The Actors’ Playhouse has a serious personality conflict. The Coral Gables company is known as a purveyor of cheerful, lightweight entertainment that’s rather like the upscale chain restaurants sprouting near its Miracle Mile location: The fare is uncomplicated and consistent, no challenges and no surprises. AP has had considerable success…

Talk about counterprogramming. South Florida playgoers tired of lightweight modern plays and musicals can find some heavy — really heavy — drama at the New Theatre in Coral Gables. The tiny troupe often takes on gargantuan projects and its latest, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, is a monster. This three-hour-long…

You wouldn’t think it nowadays, but there was a time — not so long ago — when Sam Shepard was the king of American theater. His vision of America as a metaphysical and spiritual desert haunted by dark ghosts of violence was preeminent in the restless 1970s and ’80s as…

War may be hell but we humans love to hear stories about it. Think back on the history of theater, of movies, of literature. The war story is central to them all. The Iliad still stirs the imagination. So does Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Hemingway’s For…

One of the lamentable aspects of modern American society is the absence of political discourse in public life. “Never talk about politics or religion” goes the old saw, and Americans don’t, as a rule, do so in social contexts, and they often go ballistic when artists get political. Apparently being…

Local theater fans have often griped about the state of the stage here in South Florida, and readers of this column will recognize me as one of that disgruntled crew. Despite the wide array of local theater companies, the choice of shows tends to run a narrow gamut from lightweight…

What a difference two years can make. It has been that long (that short, really) since the Sol Theatre of Fort Lauderdale made its debut with a lively but rather shallow production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, an opening gambit that was brave if overly ambitious. Since then the Sol has…

One of the intriguing aspects of the South Florida stage scene is the “branding” of the many resident companies here. Instead of cherry-picking specific plays from various theaters, audiences tend to stick with certain troupes, regardless of what programming they offer. And theaters that thrive here do so in part…

Having breakfast with theatrical producer Jay H. Harris is like taking a quick trip to Broadway. We are noshing at Lester’s, a retro diner in Fort Lauderdale, but Harris’s rapid-fire delivery and wide range of show-biz subjects makes the place feel more like the Edison Hotel coffee shop on West…

If plays were drinks, the New Theatre’s Twelfth Night or As You Will would certainly be a New Age smoothie. Rafael de Acha and company have whipped up a colorful froth of a show that’s a decided departure from their sober Othello, the first half of the company’s two-play Shakespeare…

Part of the trick of producing plays is deciding not only what to stage but when. Some shows work better in the fall than the summer, some are hurt by financial bad times, others are helped by same. But all attempts to time a play’s opening are still subject to…

One thing you have to say about the New Theatre: It’s not afraid to take on gigantic plays. Rafael De Acha’s troupe has assayed such monsters as Angels in America, Electra, and Hamlet in recent seasons. Now the New brings two more Shakespeares, termed “The Shakespeare Project,” running all summer…

In South Florida summer shows, like summer clothes, tend toward lightweight informality. So it’s not surprising that the Stage Door Theatre in Coral Springs opted to present The Affections of May, a casual comedy that’s as unpretentious as a seersucker suit and just as traditional. Canadian playwright Norm Foster’s well-structured,…

Never mind the calendar; summer arrives in South Florida when City Theatre rolls out its annual festival of short plays, “Summer Shorts 2003.” Now in its eighth year, this well-produced, stylish event has become a part of the area’s social scene as well as a highlight of the theater season…

Of all the stage companies in South Florida, the Edge Theatre is perhaps the best named. Jim Tommaney’s ragtag outfit has survived for many years on the far fringes of the local theater scene and his choice of programming is almost always sharp and provocative. The literate, Ivy-educated Tommaney is…

What does it take to succeed on Broadway these days? Nobody has the exact answer to that question, but many think they do. One long-standing strategy is to import London hits. Another is to stuff the show with movie stars. A third, and perhaps the most widely used ploy, is…

Whatever else may be said about the South Florida theater scene, certainly there’s a whole lotta playwrighting going on here. The place seems to be jumping with premieres just about weekly, and several area companies focus on new works, each in its own way. Florida Stage in Manalapan is dedicated…

The rainy season is back, the snowbirds have gone, but the theater season roars on. A number of plays currently on the boards are stories of dispossessed communities struggling to maintain their traditional identities and find new ones. One such is GableStage’s production of The Diary of Anne Frank, the…

Summer weather hasn’t quite arrived in South Florida and we have a couple of months to go before the Fourth of July. But the Sol Theatre isn’t in the mood to wait. This Fort Lauderdale-based company is setting off some fireworks of a theatrical nature in an uneven but sometimes…

Like larger human communities, theater companies have their collective strengths and limitations, their insights and their prejudices. And it’s entirely possible that those theaters that survive more than a few seasons often do so because they come to mirror their audiences’ characteristics. The Caldwell Theatre Company, long ensconced in Boca…

It has been a few weeks since it hit the headlines. If you haven’t been paying attention, Nilo Cruz, the Cuban-born, Miami-raised, New York-based playwright, won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his lyrical Anna in the Tropics, a play that received its world premiere last fall at the teeny…

Ever heard of someone by the name of Ida B. Wells? She is the largely unknown but fascinating subject of Constant Star, a beautifully produced study of determination and courage now playing at the Florida Stage in Manalapan. Wells was an American original. Born a black slave in the Civil…