Sister Act

If you’re just learning how to cook, it might make more sense to start with a simple pasta and not, say, a four-course dinner featuring coq au vin and foie gras. But former PlayGround Theatre artistic director Stephanie Ansin doesn’t subscribe to that philosophy. For her very first production under the Miami Theater Center (9806 NE Second Ave., Miami Shores) name, Ansin has selected a play that is already ambitious and kicked it up another notch. She’s tackling Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, a four-act, 14-character costume epic written in 1899 and inspired by the story of the Brontë sisters. A family drama capturing the decline of Russia’s privileged class, Three Sisters has undergone continuous revivals throughout the world. But in Ansin’s revamped version, the audience sits onstage with the actors on a movable platform that will rotate twice during the performance, suggesting an unprecedented level of intimacy with this humanist work. It’s just the first production in what looks to be an exciting season of theater, dance, film, and music at MTC.
Tuesdays-Thursdays, 10 a.m.; Thursdays, Fridays, 8 p.m. Starts: Nov. 20. Continues through Dec. 22, 2012