Neil Simon’s blockbuster comedy, The Odd Couple, has been packaged, repackaged, filmed, performed live, aired on TV and altered in a variety of ways. To bring its 2022-23 season to a close on a highly humorous note, Boca Stage presents a comic version of Simon’s 1980’s reworking of his original production – one that casts the two lead characters and all their working-class buddies as women. 

For the next few weeks, the Wick Theatre in Boca Raton can boast that it has assembled a crack ensemble of folks with intimate ties to the Great American Pastime – baseball – and who are truly worth their weight in rosin and chewin’ tobacco. The reason? The popular big league hit from the mid-1950s, the musical comedy, Damn Yankees, has come to the Wick stage with its plethora of idiosyncrasies – a dominant husband and wife romance theme, lots of devil-may-care antics and a terrific musical score.

After presenting a couple of light-hearted musicals earlier this season – Jersey Boys and Sweet Charity – the Maltz Jupiter Theater kicks off the second half of its production year with a hard-hitting drama, David Lindsay-Abaire’s gritty, Tony Award-nominated play, Good People. 

Playwright Bess Wohl made it to Broadway in 2019 with a play festooned with systematic observations and offbeat family reactions to an elderly couple’s desire to divorce after a half-century of marriage.

Called Grand Horizons – named after the independent living community that  senior citizens Nancy (Lourelene Snedeker) and her husband, Bill (Michael Gioia) call home — the show is a cauldron of complexities that mixes laughable situations with sharp one-liners, family interactions that often go awry and plenty of self-examination by all parties concerned with their parents’ proposed demutualization.

Whether you’re an avid theatergoer or just a patron of occasional stage productions, you’ve probably seen Anything Goes, the tune-filled musical crafted by composer Cole Porter in the mid-1930s. Over the years, the show has survived a cornucopia of revisions and still manages to entertain audiences after nearly nine decades.

It’s hard to believe that Charity Hope Valentine’s slightly skewed, slice-of-life musical story – Sweet Charity — has passed the half-century mark.  But the unlucky-in-love New York City dance hall worker whose well-intentioned intentions often go sliding off the rails is back in a perked-up presentation that uses lots of the newly installed techno-glitz at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre.  

The production that taps Jennifer Sanchez – an actress whose quirky traits and powerful voice make her a top-notch choice for the title role – heads a stellar troupe of singers and dancers in a delightful production that continues through Jan. 29.

Written By Christine Dolen

Originally published on artburstmiami.com 

The stunning play that altered the course of Nilo Cruz’s life began with a commission from the 104-seat New Theatre in Coral Gables.  Supported by a national grant, the company led by Rafael de Acha asked the Cuban-American playwright, whose work was being produced by significant regional theaters throughout the country, for a new play.

Cruz delivered “Anna in the Tropics.”

Boca Stage kicks open the 2023 segment of its current season with one of its best performances – if not the best – an intense, mind-probing examination of two people trapped in solitary confinement – one by choice, the other by circumstance – and whose lives become increasingly difficult to bear. As they spiral toward a loss of self-existence, a totally unexpected event brings a measure of solace and newfound relief to their painful realities.