You’ve heard about Irish Alzheimer’s? That’s when you forget everything but the grudges. And that’s the kind of cute, deep-down affectionate humor at the heart of Late Nite Catechism. The one-nun show, starring Kathleen Stefano, has turned the Encore Room at the Coconut Grove Playhouse into a parochial school classroom,…
Amadeus: Peter Shaffer’s play about the life and death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a satisfying potboiler. John Felix is splendid as the villainous Antonio Salieri, a hard working but mediocre composer who seethes in jealousy and despair when Mozart effortlessly proves his musical genius. Director Richard Jay Simon ably…
There are several good reasons why South Florida playgoers may want to trek out to Plantation to take in Amadeus, now playing at the Mosaic Theatre. First and foremost is Peter Shaffer’s grand potboiler of a script about the life and death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Because of its formidable…
To hear him tell it, there is little out of the ordinary about the time Ralph met Rona, about his annoying but seemingly harmless pushiness, about the girl’s eventual return of his insistent “Hello, hello, hello.” Soon we learn, however, that Rona is but ten years old, that Ralph is…
CORAL GABLES — Isabelle Czerny, an elderly classical pianist, was murdered last weekend at the Shear Madness hair salon, which is neatly nestled inside the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables. Dets. Nick Rossetti (Michael St. Pierre) and Miguel “Mikey” Ortiz (Francisco Padura) were working undercover at the scene, yet still…
Amadeus: Reviewed in this issue. Through October 17, and October 28-31. Mosaic Theatre, American Heritage Center for the Arts, 12200 W. Broward Blvd., Bldg. 3000, Plantation. 954-577-8243. Air, Fire, Water: Jim Tommaney’s three short plays range widely in subject and effectiveness but stick to a central tone of foreboding. In…
If there’s an award for great theatrical moments, this year’s prize will undoubtedly go to Nilo Cruz and his Anna in the Tropics, now playing at the Coconut Grove Playhouse: In the play’s final image, a half-crazed Cuban girl dressed in a Russian costume staggers toward a huge palm tree…
If optimism and determination are the twin guardians of success, then Teddy Herrell Jr. and his African-American Performing Arts Community Theatre are doubly blessed. The plucky troupe, which aims to present professional theater accessible to inner-city audiences, especially young people, appears undeterred by challenges it has taken on. Witness AAPACT’s…
Air, Fire, Water: Jim Tommaney’s three short plays range widely in subject and effectiveness but stick to a central tone of foreboding. In Air, a speaker opposed to the war in Iraq is threatened by shadowy government operatives. In Fire, a psychiatric patient menaces his therapist. In the best of…
Theater has long been praised for holding “the mirror up to nature” to reveal reality through the artifice of performance. Yet, remarkably, our post 9/11 reality — filled with threat, fear, war, blundering, and duplicity — took quite a while to filter into new plays. Now, a somber, deeply pessimistic…
A lot can be said about luna del pingüino, but above all, there is this: It works. Constantly surprising, interactive, and gently transgressive, bursting with smiles even at its most unsettling, ready to face today’s serious moral challenges but readier still to entertain, it is a one-man show but also…
With hurricane season most decidedly upon us, questions of probability and fate are on the minds of many. How is it that some people suffer when disaster strikes while others walk away unscathed? Is survival a matter of chance, will, or preordination? Such thoughts are at the fore of Michael…
The real Moms Mabley was a trip. The woman recalled in Jackie “Moms” Mabley Live at the Shores Theater deserves our respect, and her old routines can still get more than a laugh or two. But not even Latrice Bruno’s delicious impersonation can gloss over how little the late T…
Heaven Help Us! The Swingin’ New Rat Pack Musical: This toe-tapping world premiere about God sending the Rat Pack back to Vegas to help a suicidal lounge owner is stylishly presented, with the terrific cast belting out some great tunes. Some 29 hits pop up in the show, ranging from…
Raised in Captivity: From Nicky Silver’s deliciously twisted mind comes this black comedy of love, loneliness and loss, and also killer shower massages, disturbed siblings, psychotic, self-mutilating psychologists, and a redneck death-row inmate whose Muslim name is Ruth. Don’t ask. Just don’t miss this lively production by The Baby Factor,…
He was called, among other things, fascinating, abrasive, wise, vain, ruthless, tenderhearted, indefatigable, and contentious. His wife once commented: “How glad I am that I married this crazy man instead of some dull son of a bitch.” Such was the impact of Dalton Trumbo, the famed screenwriter and raconteur whose…
Nicky Silver is one twisted playwright, and his Raised in Captivity is too much. Now on stage at PS 742 in the heart of Little Havana, the deadly serious, seriously funny black comedy begins at a funeral: After years of not seeing each other, Sebastian and his twin, Bernadette, meet…
Betty’s Summer Vacation: To playwright Christopher Durang, hell is psycho roommates screwing up your seaside holiday. That’s the freakish situation in Betty’s Summer Vacation, a comedy of menace that is receiving a first-rate staging from Miami’s Mad Cat Theatre Company. The tedious script, featuring rape, murder, and genital mutilation, is…
Americans can’t seem to agree on much these days, but all must allow that these are tense, restless times. War, terrorism, a divided electorate, and a widespread debate about the nation’s purpose are everyday subjects on television, in newspapers, and at the local java joint, yet few contemporary plays and…
Betty’s Summer Vacation: To playwright Christopher Durang, hell is psycho roommates screwing up your seaside holiday. That’s the freakish situation in Betty’s Summer Vacation, a comedy of menace that is receiving a first-rate staging from Miami’s Mad Cat Theatre Company. The tedious script, featuring rape, murder, and genital mutilation, is…
“Hell is other people,” Jean Paul Sartre once opined. To Christopher Durang, hell is psycho roommates screwing up your seaside holiday. That’s the freakish situation in Betty’s Summer Vacation, Durang’s comedy of menace that is receiving a first-rate staging from Miami’s Mad Cat Theatre Company. Durang’s thin script has been…
Heaven Help Us! The Swingin’ New Rat Pack Musical: This toe-tapping world premiere about God sending the Rat Pack back to Vegas to help a suicidal lounge owner is stylishly presented, with the terrific cast belting out some great tunes — some 29 hits pop up in the show, ranging…
