Morality play about science, religion sizzles in GableStage production
(Photo by George Schiavone) Betsy Graver and Jovon Jacobs appear in a scene from GableStage’s production of Informed Consent CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Art has the ability to make us feel a variety of emotions, including fear and helplessness. Consider the following from Deborah Zoe Laufer’s heartfelt, heartbreaking and unsettling...
PBD’s Sweeney Todd is riveting
Sweeney Todd (Shane R. Tanner) raises his razor high (Photo courtesy of Palm Beach Dramaworks). WEST PALM BEACH — How do you sympathize with a barber who slashes the throats of his customers, instantly killing them and sending their remains down a chute for his partner-in-crime to bake them...
‘Finding Mona Lisa’ brings history to life entertainingly
(Photo courtesy of Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre) CORAL GABLES, Fla. — You hardly have to brush up on your art history to enjoy award-winning playwright Michael McKeever’s new play Finding Mona Lisa. McKeever takes us on a fun-filled trip featuring stops in France and Italy and time periods...
New City Players’ Twelfth Night is highly entertaining, but achieves mixed results
Ernesto Gonzalez as Sebastian (Photo by Ryan Arnst) FT. LAUDERDALE — Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is classified as a comedy, and for good reason: There’s plenty of mischief and merry making, which merge to form a frolicking night of theater. It ends (mostly) happily. But there’s a darker side to the...
Provocative dark comedy seeks to light a fire under audiences regarding climate change
(Photo by George Schiavone) MIAMI SHORES — A “hurricane party” hardly refers to a celebration involving University of Miami sports teams in the new, clever, satirical comedy Firemen are Rarely Necessary, set partly in Miami in a not-too-distant future. Normally when a mammoth hurricane is about to make landfall in...
World premiere about musical masterwork as related to life performed with flair by Island City Stage
WILTON MANORS, Fla. — Shakespeare wrote “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” But have you ever found yourself wishing that you were the director of your life – one with the power to say something like, “OK, let’s stop right there and...
This lighthearted ‘Legend’ will whisk you away from your worries
CORAL GABLES, Fla. Go ahead, poke fun at drag queens all you want. Call them weirdos, freaks or any other name to express your disapproval at their lifestyle or your inherent dislike of them, for whatever reason. The bottom line is that at least twice now in the make-believe world...
Cast of The Cripple of Inishmaan finds humanity behind characters’ oddities
WEST PALM BEACH — If he were a real person, Johnnypateenmike O’Dougal would never win a “Citizen of the Year” award. Guaranteed. He talks incessantly, regardless of whether anyone in the room wants to hear his babble. He’s a self-centered, rude, loud, crotchety, curmudgeon. Picture an individual walking into a...
South Florida theater company offers a winning production of It Shoulda Been You
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Even if everything’s calm and orderly “behind the scenes,” moments before a bride and groom walk down the aisle, you never know what drama might be unfolding among the guests. Aunt Delores might be a wreck in a happy kind of way, crying profusely as she...
LCT’s ‘The King and I’ is an emotionally-rich experience, as national tour proves
MIAMI — “The King and I,” to borrow King Mongkut’s words, is a puzzlement. How can two people who’ve irritated each other so much, two people who seemingly have nothing in common, have such a profound effect on each other? That surprisingly strong, life-changing effect is at the heart of...
