Before heading to see the newly formed Florida Playwright’s Theatre present a penny-dreadfully fine rendition of Charles Ludlam’s 1984 classic camp parody, The Mystery of Irma Vep, implant three words firmly in your mind: courage, ambition, facetiousness. The first two refer to the company, which boldly takes on a brash…
Occasionally I’ll have a few nighttime beers in a bar on South Beach. It’s a place filled mostly with locals and European tourists, the large majority of them men. Every once in a while a tall, Spandex-wrapped blonde will jiggle her way through the crowd, and all eyes turn toward…
The truest comment made by a politician in recent history was uttered by Jimmy Carter, when he stated flatly, “Life is not fair.” Indeed. Take the case of the ACME Acting Company, struggling through scores of financial difficulties, versus the Coconut Grove Playhouse, with its multimillion-dollar annual budget. The state…
That creaky adage about writing A 10 percent inspiration, 90 percent perspiration A should be heeded carefully by would-be authors. Students eagerly approach writing instructors with what they believe is the key to any novel, play, or short story: THE IDEA. Surely, once they know what they want to say…
One of the major brain twisters of the current decade has got to be sexuality: should you do it, with whom, and which sex. Whereas in the past sexual peccadilloes and debates largely remained confined to straightforward scandals A pre- or extramarital dalliances A in the Nineties the carnal issue…
Successful dramas tend to deal with similar themes — lost romance, identity crises, loneliness, family tensions — partly because some subjects lend themselves more easily to the stage than others. Extraterrestrials (and other types of space matter), pornographic activity, gang warfare, and the like are difficult to translate into live…
Few dramatic scholars would argue against the assertion that Hamlet remains one of the greatest plays ever written. Unlike such masterpieces as Home Alone and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Shakespeare’s tragedy about the Prince of Denmark was not exactly crying out for a sequel. And few audiences, scholars or…
If you’re feeling lethargic, spend an hour with Michael Hall, the artistic director and founder of the Caldwell Theatre Company, one of South Florida’s two state theaters. Immense funds of energy, optimism, and creativity fill the room from the moment he steps in. Immediately you understand why Jim Caldwell, the…
Donald Margulies, an already solid playwright, committed a strange and wonderful act a few years ago: he wrote an honest-to-goodness play. Not the usual cheesy sitcom disguised as drama, or a wild experiment in masturbatory avant-garde that no one understands but the author. He constructed instead a work of art,…
How’s this as the basis for a cute musical? A struggling but earnest theater group needs major structural renovations and secures grants from the county Cultural Affairs Council, among others. Things look bright. But just as the construction crews are about to begin, a major weather catastrophe A a hurricane…
Especially before the age of information-packed technology, historians tended to obscure a great deal. Lately, in the new decade of “the woman” (thanks, Hillary!), scholars and artists appear to be discovering a whole crop of creators previously overlooked or completely ignored. Ask for the greats of the arts and you…
In A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess’s brilliant novel (later made into an equally stunning film by Stanley Kubrick) about the way society controls individual thought, the violent lead character is captured by government officials and forced to undergo a unique form of torture/behavior modification. With eyelids forced open so that…
Allow me to launch right into this commentary with no preamble, as my excitement can hardly be contained. The Miami Actor’s Studio has managed to present a brand-spanking-new play — Power in the Blood by Sarah E. Bewley, rightful winner of the 1992 State of Florida’s Individual Artist’s Grant for…
Despite what many playwrights like to think, I believe that any work is written three times: by the author, by the director, and by the participating actors. A produced play then could be compared to a three-story building. The all-important foundation and first floor of the structure is without a…
As Peter Brook of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and so many others like him and after him realized, a classic play is most worth doing if the director bestows new insight, or a new interpretation on the work. Brook brought King Lear to powerful, violent life reflecting his explosive society…
In life — and especially in the arts — people are fond of excusing failure by blaming it on societal prejudice. “If only I wasn’t a woman,” (or black, or short) “then I would have made it.” While many instances of such bigotry can be cited, there’s another harsh but…
A writing professor once warned me that no matter how hard a playwright tries to avoid it, one character in the piece usually represents the writer, and that role often evolves into the most meaty and authentic. Sure enough, upon yet another examination of The Little Foxes, Lillian Hellman’s classic…
Everyone who commits the slightly demented act of remaining in theater remembers when that thrill of the stage first seized them. For me it was being cast as Lola in my high school production of Damn Yankees. I walked around the streets of Queens brazenly singing such classics as “Whatever…
Coproducer/cofounder of the new Miami Skyline Theatre Allen J. Zipper impresses me as not only a practical and inspired man, but also a most amusing one. For years he worked in the marketing, public relations, and production departments of the Coconut Grove Playhouse, as well as working as an actor…
People in the arts love to expound theories about talent: Is there such a thing? Can it be developed? Are some lucky souls just born with the right stuff and everyone else is lost? Is it just luck or a smart mouth? In teaching, I like to offer my own…
I, unfortunately, vividly remember George Peppard’s sad impersonation of acting last year in The Lion in Winter. I’m steeling myself to face the prospect of Marlo Thomas interpreting John Guare’s masterpiece, Six Degrees of Separation, in the coming season. And I’ve recently come from viewing another impotent TV hack, Adrian…
Alan Farago poses a challenging question at our interview at J.J.’s restaurant several blocks from El Carrusel, where he’s starting his new company, Theater FLX. “Why does the city of Miami think theater is unimportant but finds the money to build monuments?” I can only sip coffee, because if I…
