Action: Mad Cat Theatre Company’s new production of this Sam Shepard one-act play has a lot going on: screaming and chair-throwing, fish-filleting on stage, what looks like a Pollo Tropical chicken passing for a Christmas turkey, lots of drooly finger-licking, spiffy winter clothes, and the sounds of a nasty snowstorm…
Clarence Darrow’s Last Trial: It’s a trial all right. Shirley Lauro’s new play takes a long time to bring to life the minor last chapter of a major life in law. There is certainly nothing wrong with Rafael de Acha’s production or with his cast, which boasts entertaining performances by…
It might have worked. Mad Cat Theatre Company’s new production of Sam Shepard’s Action, a one-act play passing for a full evening of theater, has a lot going on: screaming and chair-throwing, fish-filleting onstage, what looks like a Pollo Tropical chicken passing for a Christmas meal, lots of drooly finger-licking,…
With plays, as with people, old does not necessarily mean stale. Such is decidedly the case with The Constant Wife, now at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. This drawing-room comedy from 1926 comes across with a lot more bite than most of the trendy but empty fare that’s dragged across South…
It takes no time at all to get into the swing of the M Ensemble’s latest production, a revival of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. To one side of a small stage swathed in red velvet, a trio of jazz veterans in porkpie hats are laying down some…
Clarence Darrow’s Last Trial: It’s a trial all right. Shirley Lauro’s new play takes a long time to bring to life the minor last chapter of a major life in law. There is certainly nothing wrong with Rafael de Acha’s production or with his cast, which boasts entertaining performances by…
What’s going on at Florida Stage? After establishing a reputation for presenting provocative, substantial new plays, the award-winning Manalapan company has recently swerved toward a series of pleasant but dramatically insipid works. The latest in this troubling trend is Hanging Fire, a low-wattage comedy whose title phrase refers to a…
You know there’s trouble brewing when you get this bit of conversation between husband and wife: “How was your day?” “I wish you wouldn’t talk to me like that.” This snippy exchange in The Retreat from Moscow acts as prologue to the pathetic end of Edward and Alice’s marriage, a…
Clarence Darrow’s Last Trial: It’s a trial all right. Shirley Lauro’s new play takes a long time to bring to life the minor last chapter of a major life in law. There is certainly nothing wrong with Rafael de Acha’s production or with his cast, which boasts entertaining performances by…
American poet Sylvia Plath has long been a hallowed, haunted figure in American literary culture. Dead at 30 in 1963, a presumed suicide, Plath had a short career, but her intense, dense poetry and harrowing private life have made her the ultimate poster girl for feminist rage against male oppression…
It’s a trial all right. Now on stage at the New Theatre, Shirley Lauro’s Clarence Darrow’s Last Trial takes a long time to bring to life the minor last chapter of a major life in law. The play actually had a snazzy buzz before its world premiere in Coral Gables…
Four voices sing in beautiful harmony about hope, dreams, and the dilemma of happiness in Songs for a New World, a musical revue that meshes gospel, R&B, and jazz into eighteen heartfelt melodies of surprising emotional depth. As poignant and deftly chosen as Jason Robert Brown’s music and lyrics are,…
The Boys Next Door: This is a heart-warming, brilliantly acted look at the lives of four mentally challenged men. Arnold (Michael Collins) constantly spells out the injustices of life, threatening to move to Russia if his grievances go unacknowledged. A chubby and lovable Norman (Jason Scott Quinn) always has a…
I must confess, I have never been a big fan of Broadway tunesmith Charles Strouse. Not that he needs my approval. The prolific composer has been banging out hits since his very first musical, Bye Bye Birdie, grabbed a Tony in 1960. After that, Strouse went on a tear with…
The Boys Next Door: This is a heart-warming, brilliantly acted look at the lives of four mentally challenged men. Arnold (Michael Collins) constantly spells out the injustices of life, threatening to move to Russia if his grievances go unacknowledged. A chubby and lovable Norman (Jason Scott Quinn) always has a…
The death of a parent, especially the mother, is usually a particularly painful passage and one for which most people, however well meaning, can offer few meaningful words of solace. But in Shelagh Stephenson’s funny, moving The Memory of Water, now being performed at the Mosaic Theatre in Plantation, such…
The minor works of a genius are often more rewarding than the best that lesser mortals can bring. In the case of Paul Bunyan, the unclassifiable musical entertainment that had its South Florida premiere Saturday night at the Miami-Dade Auditorium, the rewards are actually double: This is the work of…
With its enticing characters and an engaging plot, Enchanted April lives up to its name. The tale begins in 1922 in dreary England, where a frumpy Lotty Wilton (Cary Anne Spear) finds herself dissatisfied with her tyrannical husband and her humdrum existence. She finds escape through an ad in the…
Merm and Me: The nomadic EDGE theatre, now encamped in Miami Lakes, presents Jim Tommaney’s autobiographical play about his complicated, confusing relationship with Broadway star Ethel Merman. The play, which tracks four friends of Merman in 1985 who conjure up her spirit one year after her death, is a stra…
One of the offbeat charms of Jim Tommaney and his rough-and-tumble EDGE Theatre is trying to figure out where they’re going next. Not just aesthetically but literally. The peripatetic producer, playwright, performance artist, and poet has staged shows in fifteen locations in less than ten years, pinballing around South Florida…
Several questions are raised in Florida Stage’s Ice Glen, but not ones the theater likely intends. The first is why this underrealized world premiere was pushed into production before its time. Veteran playwright Joan Ackermann’s work offers poetic sensibilities, but it trickles its watery way to a tepid conclusion, and…
Now that the holiday season has descended upon us, theatergoers as well as producers are faced with the dilemma of “classic” shows. Should we surrender to tradition and go with the tried and true or attempt to buck the trend? Coral Gables’s New Theatre deftly solves this dilemma by presenting…
