Music historians and lecturers always credit Black gospel, rhythm & blues, along with boogie woogie and jazz, for giving birth to America’s 1950’s rock ‘n’ roll craze – a perennially popular music genre to this day. I’ve attended several such scholarly talks, but getting it with your brain is nothing like feeling it in your gut … and soul. That’s why MEMPHIS, the musical that’s creating a sensation over at Broward’s hottest new musical venue, the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center (LPAC), made me wonder: “Where has this phenomenal show been all my life?”
The middle child is often considered the quiet one, and nothing special in the family. Slow Burn Theatre Company’s mid-season blockbuster hit SISTER ACT – which comes on the heels of earning a Carbonell for programming and a record-breaking season – has turned “middle malaise” upside down by managing, once again, to make their exhilarated audiences feel this is their “best show ever!” Till they see the next one, of course.
Ana Nogueira’s most recently celebrated dramedy, with songs, WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE, is a true New York original. With a plotline that shifts dramatically among the trials of fanatic Broadway autograph seekers, their deep passion for musical theater, the power and limits of close friendship, the search for love in unexpected places, and perhaps underlying it all, the struggles of young actors everywhere – but especially those trying to make it in the Big Apple.
Can young newlyweds survive five flights of stairs and no heat in a frigid New York City winter? What if they also have opposing personalities and ideas on how to enjoy life … outside of the bedroom?
There’s a reason why Greek myths, and their gods, continue to resonate and inspire through the ages. Classical deities – depicted as more “human” than their successors – both glorify and condemn all the great passions of human nature. Love, hate, jealousy, ambition, determination, trust and faith. But perhaps more than anything, by the mere act of telling and retelling their stories, we solidify the power and salvation of “the arts.”
Our holiday season may be coming to a close but “Tom Dugan season,” in what’s fast becoming a regular feature of South Florida theater, lives on. The popular, LA-based playwright/actor who critics describe as “a national treasure” is best known for his breakout, multi-award-winning, one-man show Wiesenthal, where he portrays the life and ideals of the world’s most famous Nazi hunter. I saw Dugan play the lead in an awe-inspiring performance years ago. But you can still catch the play periodically (last seen at Miami’s GableStage, featuring David Kwiat, in 2019). And it’s coming up next month at the Pompano Beach Cultural Center, with Dugan again in the starring role. (Wiesenthal’s mission lives on, as well, through The Simon Wiesenthal Center, dedicated to fighting “the ever-morphing scourge of antisemitism” in the US and abroad.)
It’s no longer an insider secret that Slow Burn Theatre Company, the resident professional theater company of the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, has been delivering outstanding, often family-oriented musicals, for the past nine years. In addition to multiple local awards, the company recently garnered a major Carbonell (South Florida’s Tonys) in the category of Theatrical Excellence. Which they well deserve. For just when you might think they’ve reached the pinnacle in stagecraft and acting expertise, they come out with a new, blockbuster winner.
There’s the saying, “Everything old is new again.” To which I’d add, “only if it speaks to a new generation.” Radio programs spoke to generations of listeners in the twentieth century, to be surpassed by film and TV, only to be resurrected in exploding popularity under the guise of “podcasts.” As humans, we’ve always felt the need to see stories, read stories, hear stories … often all together. And our best stories, those that speak most deeply to our shared humanity, challenges and aspirations, tend to survive through the ages. Like the timeless works of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
‘Tis the season for family, traditions, and celebrations that bring one back to more innocent times. The sweet scent of nostalgia can nourish the most troubled soul. And I can’t think of a better place to rekindle that holiday spirit than joining the perfume and cosmetics shoppers at Maraczek’s Parfumerie in 1934 Budapest, Hungary.
I must admit when South Florida Theater Magazine (who I’m proud to say is a sponsor of this prestigious event) first invited me to cover THE46th ANNUAL CARBONELL AWARDS on November 13, I was somewhat intimidated. The journalist in me immediately googled former Carbonell Award nights (these can be defined as a regional version of Broadway’s Tonys – but far more inclusive of smaller theaters and experimental work). I landed on a short video of my editor, Jessie Dez, as gorgeous and glammed up as any Access Hollywood reporter, conducting pre-show interviews with similarly gowned and evening-wear attired nominees.
