You can’t argue with a centenarian’s secret of longevity. Especially if that 100-year-old happens to be America’s beloved (and still active), universally acclaimed comedian/actor/playwright/filmmaker and songwriter, comedy icon Mel Brooks. Brooks says his secret to a long and happy life is to “Keep laughing.” He’s fanatic about giving audiences lots to laugh about at his shows … and we’re forever grateful! 

‘Tis the season for “scary.” But given the perennial popularity of “Rocky Horror,” nothing beats scary AND campy AND maybe a hefty helping of outrageous, gender-bending funny! Here’s a new one (to me) that’s developed quite the following in America’s regional theater circuit (including off-Broadway accolades), played London’s West End, and even brought down the house in Ramstein and Amsterdam. I was especially delighted to learn that DRACULA: A COMEDY OF TERRORS, now playing at Empire Stage, was an early, original commission by none other than our very own Maltz Jupiter Theater who’d contacted the zany comedy-writing team of Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen to script their company’s first world premiere.

For a season promising boldness, Miami City Ballet began in a familiar place. American Rhythms, which opened Friday, October 16, 2026, at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center, introduced Gonzalo Garcia’s first fully programmed season as artistic director with George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante. There is a certain reassurance in beginning with a master. But reassurance was hardly what I had just been told to expect in Garcia’s opening speech. Balanchine is central to contemporary ballet’s identity. Its placement at the top of the program offers a statement of classical foundation upon which the evening’s other works can build. As an opening gesture, however, it felt safe.

You don’t have to be Cuban or even Latino to LOVE the music, the passion, the non-stop rhythms of love, hope, and desire that fire you up – heart and soul (not to mention shaking your body to the beats) – from the second you arrive at the BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB. But you need to hurry, because this incredible musical tribute to classic Cuban music and dance is only playing at the Au-Rene Theater of Broward Center through October 18! 

If you were a gay man deemed “too gay” by fellow New York gays, where would you go from there? For the flaming and fabulous Mr. Charles, one of three main characters in Paul Rudnick’s The New Century, the answer was Palm Beach, where he has hilariously taken a position as host of a late-night cable talk show called “Too Gay.”

Actress Ella Olesen shines in the one person, one act dark satire WEATHER GIRL about a television meteorologist in Fresno, California who gives a day-by-day prognosis of unusual weather patterns in her city and state.

Playwright Brian Watkins created a satire rather than a serious drama on the perils of climate change by having “weather girl” Stacey Gross (Olesen) be both narrator and a victim of the events to be shared with the audience.