Reggie Watts on Improvisation, LCD Soundsystem, and Brian Eno

We have been shaking in anticipation of Reggie Watts’s performance at the Light Box at Goldman Warehouse this Thursday and Friday. Intersecting the worlds of music and comedy, Watts is truly unlike any “musical comedian” who has come before him. Using his loop petal, Watts completely improvises every performance brilliantly,…

Sondheim’s Company Brings Laughs and Insight to Main Street Playhouse

The Main Street Players in Miami Lakes presented a relatively impressive opening night performance of the insightful and amusing musical Company with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth. The production was engaging, the stage design perfectly simple, and, for the most part, the singers sounded good and…

Asesinos por una Noche Gets Experimental About Cuban Politics

Local choreographer Alexey Taran, filmmaker Carla Forte, and the Bistoury Physical Theater Company want us to confront our demons. Their new and extravagantly multimedia project Asesinos por una Noche (Assassins for One Night), performed on Friday, revolves around a simple principle: “as above, so below.” More specifically, brutal government regimes…

Miami’s Joshua Henry Nominated for Tony Award

Joshua Henry, who graduated from University of Miami’s Frost School of Music in 2006, is nominated for a Tony Award for “Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical.” Last Fall, the actor played Haywood Patterson in The Scottsboro Boys at New York’s Lyceum Theatre.The musical,…

Rachel Dratch Lampoons A-Lister’s Memoirs in Celebrity Autobiography

​Fuck Christopher Hitchens and his lame opinion on funny women. Rachel Dratch and decades of hilarious female cast members on Saturday Night Live demonstrate that humorous females exist in abundance. Dratch told us about working on SNL, “We were a pretty evolved bunch. I never felt any disadvantage.” Women are…

South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center Opens With Diavolo

Diavolo translates to “day” and “I fly,” so the spanking new South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center hopes this Los Angeles-based performance troupe will help the center take off. With their outrageously surrealistic and large-scale interdisciplinary performances — think larger than life-size everyday items such as doors, chairs, and stairways –…

Meshuggah-Nuns‘ Dan Goggin Talks Nuns and Baseball

​Nuns performing Fiddler on the Roof on a cruise ship? You’d have to be a madman or a genius to think of that meshuggah idea. Nunsense creator and director Dan Goggin is the kooky brain behind the cockamamie concept of, what else, but Meshuggah-Nuns. The show marks the grand finale of…

Adam Bradley on Why Academics Should Consider Luther Campbell a Poet

You may not immediately recognize hip-hop as something to be deconstructed using classical poetic analysis, but Adam Bradley, editor of Yale Anthology of Rap alongside Andrew DuBois, argues that you may want to start counting meter next time the new Nicki Minaj single comes on the radio. The Anthology is…

Cyrano: You “Nose” It’s Good Opera

When I think of opera, I think of things like little binoculars, corpulent singers and wealthy male and female audience members wearing matching purple and chartreuse suits and gowns. While I did witness all of these things last night at the premier of Cyrano at The Ziff Ballet and Opera…

Composer David DiChiera’s Cyrano Brings Depth to Big Schnoz Tale

French poet and dramatist Edmond Rostrand introduced us to Cyrano de Bergerac in his 1897 play. Since then, we’ve seen a lot of incarnations of the big-nosed romantic nobleman in film and theater (Steve Martin’s 1987 comedy Roxanne is probably the most famous). And now, composer David DiChiera is the latest…

Don Giovanni: Sex and Sword Fights Done Right

Let’s preface this whole thing by saying that I’m not accustomed to attending performances in Miami where a significant percentage of female audience members are wearing fur coats. That said, I imagine that for other opera novices, Don Giovanni is a good one to cut your teeth on. It’s got…

PlayGround Theatre’s The Red Thread Weaves a Fantastical Tapestry

​Last night, the PlayGround Theatre, which prides itself in bringing unique and innovative stories to the stage for all ages, unveiled the world premier of their latest foray into myth and fantasy with The Red Thread.Taking inspiration from a Chinese folktale called “The Magical Embroidery,” co-writers Stephanie Ansin (who also…

Chinese Mysticism Envelops The Red Thread at PlayGround Theatre

Listen up all you overachievers out there: Naps can be very productive. In fact, The Red Thread, a new original production opening Wednesday at Miami Shores’ PlayGround Theatre, is the product of such a siesta. “The original inspiration came from a Chinese folktale called ‘The Magical Embroidery,’ which Fernando Calzadilla,…

High School Gets Supernatural asThe Sparrow Soars at Arsht Center

Myth, magic, and super powers collided at last night’s production of The Sparrow, which opened at the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater.The House Theatre of Chicago brought their show (which debuted in 2007) to Miami for a month-long run, and it’s probably the most original production seen on the South…

GableStage’s Controversial Blasted Wins Five Carbonells

GableStage’s disturbing and fascinating Blasted swept up five bronze rings this week at the 35th Annual Carbonell Awards held at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.Sarah Kane’s polarizing play that features rape scenes and dead babies picked up awards for Best Director (Joseph Adler), Best Production, Best Scenic Design…