What do you get if you combine eight musicians, forty-two singers, and one fast-talking con artist? Answer: “Seventy-Six Trombones.” Huh? Those good in math might be scratching their heads, wondering what the heck we’re talking about, but this was exactly the formula Meredith Willson used to create his legendary Broadway…
Family Secret: Edge Theatre, which last year served up Men on the Verge of a Hispanic Breakdown, now offers Family Secret, written and directed by Jim Tommaney. God smiles on roaming bands of small theater troupe experimentalists. One week they might be playing in an art gallery, the next a…
John Beauregard was 39 years old when he fell from a construction site and broke his neck. In one awful moment, the builder who loved to ski became a C7 quadriplegic, largely paralyzed from the neck down. “I remember when I first got hurt and for all those many years,…
The Sunken Living Room: This is one instance when the story behind the scenes upstages the action in the play. David Caudle’s family drama was scheduled to open in New Orleans last summer, but Hurricane Katrina hit. The play is about a 24-hour period in the life of a dysfunctional…
This is one instance when the story behind the scenes upstages the action in the play. David Caudle’s family drama The Sunken Living Room, now receiving its world premiere at New Theatre, has been through quite a real-life saga. It was scheduled to open at the acclaimed Southern Rep in…
Umoja should be presented with two disclaimers. The first: May cause serious fatigue. Meaning this 36-member troupe emanates more energy than a hyperactive four-year-old hooked up to an intravenous caffeine drip. And during Wednesday’s electric opening-night performance at the Gusman Center, an enthusiastic crowd barely kept up. From tribal snake…
Balm in Gilead: Lanford Wilson was a master of realistic dialogue in which monologue, conversation, and direct address to the audience overlap. Written in 1965, this work was the playwright’s first full-length play. The drama takes place in Frank’s Café, a seedy all-night diner in New York City’s Upper Broadway…
Ed Bullins is one of the most influential and controversial names in African-American history. Spike Lee may be more familiar; Denzel Washington and Halle Berry are undoubtedly more bankable. And in modern literary circles, Toni Morrison’s moniker might spark more interest. But Bullins, a prize-winning African-American playwright who dominated the…
In the evil galaxy of schadenfreude where theater resides, nothing is better than a darkly funny play about hopeless wankers full of big talk and even bigger dreams that will never be realized because of their cycles of obsession and addiction. In the case of Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice, onstage…
Educating Rita: With this tale of upper-crust English professor Frank mentoring lower-class literary wannabe Rita, Dramaworks’ director Nanique Gheridian sends us into a supposedly well-recognized Pygmalion paradigm. But for those of us who shied away from seeing the 1983 Michael Caine film version of the play, it is not as…
Mad Cat’s latest adventures in the wonderland of new plays have landed the scruffy Miami troupe in a good place. William Donnelly’s Painted Alice, now onstage at the Light Box, may not be especially profound, but it is very funny. And it also gives the Mad Catters a chance to…
Educating Rita: With this tale of upper-crust English professor Frank mentoring lower-class literary wannabe Rita, Dramaworks’ director Nanique Gheridian sends us into a supposedly well-recognized Pygmalion paradigm. But for those of us who shied away from seeing the 1983 Michael Caine film version of the play, it is not as…
For most of us, combining the words dance and Miami Beach in a sentence conjures up the same image: a self-esteem-shrinking battle with a member of the ubiquitous velvet-rope squad. You attempt to persuade the very important door personnel that you are attractive, thin, and/or cool enough. He or she…
Day of Reckoning: The sad and seamy underbelly of the mythical American dream is not a place of hope, though this production makes a scattered attempt at embracing quite a bit of America’s historical landscape: Ku Klux Klan rallies, slavery and its aftermath, burning crosses, forbidden love, shameless hate, interracial…
The first question many people ask about The Full Monty at the Miracle Theatre is not if the play is any good, but if the male performers actually bare their tackle. The answer is yes. This Broadway musical — showing at Actors’ Playhouse through April 9 — is based on…
And Then She Moved the Furniture: The Public Theatre presents the first production of Miami playwright Manny Diez’s chilling tale of army base domestic abuse, a fictional telling of a true story out of Fort Bragg during the summer of 2002. Four soldiers murdered their wives, and two of them…
The sad and seamy underbelly of the mythical American dream is not a place of hope. Nor is it a world that is easily described, though New Theatre’s powerful production of Day of Reckoning makes a scattered attempt at embracing quite a bit of America’s historical landscape: Ku Klux Klan…
What is it about gangsters that we find so fascinating? From the real-life Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel to the fictional Tony Soprano, mobsters have become as much a part of American culture as Apple Computer. But as rich as our nation’s history is with tales of organized crime, it’s unlikely you…
America/America: One Nation, Many Stories: The Dance Now! Ensemble is set to premiere its newest work. Drawing on the company’s trademark fusion of contemporary Western dance, ballet, modern, and contemporary jazz, the show will spotlight the nine-person troupe performing a dazzling display of athleticism and art. Set to a haunting…
The town of Plantation recently seems to have become a womb for young male violence, with the most recognized wickedness to come out of this pseudo-Fitzgerald West Egg lately being the alleged bashing of homeless men in January by baseball bat-wielding teen lads. Bad, sad news all around. But Plantation…
Ceremonies in Dark Old Men: Some things mature with age, others don’t. Almost 40 years after Ceremonies premiered off-Broadway, it still offers a powerfully rich portrayal of a disenfranchised African-American family in crisis. But it also projects such a clichéd, outdated, and stereotypical image of black men that it begs…
To most people, food sustains life. But to the culinary celebrities converging on Miami February 24 through 26 for the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, food is life. And they’re set to nourish the hungry crowds with shows of sustenance. “You can call me a lot of things,” quips…
