Performing Arts

The M Ensemble’s Harlem Duet deftly tackles race and sexual politics

The Coconut Grove Playhouse doesn’t look like a building that’s worth over $20 million. After nearly six years of disuse and neglect, its windows are broken, its sides are graffiti-tagged, and pieces of the building are literally falling off.But $20 million in Miami-Dade county bond funds have been allocated to…

Inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, Djanet Sears’ Harlem Duet, which opened this weekend and is performed by the M Ensemble at the Light Box at Goldman Warehouse (404 NW 26 St., Miami), is a production that tediously tows the line of racial identity, sexual politics, and mental illness in the black…

A couple of weeks ago, we heard that Stephen Glover, aka Steve-O, of Jackass fame, would be at the Miami Improv. We weren’t just excited; we were intrigued. The man we have seen staple his testicles to his thigh is going to do a stand-up show? We expected a rehash…

Have you read your Chekhov lately?Well, these guys sure have. The phenomenal Pig Iron Theater has been invited to perform in Miami as part of the MDC Live! Performing Arts Series March 23 and 24.Their funny and accessible comedic melodrama​ Chekhov Lizardbrain will be playing in the Colony Theater in…

GableStage’s A Steady Rain: Well-acted, poorly written

Hey, listen: we’re busy people. Between recapping Basketball Wives episodes and learning our ABCs, the truly important stories slip right through our fingers sometimes.Miami natives, Yamil Piedra and Johnny Trabanco (collectively, A Pair of Nuts) were featured at last weekend’s South Beach Comedy Festival. They deserve quite a bit of…

A Steady Rain, which opened last night at GableStage, is ostensibly a play about two life-long friends whose lives are irrevocably changed through a bad chain of events. But it can also be described as an anatomy of a fucked up cop.Written by Keith Huff, A Steady Rain is rife…

You know John Leguizamo from his sassy roles in Moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet, and of course, To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar. But after March 9, you’ll know him as the funny guy from Ghetto Klown, the one-man show he’s bringing to the Fillmore Miami Beach.Leguizamo’s newest…

Sorry, horses. It’s over.The long and storied battle you have waged with humans is done. We, the humans, have won. We have made you our transportation, carrying knights in armor and cowboys and postal mail across all kinds of difficult terrain. We have made you our sport, betting on your…

Genesis Rodriguez. Yes, the Genesis Rodriguez. Maybe you know her as Libertad Salvatierra Santos from Prisionera or Marisela Barquero Guaimarán from Doña Bárbara. Maybe you remember her as one of the dancers on Venezuela’s El Club de Los Tigritos, or from her three guest spots on Entourage. But did you…

Here are a few signs you’re a dance/music/acrobatic company superfan: You can’t wait for the next Cirque du Soleil tent to go up in downtown Miami, despite the hellish traffic it creates on Biscayne Boulevard. When you visit Orlando, you stop to “ohh” and “ahh” one more time at the…

Will Ferrell, former Saturday Night Live cast member, star of stage and cinema, and perhaps the greatest loud whisperer of all time, was in Miami yesterday to promote his upcoming, Spanish-language film, Casa de mi Padre. Ferrell and Casa co-star Diego Luna sat down with New Times for an exclusive…

Rob Delaney is the one you probably know as that guy on Twitter. Y’know, the hairy man sporting a green banana hammock in his picture? That’s him, all right.We keep up with his Twitter account on the daily. Here are some of our all time @robdelaney favorites:SANTA’S COMING! (all over…

In a streaming world of tweets and status updates, humanity is moving faster than ever, and increasingly focused on specific yet fleeting moments. And the arts and culture are no exception — just look at the rise in popularity of short film, Internet memes, and flash fiction. In that spirit,…

Of all of Shakespeare’s plays, none has captured the public’s imagination quite like Hamlet, the Bard’s harrowing tale of betrayal, murder, sexual politics, and dead people looking for vengeance (okay, all of William’s plays are pretty much like that).But you haven’t seen Hamlet until you’ve seen it performed as an…

Lewis Black is a hilarious dude. And not just in his stand-up — though as you’ll see when he hits town for the South Beach Comedy Festival 2012 March 1st, he’s hilarious on stage too. But he’s also funny (and unexpectedly patient) in one-on-one conversation.See, when we heard the perpetually…

Lately, we have been reminded that dance is a fragile art form, as fleeting as life itself. Merce Cunningham’s company disbanded at the end of 2011, a year and half after his death. And Pina, Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated documentary about famed German choreographer Pina Bausch, is a memorial to the…

Local choreographer and performer Heather Maloney likes to disassemble the ways that we think, see, feel, and move through space. Lately, she and her collaborators Joanne Barrett and Shaneeka Harrell have been conducting experiments in memory. They are deep in the process of building In This Place, a new physical…

“Dancer” is a loaded word. It brings to mind images of borderline anorexic women with great posture and mutilated toes, or hyper-sexual booty-licious music video girls, or strippers. But Pina, German director Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated tribute to daring choreographer Pina Bausch, undermines all the stereotypes. And it opens at the…

Main Street Players’ Living Out is a triumph

Lisa Loomer’s Living Out, which opened last night at Main Street Players, is the kind of play that makes you laugh out loud, and devastates you at the same time. The production is something of a triumph for the small Miami Lakes-based theatre group.Putting on a play with the complexity,…