Poet Louise Bogan writes, “True revolutions in Art restore more than they destroy.” The same could be said for the theater of ideas. Thomas Gibbons’s most recent stage examination of the great American race divide, Permanent Collection, promises to resuscitate audiences who have become catatonically content with theater whose fiction…
Lionel Goldstein’s Halpern & Johnson, now onstage at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, is the story of two men brought together by the death of a woman who was central to both their lives. Despite an engaging premise, Goldstein’s adaptation of his own 1983 HBO teleplay Mr. Halpern & Mr. Johnson…
Blind Date: Last year the New Theatre scored an incredible coup when it commissioned Nilo Cruz’s surprise Pulitzer winner Anna in the Tropics. This year lightning may have struck a second time as the New Theatre has delivered another masterpiece of a play. Mario Diament’s stunning, brilliant world premiere tracks…
It’s 1970, a year of political turmoil in Cuba, marked by a return of militarism and the consolidation of the totalitarian state. People leave by the thousands. One family splits apart, the mother and her young daughter traveling to Florida while the father stays behind. The understanding is that they…
Enrique Campuzano: During a moment of identity crisis, modern art created “appropriation,” the depiction of a well-known image in a different visual context — as distinguished from outright plagiarism. This is what Enrique Campuzano does with one of the giants of art history: Diego Velazquez. He’s not the first to…
The Ladykillers is the second film in as many years made by Joel and Ethan Coen to fill space between pet projects that seem to run off leash; it’s their time-killer, if you will. But even their recent paychecks reflect the brothers’ restlessness: Their movies have grown more manic and…
Jersey Girl, the sixth film by writer-director Kevin Smith, is the least Kevin Smith-y film he’s ever made, which will be welcome news to those exhausted by Smith’s everlasting obsession with his dick, fart jokes, and stack of comic books; and bad news to those enamored of Smith’s everlasting obsession…
Speaking to comedian Joan Rivers on the telephone, we can’t help but be tempted to turn the tables and ask “Who are you wearing?” or maybe risk sounding slightly perverted and instead inquire “What are you wearing?” But restraint wins out with the relentless woman who oftentimes has no restraint…
Buddha Gonzalez, the admittedly “funky and chunky” frontman for local band Buddha Gonzalez and the Headless Chiwawas, has mad love for three things: music, weed, and his friend Tommy Chong (Cheech and Chong, That ’70s Show). When he heard about the movement to free counterculture icon Chong from the federal…
SAT 3/27 As election officials reach out to planet hip-hop to register to vote in time for November, the use of hip, or at least loud, figures from the music world as spokesrappers is one strategy that might lure the young generation of black voters to the polls. The objective…
SAT 3/27 The opening weekend of the Nasdaq 100 Open Tennis Tournament is always a frenetic and oddly fashionable happening. Droves of tennis fans saunter in leisurewear ranging from ghetto chic to rest-home bland. They rush from court to court trying to get a look at their favorite players. (Beware…
SAT 3/27 March is Women’s History Month. In celebration of females and their accomplishments in the creative arts, St. John’s Church in Miami Beach is hosting the second annual Women and Culture Festival, with offerings in nearly every genre. This year’s all-day affair is heavy on international dance, featuring a…
TUE 3/30 “He is exactly what he says he is: He does it for the money and he gets ’em off,” quips actor Tom Wopat (above) about dastardly lawyer Billy Flynn, a part he just stepped into for a road tour of the hit musical Chicago. (At 8:00 tonight the…
Thursday 3/25 Four days of sun, fun, and fitness, that’s what the organizers of the Miami Beach Fitness Festival promise today through Monday, March 28, on the beach at 800 Ocean Dr. If you’re inclined to sweat, you might want to participate in some of the events, which include a…
The Caldwell Theatre’s new show, Iago, certainly offers the promise of blood-pumping drama. James McLure’s play is set backstage during a mid-twentieth-century production of Shakespeare’s Othello and takes its inspiration from the tempestuous real-life relationship between Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier, and Leigh’s adulterous affair with the young Peter Finch…
Blind Date: Last year the New Theatre scored an incredible coup when it commissioned Nilo Cruz’s surprise Pulitzer winner Anna in the Tropics. This year lightning may have struck a second time as the New Theatre has delivered another masterpiece of a play. Mario Diament’s stunning, brilliant world premiere tracks…
Painting is being revived, and the word in art circles is that 34-year-old Los Angeles artist Laura Owens is giving it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When attempting to breathe new life into an entire art form, it helps to have other artists on hand to administer CPR, one of whom is David…
Enrique Campuzano: During a moment of identity crisis, modern art created “appropriation,” the depiction of a well-known image in a different visual context — as distinguished from outright plagiarism. This is what Enrique Campuzano does with one of the giants of art history: Diego Velazquez. He’s not the first to…
It’s a bit unorthodox to ladle superlatives all over a film in the opening paragraph, but The Reckoning deserves them. Moving, gripping, and powerful; suspenseful, stylish, and literate, this exploration of justice and art may be set in 1390s England, but its resonance is fully relatable and significant today. This…
The problem with Spartan isn’t so much that it’s mediocre, but that it could be a whole lot better. Unlike writer-director David Mamet’s last movie, Heist, a film with such a generic plot and predictable Gene Hackman performance that it never had a chance, Spartan has a reasonably compelling story…
“I’ve been a mod housewife since 1993 when I decided I was not going to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the bathroom floor unless I could get up on stage and sing about it,” says the illuminating first sentence of the liner notes on singer/songwriter Amy…
The Prada/Armani-clad speaker grew up in San Diego, graduated Brown, earned an M.B.A. at Duke, worked ten years as a junior vice president at a firm in Chicago. After fifteen years in South Florida, she (or he) was, after developing a successful insurance agency, elected councilperson for one of Miami-Dade’s…
