Picture this: You have been invited to a party on a dark night in a strange neighborhood, and you have no idea how to get there. The host offers to meet you and lead the way. But he drives so fast, it’s hard to keep up with him. He makes…
Ahh, the dysfunctional family. We all have one or know one, and playwrights seem to know a lot of them. Feuding families have been with us at least as long as drama has existed. The Greeks had the house of Atreus. Shakespeare had King Lear and his daughters. Then there’s…
When you go to a Mad Cat show, ya rolls yer dice and ya takes yer chances. The risk-taking theater ensemble in downtown Miami makes sure that the audience takes some risk just to get in the door. Company policy establishes a “$12 plus the roll of one die” policy…
As any wine lover can tell you, an excellent vintage is really two wines in one. When first opened, it may have a lovely, fresh bouquet and a satisfying taste. But allowed to breathe, a great wine will develop subtle complexities, new depth, and lingering flavors. That’s an apt analogy…
There has been a lot of talk lately about the so-called Law of Unintended Consequences: that any course of action will produce an array of surprise results. I can’t be certain exactly what the Actors Playhouse in Coral Gables was intending with its season-opener Comic Potential, but the results are…
One of the fascinating oddities of theater in South Florida is the offbeat locations where it turns up. Local companies are found in some of the least likely places: The Caldwell Theatre and Florida Stage are in strip malls, the Broward Stage Door sits behind an IHOP. The Mosaic is…
Theater in South Florida was once the realm of musicals and light comedies, with dramas mighty scarce. Now the scene features theater of all kinds — fierce as well as frothy. But what remains rare are plays with immediate, topical subjects. Despite the disturbing real-life drama in contemporary America, most…
The last time I dropped by the Mosaic Theatre in Plantation last season, the company was presenting Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me, a three-man hostage drama, to an audience of six in a bare, uninviting auditorium. Flash-forward to this month as the Mosaic presents another three-person show, The Complete Works…
I know. Life is a struggle sometimes: You’re faced with traffic gridlock, work overload, relationship limbo. But cheer up, at least you’re not Baby Doll Gibbons. Not only is her on-again, off-again romance off again, her roommates are furious that she trashed their apartment in a fit of jealous pique…
In Tom Walker, a new play at the New Theatre, a very old story is given a modern twist. The Devil appears to the title character, dupes same into a hellish bargain, and runs off with poor Tom’s soul. Playwright John Strand has performed a similar act of piracy: He…
For most South Floridians, late summer means numbing heat, hurricanes, and back-to-school specials. But for those astute and lucky New Times readers, the dog days of August also herald a revived arts scene. Within a month or so, dozens of theater companies up and down the tri-county coast will be…
Prerevolutionary Cuban thinker Felix Varela declared that intellectuals should not cloister themselves in an ivory tower. In fact he claimed their primary obligation is to take on society’s most pertinent issues, to act as an illuminator and guide for the people. In 1998 the first independent library in Cuba was…
After two months in chilly London, sultry Florida feels good. And propelled by a notebook full of observations from U.K. theater, it also seems a good time, before the fall season, to reflect on the good and the bad in our own scene. First off, the bad. Like any community,…
In theater, as in life, we expect marriages to fail, lovers to betray, and family members to hurt us, but when friendship takes the center stage, one cannot help but take note. This familiar but unpredictable territory offers much dramatic potential, and GableStage’s current production Chinese Coffee makes the most…
Anyone looking for the theatrical capital of the world will unquestionably end that search here in London, where a strong theatrical tradition has been nurtured, almost unbroken, for well over 400 years. The city is looking more prosperous and confident than it has in many decades, choked with new construction…
Ancient festivals served as markers for human progress, celebrating the passing of time and the progression of the community. Although seasonal changes, harvests, and rites of passage are not the focus of today’s festivals, these celebrations still provide a forum for assessing a community’s evolution. Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “Life must…
In dramaturgical terms, a play by a man about men is called theater — from Hamlet to Nixon’s Nixon, male playwrights, actors, and themes are not distinguished as “men’s theater” (and thankfully so). In contrast a play by a woman about women is frequently dubbed “women’s theater,” “touchy-feely,” “man hating,”…
When a historical play has done its work, one can expect to hear one of two exclamations from audience members as they file out: the ever-popular “My, how times have changed!” or the unforgettable “Oh, how history repeats itself!” GableStage’s production of Russell Lees’s Nixon’s Nixon might inspire both utterances…
Beware of backhanded compliments. If you heed the critics and the advance press, you might have heard that the Stage Door Theatre’s Our Sinatra, the long-running musical imported from New York, is a stylish cabaret revue. This is true and that’s good, and it’s also not so good. Our Sinatra…
In the end is a beginning, as the saying goes. And so it is with Apartment 3A, a romantic comedy with a Hollywood ending that marks a Hollywood beginning: the Acting Studio Stage Company’s new space on Hollywood Boulevard. While there are certain drawbacks to this production, plenty of encouraging…
Big is sometimes better. For instance South Florida has become home to the largest Hispanic theater festival in the United States, which this year will host thirteen companies from seven other countries (Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Slovenia, and Spain). Almost all of the companies have been presenting theater…
What a difference a week makes. In the last issue of New Times, Florida Stage in Manalapan was lauded as the Best Theater in South Florida. Now along comes its final show of the season, Women Who Steal, which is, to be very blunt, the worst show of the stage’s…
