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,…
A regular feature of the International Hispanic Theatre Festival, which is now in its eighteenth year, Miami-Dade Community College’s Prometeo continues to show its aptitude for children’s theater. This year’s original Spanish-language production of Matias y el Aviador, written by Cuban playwright Felix Lizarraga, even surpasses last year’s version of…
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…
A spotlight shines on the darkened stage alternately illuminating five characters: Arlin Jasper, Dodie and Ed MacDonald, Tom Hawkins, and Denny Hedges. Each one utters a piece of a fragmented soliloquy that speaks for an entire town’s shock, grief, and disgust. Welcome to Irving, a.k.a. “Anywhere, U.S.A.,” a one-post office,…
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…
Actor, writer, and director Larry Villanueva calls his play Allá Afuera Hay Fresco “una descarga.” The term descarga, usually reserved for music, refers to a jam session, but Villanueva asserts that in this case there’s no better word to describe what happens on the stage during this explosive one-act: “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…
Many playwrights draw from their personal experiences, but Edward Albee appears downright obsessed by his. The veteran, venerable playwright returns again and again to familiar subjects: dysfunctional family dynamics and the inescapable isolation of human beings from one another. Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Tiny Alice, The Play About The…
In a hurry? Me too, so I’ll get to the point. This is a review of Floyd Collins, an innovative musical that’s got a week or two left in its run at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables. The story is based on a real incident in the 1920s, when a…
Sometimes life is like a fairy tale. Not the Teletubbies kind, the Grimm kind. Things are humming along really well, then blam! Something mysterious strikes out of the blue and your sweet reality is suddenly transformed into a nightmare. That pretty much sums it up for Peter Hoskins, the central…
By a recent count, more than 300 theatrical productions are staged each year in South Florida — just about one new show a day. Of course, it doesn’t work out so neatly — most shows open on or near the weekends and go up against an array of competing openings…
One of the maddening aspects of theater is how uncertainty plays havoc with the best-laid plans. Gather the best actors and directors to work on the best scripts and you still can end up with a misfire. That’s the end result of The Countess, now in production at the Caldwell…
In American theater, there’s a long hard road that most successful plays take. At its very start, a playwright gets a script produced somehow, and, with luck, it’s a hit. With some restaging and rewrites and more luck, it moves on to New York City. More luck, more rewrites, and…
In Tin Box Boomerang, Ivonne Azurdia’s new play now in production by the Mad Cat Theatre at the Miami Light Project, you will meet a passel of ordinary, flawed characters who seem very real and familiar. Two Mexican-American sisters struggle to make ends meet, living in a beat-up trailer. Their…
Time was, the great repertoire of classical drama was the mainstay of established New York City and regional theaters. But take a quick look at the season lineups at the nation’s major theaters, and you’ll be hard pressed to spot even a smattering of classics. What happened to the great…
If English mysteries are your cup of tea, you might want to sample Sherlock’s Last Case, now being served up at the Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables. Charles Marowitz’s script, a revisionist take on the legendary detective character Sherlock Holmes, borrows both characters and situations from the classic series of…
