I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Hunka Hunka Burnin’ Love. On the surface, the Caldwell’s decision to house the production seemed like the most awesomely cynical move imaginable, coolly calculated to pacify the antediluvian nostalgia junkies who pay the theater’s bills. I thought the show would be theatrical comfort food,…
Zoo Story: Written in 1958 and steeped in shades of economic disparity and dehumanization in a materialistic world, Edward Albee’s searing one-act play still retains its power to shock nearly a half-century later. The Edge Theatre stages the numbing encounter between a middle-class publishing exec and a disturbed transient at…
It’s difficult imagining a more idyllic way to enjoy an afternoon of stimulating theater than spending a Sunday in the park with Ed. During a recent matinee, Edge Theatre staged a minimalist production of Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story outdoors, on the lawn of the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, under…
Attention, all twelve-year-old boys: Krysten Batlle is looking for a dance partner. Batlle, an attractive brunet with a ready smile and an infectious giggle, is one of the most accomplished competitive ballroom dancers in Miami, if not the state. She’s also a seventh-grader at Arvida Middle School in Kendall. Only…
King Lear: Aaron Spelling certainly injected Shakespearean ambition into his glittering prime-time soap operas — Melrose Place was a total tragicomedy — but here’s a theatrical mashup we never could have envisioned: Ted Lange starring in a touring production of King Lear. Lange, he of the red tux, perfectly spherical…
Mr. Marmalade: Teetering on the edge of reality, Noah Haidle’s play takes you to the playground of make-believe for emotionally disturbed children. Yes, four-year-old Lucy’s imaginary friend is a bipolar coke addict who also has a personal assistant. And the little girl’s real friend, Larry, is suicidal. (Life sucks when…
Among the many splendors of Florida Grand Opera’s thrilling new Aïda, not least of them the arrival of a young powerhouse named Angela M. Brown in the title role, is this fact: For the first time in its adventuresome 65-year history, the company and its opera fans have the venue…
Fahrenheit 451: Cast in the, er, glow of the recent public school book-banning controversy (Vamos a Cuba) and fresh off of its selection by the Florida Center for the Literary Arts as this year’s “Big Read,” Fahrenheit 451 lights up GableStage in its Southeastern premiere. Adapted for the stage by…
It’s no secret that, in a country where national service is decidedly not everyone’s duty, it is often the poorest who find in the armed services a sane career choice. It beats making sandwiches at a fast-food joint. Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue, Quiara Alegria Hudes’s play about three generations of…
Fahrenheit 451: Cast in the, er, glow of the recent public school book-banning controversy (Vamos a Cuba) and fresh off of its selection by the Florida Center for the Literary Arts as this year’s “Big Read,” Fahrenheit 451 lights up GableStage in its Southeastern premiere. Adapted for the stage by…
The decision to stage Fahrenheit 451 is a thinly veiled response to a 1990s Miami-Dade County ordinance banning groups with ties to Cuba from receiving public money. (Of course in Miami, not denouncing Fidel Castro at every turn is almost as bad as saying Gloria Estefan can’t sing.) In 2000,…
Elliot: A Soldier’s Fugue: Quiara Alegria Hudes’s play about three generations of an American military family is picking up steam across the nation. Ricky J. Martinez’s current production for New Theatre comes on the heels of a successful off-Broadway run, and it will be followed by different stagings in prestigious…
Fahrenheit 451: Cast in the, er, glow of the recent public-school book-banning controversy (Vamos a Cuba) and fresh off its selection by the Florida Center for the Literary Arts as this year’s “Big Read,” Fahrenheit 451 lights up GableStage at the Biltmore in its Southeast premiere. Adapted for the stage…
During the Nineties, a visit to one of South Florida’s strip clubs made for a rip-snorting time. From seedier dives such as the Bottoms Up on SW Eighth Street to the wildly popular Porky’s in Hialeah, freewheeling floozies ratcheted up their repertoires with raunchy antics that engaged the audience in…
The first words heard in Lincolnesque are those of Abraham Lincoln. They are lyrical, lofty, and moving, spoken by a tall, bearded man in a long black coat, his voice at once inspiring and reassuring, if only a little off. Maybe a lot off: He is in fact a madman…
Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman arrives at GableStage trailing considerable acclaim in its wake, having won an Olivier Award for Best Play in 2004 and a Tony nomination in 2005. It is a departure of sorts for the brilliant McDonagh: Instead of being about all things bizarre, violent, and Irish, it…
The Mystery of Irma Vep: Crisply directed by David Arisco, its costumes magically engineered by the sensational Mary Lynne Izzo, and gleefully performed by the comically gifted John Felix and Tom Wahl, The Mystery of Irma Vep is a delirious descent into madness that sticks to the ribs and never…
In an effort to bring Shakespeare to the masses, theater companies sometimes feel compelled to adapt the Bard to modern times, using familiar settings to ease the language complexity. This motive, perhaps, inspired New Theatre to put a contemporary spin on its latest South Florida Shakespeare Festival, featuring Much Ado…
In Terminal Baggage, Paul Tei and Ivonne Azurdia have hatched a batch of quirky tone poems that center on what people do in airports while waiting, interminably, to fly. The result is a production that skids into turbulence yet hits a cruising altitude to deliver an evening of well-acted fun…
Ella: It’s ten years this month since songstress Ella Fitzgerald died. Fitzgerald, whose romantically distinctive voice has gently passed from generation to generation since her first recordings in 1936, didn’t so much have her own songs but rather made anything she sang an Ella experience. In the past year, Florida…
The audience waiting for the curtain to rise for The Mystery of Irma Vep at Actors’ Playhouse was a thicket of blue-hairs strafing the room with chitchat louder than gunfire in Compton, yakking about where to get their grub on after the matinee. Thankfully they were silenced by a stern…
Dressed in a fitted black T-shirt and plain dark pants, Miami artist Michael Israel stands alone on an expansive stage. In his right hand he clutches a paintbrush. Before him is a blank canvas that measures approximately six by four feet. Behind him are hundreds of people who have gathered…
