As a movie, Legally Blonde has had a profound cultural impact. No, really! Few sources of entertainment can easily unite both those who loved sorority life and those who snarkily avoided it, those who unironically consider themselves girlbosses and those with a more nuanced understanding of feminism. The musical based on the 2001 film adeptly carries on that universally appealing campy-yet-inspirational, farcical-yet-aspirational balance, garnering countless fans (many of whom wear pink to the show in solidarity with the main character) for reasons that are on full display by the Legally Blonde national tour currently finishing its run at the Kravis Center.

Aren’t we all searching for grace? Perhaps so, but in Zoetic Stage’s second world premiere this season (and their second by a South Florida playwright!), Vanessa Garcia’s #Graced, its protagonist Catherine is doing so a bit more directly than most in a Lewis-and-Clark inspired odyssey across the United States, undertaken in part in her effort to cope with a recent divorce.

Written By: Mindy Leaf

The great American playwright (also acclaimed actor and screenwriter) of “Torch Song Trilogy” and “Hairspray” fame, and early “out” gay celebrity Harvey Fierstein, 68, still questions his gender identity. But he’s okay with that. In a 2022 interview, Fierstein confided: “I’m still confused as to whether I’m a man or a woman…. As a boy attracted to men, finding out about gay was enough.” The term non-binary bothers him, though, as he’s simply “comfortable being me and if I ask myself, ‘Would you want to transition? The answer’s no.”

Though Patrick Marber’s Closer first premiered in 1997—which is actually hard to believe was a full 26 years ago—there is still much that is compelling and even shocking about this dark, sadistic twist on a classic rom-com set up that you can catch for one more weekend at the Lake Worth Playhouse. A meet-cute car accident connects an obituary writer aspiring to become a novelist (Dan) and a sensual waif with a mysterious past (Alice) and the two soon strike up a romance. Her past becomes the inspiration for the book he goes on to write, but when sparks fly between him and the photographer tasked with taking his picture for the jacket, Anna, he can’t resist the temptation. Despite the fact that Dan then accidentally orchestrates a relationship between Anna and Larry, the doctor who tended to Alice after her car accident, the two sneakily continue an affair until all four participants in this mad game of relational do-si-do are inextricably intertwined. 

Who among us hasn’t, at one time or another, found themselves longing for yesterday? But for aging Tony winner Lydia Taylor, the protagonist of the Foundry’s new musical One More Yesterday who has now spent nearly 50 years out of the spotlight, longings for her happier yesterdays are just about all that she has left. 

In what might be one of the most hilariously chaotic plays I’ve ever seen in my life, a zany rendition of Noises Off is currently on at Delray Beach Playhouse until May 14. The slapstick kind of comedy is exactly what I didn’t know I needed when I caught the opening night’s performance, and you might need it, too. Just laugh.

Written By: Christine Dolen

Originally published on artburstmiami.com

Artistic inspiration flows from many sources, including ideas and images created long before younger artists build upon them to fashion something new.

Take “Create Dangerously,” which began as a 1957 speech by Nobel Prize laureate Albert Camus.

When the celebrated Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat was asked to give the second annual Toni Morrison lecture at Princeton University in 2008, inspired by Camus, she delivered a speech titled “Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work.” In 2010, Danticat published a book with the same title, a work blending memoir, essays and stories about the courage of Haitians at home and in exile.