers Alexander, Who’s Not Not Not Not Not Going to Move! through March 9, 2012.

Mondays are Dark

2012-01-09T06:25:00.001-05:00

It's a huge week for South Florida theatre, with no less than seven openings happening; three national tours, and four regional productions. And this Monday isn't completely dark; Palm Beach DramaWorks is hosting the first installment of its Master Playwright Series, Molière.

Here's your Monday reading list:

New Company in Old Space
The Palm Beach Daily News fills us in on The Plaza Theatre, a brand new company taking over Florida Stage's old space in Manalapan. Alan Jacobson is leading the effort.

Jacobson, 56, and a Palm Beach Gardens resident, ran the Florida Jewish Theatre for five seasons in the 1990s and then became an independent producer of cabaret shows, musical revues and comedies such as If You Ever Leave Me ... I’m Going With You and Down the Garden Path, which played at the Royal Poinciana Playhouse.

I wonder what Louis Tyrell thinks.

“He’s known for doing commercial fare, and right now that might be a sound strategy,” said Louis Tyrrell, Florida Stage’s former chief.

Oh. Well, we wish them the best of luck.

We Never Sausage A Season
Florida Theater On Stage reflects on the excellence of the past theatre season, and the difficult task facing the judges on the Carbonell Awards panel; choosing nominees out of a large field of extraordinary excellence.

I’ve been judging journalism contests for decades across this country, I’ve been a judge and/or chair for the American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Plays Award for several years, and I’ve been a judge, nominator or assistant administrator for the Carbonells for 13 years. I know how your sausage is made.

For the most part, it’s a bunch of well-intentioned, usually objective, always hard-working flawed human beings trying their best to identify and reward excellence. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they err. Oftentimes the result is a compromise, which, by definition, will not satisfy everyone that the best man/woman/set designer won.
Therefore, to be nominated into a golden circle of mutually agreed upon excellence (requiring a greater consensus of judges) is truly the honor.

To put it another way, it's easy to choose something great over something mediocre, but it's hard to pick something great over something else equally great. The particularly hot races this year will be Best Play, Best Actor, and Best Set Design.

Hot Ticket
There are a lot of great shows opening in the next two weeks, but the hot ticket seems to be Next to Normal at Actors' Playhouse. At least, that's the one people keep asking us about; "Isn't it exciting? When are you going?" BroadwayWorld.com tells us about the South Florida premiere production.

Hot Lips
The Examiner reports that when Love, Loss and What I Wore opens at the Parker Playhouse next week, it will include Loretta Swit among its star-studded cast. It also feature UM alumnus Sonia Manzano (whose play No Dogs Allowed premiered at Actors' Playhouse a few years back, but she's better known as Maria on Sesame Street), Emily Dorsch, Daisy Egan, and Myra Lucretia Taylor.

The Tribe Returns
The Palm Beach Post talks to Diane Paulus, director of the next national tour stopping at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts; the musical HAIR.

Paulus was intent on the show having an atmosphere of authenticity. At the initial rehearsal, "I remember saying we’re going to do the hippie thing from the inside out – no makeup, no bras – and we’re all going to jump off the cliff together. It was like no holds barred, and I think that set the tone for the show."

HAIR plays at the Kravis Center through January 15.

Oh, Mandy...
The Examiner reminds us that Mandy Patinkin will be coming to the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center to kick off his new concert, Let Go. It will not include any Barry Manilow songs. The Second City will also playing the AA&CC.

Snoopy In The Area
Area Stage is reviving Snoopy! The Musical, another play inspired by the same comic strip that birthed You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. But John and Maria Rodaz aren't merely putting it onstage; they're collaborating with original co-writer, director, and producer of the show, Arthur Whitelaw. Miami ArtZine.com talks with the creative team of the production, which opens January 14.

The man with a legendary life in the theatre could not stop beaming about this production. He assured me it’s the most pleasant collaboration he’s ever been a part of: “It’s been the most wonderful experience I think I’ve ever had in the theatre. That’s out of fifty-eight going on fifty-nine years of experience—and I mean it.”

Say, Whatever Happened To... ?
The Florida Repertory Company used to reside at the space currently occupied by Palm Beach DramaWorks, and Keith Baker was the artistic director. Baker is now Artistic Director of Philadelphia's Bristol Riverside Theatre, and his production of Gypsy was just reviewed by Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal.

GableStage: The Motherfucker With The Hat (8 reviews)

2012-01-08T22:19:00.006-05:00

GableStage opened its production of Stephen Adly Gurgis' The Motherfucker With The Hat on January 7, 2012.

Jackie is just out of jail and trying to stay clean and sober. He turns to his AA sponsor when he suspects his longtime girlfriend, who is still into drugs, of cheating on him. What proof does he have? A man's hat has been left on the nightstand. This Broadway hit, a fast and furious study of lives in collision, is a bruising and very funny dance of love, betrayal and indecision.

Joe Adler directed a cast that included Alex Alvarez, Arturo Fernandez, Ethan Henry, Gladys Ramirez, and Betsy Graver.

Terry Teachout reviewed for the Wall Street Journal, and knowledgeably contrasts this play with the Broadway production:

The best new play of 2011 had the worst title, which helps to explain why Stephen Adly Guirgis's "The Motherf**ker With the Hat" (as it was officially billed) barely eked out a 112-performance run on Broadway. Now it belongs to the regional theaters, and GableStage, one of Florida's top companies, has mounted a first-class production that confirms my initial impression of its excellence.

Chris Rock, the star of the Broadway production, was new to the stage, and his performance, not surprisingly, was promising but far from great. By contrast, GableStage's Ethan Henry, who has plenty of regional-theater experience, is self-assured and commanding in the same role, that of a slick, sociopathic scamster. Gladys Ramirez shines no less brightly as Veronica, the foul-mouthed working-class babe whose brass-plated charms set Mr. Guirgis's farce-style plot in motion. Elizabeth Rodriguez, who played the part on Broadway, was as hot as a pepper mill but the least little bit too slick to be quite right, whereas Ms. Ramirez comes across much like someone you might meet on the street.

Alex Alvarez, Arturo Fernandez and Betsy Graver are all comparable in quality to their New York counterparts, and Joseph Adler's satisfyingly straightforward staging leaves nothing at all to be desired. Yes, I was thrilled by the play's Broadway premiere, but I'm sure it would have made as lasting an impression had I seen it for the first time at GableStage.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

What can get lost in all the hype and furor is a fundamental truth about Guirgis’ seventh full-length work: The Motherf**ker With the Hat... is as fresh, foul and funny a play as you’re likely to find all season.

Director Joseph Adler is kicking off 2012 at GableStage with one of the earliest post-Broadway productions of Mother. There are no Hollywood names involved, no controversial casting choices. Adler simply delivers a fine, tight show that moves with the precision of a subway train roaring right on time into the Times Square station.

As usual, Adler has assembled an excellent cast, with three of the five actors making their GableStage debuts. Fernandez imbues Jackie with passion and vulnerability, underscoring the fragility of his sobriety. Ramirez makes Veronica one tough New York babe, a woman with a hair-trigger temper whose drug shuts down her better self. Henry plays Ralph as authoritative, charismatic and morally bankrupt, and Graver’s touchy Victoria becomes just one more of his victims. As Julio, Alvarez gets some of the funniest lines (not to mention heaps of attitude), and he just about walks off with the show.

Hap Erstein reviewed for the Palm Beach ArtsPaper; scroll down, it's a double-bill review:

...if you have been waiting for a successor to frequently profane and occasionally profound David Mamet, the high-octane production at GableStage is a terrific opportunity to jump onto the Guirgis train.

Director Joseph Adler has a way of coming up with the right actors for casting challenges, as he demonstrates again here. All five are top-notch, forming a forceful ensemble that navigates through the hairpin turns of Guirgis’s explosive dialogue. The standout of the company is Fernandez, whose quirky delivery of lines keeps raising the comic bar.

Chris Joseph ~~wrote~~ reviewed for The Miami New Times:

It's more than just an awesomely titled play. It's taut with tension that's heightened by razor-sharp, whip-smart dialogue and propelled by a talented and well-directed cast.

There's a real camaraderie between the two actors who portray Jackie and Ralph. Their performances shine through the quick banter, with Henry's strong-willed Ralph setting the tone for Jackie's salvation (or damnation). Fernandez's depiction of the streetwise Puerto Rican Jackie walks a tightrope between vulnerability and rage, and pretty much nails it every time.

For this production, director Joseph Adler has had GableStage's diminutive stage broken into three sections. An elevated platform in the middle serves as Jackie and Veronica's apartment, and the ends of the stage are the play's other locations; it's another clever design by Lyle Baskin.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

Offering only a few moments of respite, Adler propels this 95-minute juggernaut and its white water rapids of words with the unimpeded velocity of an experimental racecar on the Bonneville flats. Once again, he miraculously holds our attention even though characters just sit around talking to each other for nearly entire scenes. We feel like we are eavesdropping from another chair at the kitchen table.

...Adler's other triumph is eliciting a smoothness of delivery from every single actor who subtly deliver Gurgis' lyric if obscene poetry.

Fernandez, once again, creates a character nearly unrecognizable from anyone else he's played before... Fernandez invests a dopey innocence and even a prevailing sense of honor in this self-deceiving low-wattage criminal.

Ramirez is another surprise as the sewer-mouth girlfriend, considering her role as the sweet Cuban sister with a sunny disposition in Promethean Theatre's The Bearded Lover.

Henry, the only non-local actor, ...deftly negotiates Ralph's Byzantine dialogue with its rapid-fire barrage of wisdom and self-serving rationalizations...

Alvarez pulls off an especially tough challenge... he makes the cousin not only believable, but credibly makes him the only thoroughly admirable altruist in the story.

Graver only has one major scene, but she pours out her character's pain in lashing diatribes of frustration at Jackie's blindness.

Roger Martin reviewed for Miami ArtZine.com:

...I finally figured out why a play with such an offensive title ever got produced. It's simple. You couldn't name it anything else. And it's one of those plays that just has to be seen.

Arturo Fenandez, as ex-con Jackie, ghetto jives all over the theatre, gangly fingers pointing on every yo, the essential street talking thug trying to straighten out his life as long as he doesn't have to actually give anything up... But he gets it right back, and more, from Gladys Ramirez as blowsy part-time hooker, full-time coke sniffer, Veronica.

As usual, Lyle Baskin's set, Jeff Quinn's lighting, Matt Corey's sound (his originality punches every blackout) and Ellis Tillman's costumes are all you could ask for.

Joe Adler has cast and directed this show perfectly, (strong word, that) but it's hard to conceive anyone else in these roles. The five actors are solid. No acting, just being. ... It's tight, clever, controversial and damned hard to forget. You'll talk about this piece, I promise you.

John Lariviere reviewed for Talkin' Broadway.com:

Once the audience gets past giggling at the nature of the language, it settles in to be an honest pattern of communication for the characters. It's key that the relationships seem real, and they certainly do in the hands of Fernandez as Jackie and Ramirez as the fiery Veronica. They have the believable chemistry of a romantic relationship built on passion and conflict. The language is handled well, and the pacing and delivery by all the actors in the show is top notch.

A stand out performance is given by Alvarez as Jackie's cousin Julio. He is perfectly cast in a role that provides ample opportunity for comedy. His colorful portrayal of Julio adds considerable humor to this production. He would surely steal the show if not matched by talented actors around him.

However foul-mouthed the script may be, this production of The Motherf**ker With The Hat is smart, funny, tight, well cast, cleanly directed, and rings with truthful relationship observations that will make you laugh.

JW Arnold wrote a skeletal review for SFGN:

Under Adler’s direction, the entire cast, and especially Fernandez and Henry, offer nuanced performances that keep their characters real, even when Guirgis throws yet another unlikely curve to the plot.

Lyle Baskin’s set effectively subdivides intimate boxy space to create three separate apartments and the scene changes are accentuated by Matt Corey’s sound design and crisp lighting changes from Jeff Quinn to give the production a cinematic quality.

Don't even bother clicking through; this is all there is about this production.

The Motherfucker With The Hat plays plays at GableStage through February 5, 2012.

Palm Beach DramaWorks: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-on-the-Moon Marigolds (7-1/2 reviews)

2012-01-08T10:53:00.004-05:00

Palm Beach DramaWorks opened its production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-on-the-Moon Marigolds on January 6, 2012.

This Pulitzer Prize winning play depicts a mentally unbalanced woman's far reaching effects on the lives of her two daughters, and a young girl's struggle to keep her focus and dreams alive.

William Hayes directed a cast that included Laura Turnbull, Arielle Hoffman, Skye Coyne, Harriet Oser, and Gracie Connell.

Terry Teachout reviewed for The Wall Street Journal:

William Hayes, the company's artistic director, has given Mr. Zindel's play the kind of revival of which every frustrated playwright dreams, one so profoundly comprehending and persuasively acted that you'll leave the theater wondering how "Gamma Rays" could ever have been forgotten, however briefly. Enhancing the immediacy of the staging is the troupe's unusually shallow 218-seat theater, whose last row of seats is only 34 feet from the stage. The handsome new venue, which opened in November, manages to preserve the striking intimacy of the fast-growing company's old 84-seat performing space.

Why, then, did "Gamma Rays" slip into obscurity? Partly because Mr. Newman's misbegotten film version was an orgy of overacting and partly, I suspect, because of the title, which makes sense in context but sounds irritatingly fey if you don't know the plot. In addition, the script doesn't read well: You have to hear the dialogue to appreciate how well it plays.

Above all, though, Beatrice must be played not as a blimplike monster of malice but as a life-size woman at the end of her frayed rope—and Ms. Turnbull delivers the goods. Never for a moment does her vicious bitterness smack of the stage. Her performance as Beatrice Hunsdorfer is as real as a hangover...

Ms. Hoffman, a high-school senior who is Ms. Turnbull's real-life daughter, is more than equal to the challenge of playing a shy, mousy character without letting her become dull. Ms. Coyne's part is flashier and thus easier, but she is every bit as credible as her colleagues. Gracie Connell is excellent in the small role of Tillie's odiously smug competitor at the science fair, and Harriet Oser, who plays the Hunsdorfers' senile boarder, is heart-catchingly memorable without saying a word.

Mr. Hayes's chief contribution to the proceedings is to keep every element of the production, including the performances, in perfect equipoise. Nothing is exaggerated or disproportionate. He has also assembled a stellar production team led by Michael Amico... and Sean Dolan, the lighting designer... Rarely have I been so moved by a play, or so impressed by the company that produced it.

Phillip Valys reviewed for The Sun-Sentinel:

Although "Marigolds" is technically an ensemble piece, it might as well be a one-woman showstopper given the abundance of strong dialogue thrust upon Turnbull. This isn't a slight against the play, or even a foible: Turnbull is stunning as an unraveled, unwilling mom who kills ambition faster than government welfare, and her supporting cast of daughters is top-notch, especially Nanny (Harriet Oser, who radiates even in a non-speaking role), the elderly live-in who's the latest in a series of boarders Beatrice has taken in to supplement her income.

Kudos to set designer Mike Amico, who has transformed the Hunsdorfer's household into a shut-in's paradise: tablecloths and other linens are strewn about, and not a drop of natural light filters inside thanks to the bedsheet taped over the entrance window.

Jan Sjostrom reviewed for The Shiny Sheet:

The production, steered by William Hayes, is engaging, but unbalanced. Dynamic performances by Laura Turnbull as Beatrice and Skye Coyne as Ruth overshadow Arielle Hoffman’s self-effacing, and somewhat wooden, Tillie.

True, Zindel doesn’t give Tillie many lines, although the most poetic parts of the script are Tillie’s recorded monologues marveling about the wonders of the atom.

Turnbull’s carefully calibrated performance fully exposes Beatrice’s failings, as the character bullies her daughters, verbally abuses the witless old woman who boards with the family, and wallows in self-pity. On the other hand, Turnbull makes it impossible not to feel compassion for Beatrice, when the character stands alone, helpless as a child, after an old taunt pierces her armor.

Coyne’s Ruth is a luminous presence, as she flits across the stage, motor-mouth fully engaged, or shudders in an epileptic fit.

Harriet Oser delivers a remarkable performance as Nanny, the elderly boarder, especially as she doesn’t say a word.

Hap Erstein reviewed for Palm Beach Arts Paper:

Making her professional debut as Tillie is Arielle Hoffman, a high school senior with a promising future as an actress. The play allows her little opportunity to express her inner turmoil, but she manages to do so wordlessly. And late in the evening, as she confronts her fears and addresses a school assembly about her science project, we begin to see glimmers of Tillie’s inner strength.

Hoffman is overshadowed by Laura Turnbull -- who happens to be her real-life mother -- devouring the role of volatile Beatrice. She is despicable to be sure, yet without softening any of that, Turnbull lets us see the humanity underneath her armor. Credit director William Hayes with deftly orchestrating his cast, including Skye Coyne as Ruth and a frail-looking Harriet Oser as Nanny, an aged boarder to whom Beatrice rents out a room to and belittles.

John Thomason reviewed for the Broward/Palm Beach New Times, and proves that people seeing the same show often see different performances:

For an actress who has the reputation of slipping into a character as effortlessly as a favorite nightgown, Turnbull's Beatrice only captures this essence sporadically. Her laugh lines — she defames her daughter's Jewish teacher by calling him a "Hebrew hermaphrodite" — sound like over-rehearsed laugh lines, effective by intent rather than by incident. The mechanism of acting is ever-present and, as a result, Beatrice never feels like a lived-in, worn-in being.

By the time The Effect of Gamma Rays winds toward its tragic end, director William Hayes has smoothed over its bumpy beginnings. All the cogs run smoothly toward a downer of a denouement that finds Coyne, as Ruth, expressing hurt and rage like a veteran of the stage, her cheeks flush with red. She'll have a nice future in a South Florida theater scene scant on capable teen actors.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

This edition of Paul Zindel’s The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds skews to the darker side... because of the overwhelming bravura performance of Laura Turnbull as an embittered, self-pitying mother wildly striking out at her daughters as displaced revenge for the blighted tragedy that chance has made of her life.

It’s a scathing, fearless portrait by a great actress with a solid director that leaves everything else, as the apt cliche goes, in the shade.

The welcome revival of the 1970 drama is an engrossing evening of theater that features a sometime lyrical, sometime blunt Pulitzer-winning script that few audience members have seen before. Dramaworks Artistic Director William Hayes has guided a strong cast through this examination of the dysfunctional Hunsdorfer family who the Fates themselves have seemingly cursed.

Tillie (sensitively created by Turnbull’s real daughter Arielle Hoffman) is painfully shy and profoundly lonely. Hoffman inhabits someone who expects withering criticism or, just as bad, blithe indifference from the one person who should nurture her.

Beatrice (Turnbull) is marginally kinder to Ruth (well played by Skye Coyne), a troubled girl-woman who is extroverted but emotionally unstable and subject to epileptic fits.

One of Hayes’ judgment calls seems to have been to soften some of Beatrice’s razor edges. While that robs the early scenes and even the play as a whole of some of the dramatic punch, it allows us to feel compassion for a complex human being crushed by decades of external forces that have deformed her soul, more Medea than monster.

Praise must be saved for Oser in the completely wordless role of the frail husk of a human being roundly abused by Beatrice’s harangues, whose eyes barely register a cup of hot water slammed in front of her, and then go dead again as the woman’s mind slips in and out of the world around her. Oser delivers a terrifying and brilliantly executed portrait of senility that is far more eloquent than two-thirds of the performances we’ve seen in this terrific season.

Set designer Mike Amico has created an intentionally drab living room, the retro-fitted remains of an old vegetable retail store which itself exudes a sense of hopelessness. As always, Amico is a master of tiny details... It’s evocatively lit by Sean Dolan who coats the stage with a dappled effect when Tillie is absorbed in her reveries about of science.

Christine Dolen reviews for The Miami Herald:

Turnbull, who crafts a relentlessly fierce performance under the direction of William Hayes, is fearless in creating a woman who is largely the stuff of nightmares. If you have or had a loving, supportive mother, Turnbull’s dream-crushing Beatrice will make you appreciate your good fortune that much more.

Outgoing elder daughter Ruth (a luminous Skye Coyne) has already chalked up one nervous breakdown, likely having something to do with a mother who trades cigarettes for back rubs. Younger daughter Tillie (the radiant Arielle Hoffman, making an impressive professional debut), whose award-winning science project gives the play its clunky title, is a quiet dreamer whose curiosity and optimism have miraculously not been snuffed out by her unsupportive mother. Not yet, anyway.

Dramaworks’ artfully realized production - the striking, oppressive set by Michael Amico, with lighting by Sean Dolan, costumes by Brian O’Keefe and sound by Steve Shapiro - is often difficult to watch, as the emotional pain Beatrice visits on the others is palpable. Yet anyone who appreciates grand performances will want to catch Turnbull’s unflinching portrait of a monster. Hers is a masterful achievement.

Jan Engoren ~~reviewed~~ ~~wrote~~ wasted space for Miami Artzine:

Turnbull, frumpy in slippers, cigarette in hand, drink in another, dressed in nightgown and house coat, needing only pink rollers in her hair, commands the stage with her presence. She can solo on stage with no dialogue and accompaniment and keep you captivated.

Her real-life daughter, Arielle Hoffman, a senior at Coral Springs High School, ably plays opposite her as her science-obsessed daughter, Tillie.

Skye Coyne, a Miami native, plays the older sister, Ruth, who is at once embarrassed and proud of her younger, geeky sister. Coyne captures the audience with her self-possession, boundless energy and heart worn on her sleeve.

Ultimately, Engoren doesn't manage to tell us very much about the production. While I suppose it's nice to know that the audience "gasped" or "responded enthusiastically," I'd rather know what made the production work, or where it missed the mark and why. "Turnbull commands the stage with her presence" is a given; she's Laura frickin' Turnbull; of course she commands the stage.

We hope that either Engoren either starts writing actual reviews, or gets shit-canned, because right now she's not performing any useful function. There has to be a writer who can produce something worth reading in that space.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-on-the-Moon Marigolds plays at Palm Beach DramaWorks through January 29, 2012.

Infinite Abyss: Snow White Trash (3 reviews)

2012-01-06T21:02:00.001-05:00

Infinite Abyss Productions opened its production of Snow White Trash at Empire Stage on January 7, 2012. It's a new play written by local artists Erynn Dalton and Jeffrey D. Holmes.

Snow White Trash isn't your classic classy fairy tale. After the beautiful, innocent Snow White escapes death at the hands of the Evil Queen, she finds herself in a strange land surrounded by sexy good ole boys. Little does Snow know that her new friends have arranged her marriage to the incredibly hunky (and very gay) Prince, who can only inherit his father's fortune by marrying a "nice girl." In the meantime, the Evil Queen and her Magic Mirror hatch a plan to ensure Snow White's demise. Will Snow White's new friends be able to save her? Will Prince convince himself that he likes girls long enough to marry Snow and inherit the kingdom? How will Snow White react to mullets, leather, porn and Magnum P.I.?

Jeffrey D. Holmes directed a cast that included Danielle Tabino, Kitt Marsh, Jim Gibbons, Angel Perez, Dominick Daniel, Jordana Forrest and Zachary Schwartz.

Rod Stafford Hagwood wrote for The Sun-Sentinel:

After the show's somewhat funny start, the laughs trickle down to a chuckle here and there, until it reaches — finally — an unfunny and sloppy ending.

Kind of like Hagwood's review, rife with fragmentary sentences and one-sentence paragraphs, inexplicably spread across two pages.

Oh, some magic spells for laughs are still being cast. Take, for example, the genuinely funny topical shout-outs to the likes of Rick Santorum and Tim Tebow, or the elbow-nudge-your-seat-neighbor references to Davie and Tamarac. There are even riffs on movies "Pulp Fiction," "Harry Potter," "An American Tail" and, so-slight-I-might-have-imagined-it, "The Wizard of Oz." The Evil Queen is compared to "a female Ellen DeGeneres" and advised to wax her back if she really wants to be the fairest in the land. All of it is good, raunchy stuff.

But then, there are so many misfires that the goodwill established with the opening is quickly used up in the 75-minute, no-intermission comedy. And yes, the NC-17-rated language helps a bit, for there is something inherently funny about a fractured fairy tale with enough cussing to make a sailor blush.

Note; the following reviews are of a preview performance, something normally frowned upon. But with a relatively short run and so many other shows opening this week and next, the producers chose to invite the critics in early.

Bill Hirschman reviewed for Florida Theater On Stage:

The first 15 minutes of Infinite Abyss’ Snow White Trash is a delightfully zany spoof that imaginatively reinterprets the fairy tale as a crass, royal blue hoot in which Disney’s sweet but dimwitted heroine takes refuge with the mullet-headed Dwarf Family living in a trailer park.

Unfortunately, after that, there’s another 50 minutes left.

This world premiere script by Infinite Abyss founders Erynn Dalton, the producer, and Jeffrey D. Homes, the director, roared to life with a lot of promise, reminiscent of a raucously irreverent Saturday Night Live skit back in the days when SNL was still consistently funny.

Snow White Trash rightfully makes no excuses for having absolutely no socially redeeming meaning whatsoever. Instead, it revels in being stupid fun, from the moment a sleazy narrator (the very funny Dominick Daniel with slicked back hair, pointed sideburns and Brooklyn brogue straight out of Goodfellas) says to the audience grasping their drinks, “I hope you’re pissed already.”

There’s also some laughs when a magic mirror (Zachary Schwartz who basically lifts a window shade on a picture frame) channels Paul Lynde and answers the Queen’s classic queries by crooning pop tunes.

It starts to fall apart when Snow escapes to the trailer park featuring Jim Gibbons, Angel Perez, Jordana Forrest and a silent Schwartz as the Dwarf Family. Comic timing disintegrates and the pace crawls slower than the characters’ drawl. Giggles like Perez oiling down Snow’s fey Prince (Daniel as a bisexual clone of the titular entertainer) goes on and on and on after the audience gets the joke.

The only actor to keeping the energy humming is Danielle Tabino, who is consistently entertaining as the daffy, impossibly naive heroine clueless to all the evil and considerable sexual sleaze surrounding her.

The sloppiness is a surprise because while Infinite Abyss’ last show, Mitzi’s Abortion, was just passable, its production of The Pillowman last year was superb with the same director and two of the same actors here. Let’s hope they return to that level of work.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Thursday’s first performance, officially a preview, began promisingly enough with Dominick Daniel as a funny faux tough-guy narrator named Vito. Soon enough, we’re at the castle of the Evil Queen (Kitt Marsh), where the vain one is constantly seeking beauty validation from a magic mirror. Inside the mirror is a tart-tongued spirit (Zachary Schwartz) who is way more queen-like than Snow White’s step-mummy will ever be.

...Snow White (Danielle Tabino) is a pretty girl with a killer bod and an empty head. Whether the playwrights or Tabino decided to make Snow so slow, it’s tough to root for a “heroine” who makes Dopey look like a rocket scientist.

....after that hopeful start, Snow White Trash becomes a hodge podge in which the authors just spew jokes, gross-out images and topical references (Tim Tebow?!) in hopes that somehow, a satisfying parody will emerge from a messy pop culture cut-and-paste job. For sure, the show (which lasts just over an hour, though it feels longer) will get tighter as several dead spots get excised. But it would take much more than a kiss to save Snow White Trash.

Infinite Abyss Productions presents Snow White Trash at Empire Stage through January 28, 2012.