Of course, if you know the slightest bit about Broadway or Hollywood history, you probably won’t be too surprised by the way that host Shari Upbin jokingly suggests that the number of famous composers who were Jewish is actually “all of them.”
An incredible ride awaits anyone who chooses to attend Rotterdam at Island City Stage. This instantly engaging play by Jon Brittain has plenty of comedic moments, yet also tells an insightful, dramatic story likely to stick with you long after the final scene.
But the basic premise of the play is laid out cleanly in the first. For the past seven years, Alice and Fiona have been living as a lesbian couple in a Dutch city called Rotterdam, abroad from their native England. Until now, this distance has allowed Alice to stay in the closet to her parents, which is the main reason she’s resisted coming home. But just as Alice is finally getting ready to admit that she is not attracted to men, Fiona suddenly announces that “she” feels as if she has always been one.
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.
So, what am I going to say about Guys And Dolls this time?
I’ll admit that it did cross my mind at one point during my viewing of the Lake Worth Playhouse’s version of this long-lived classic that I may have already exhausted my supply of potentially insightful remarks, since I reviewed a different production of the show only a few months back!
Listen: if you don’t know who Tina Turner is, let me bring you up to speed. The “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll” was born into poverty in rural Tennessee, famously sung about in her hit record “Nutbush City Limits.” Gifted with a powerful, irreplaceable voice, Tina (born Anna Mae Bullock in 1939) was noticed by one Ike Turner; they formed the band known as the Ike & Tina Turner Revue. The band is great because Tina is great, which makes Tina grow bigger than the band, and she goes on to have the most successful solo career for a woman rock ‘n’ roll singer. Insert the best musical I’ve ever seen.
20 years later Anna in the Tropics is as impactful and important as it was when it first premiered. Nilo Cruz now takes the play that earned him the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a Latino playwright and gives it a new life with his directorial vision in focus.
Miami New Drama’s anniversary production breathes new life into this poetic work with aesthetics to match the language itself. Originally premiering at New Theatre in Coral Gables, Miami New Drama brings the play back to a familiar home of South Florida with Cruz at the helm, filling each moment on stage with the lyrical nature of his words.
With this singular line, Michael McKeever, the playwright of American Rhapsody opens and summarizes the entirety of the play. In Zoetic Stages current world premiere production, directed by Stuart Meltzer, America is observed through the lens of one family spanning 63 years. This family is a representation of the country as a whole as you go from decade to decade, historical event after historical event…
In other words, it is a story of epic proportions. The task of touching on so many things can be daunting to most artists and yet McKeever tackles it head on. With Meltzer at the wheel the play is given a poetic life that compliments the epic poem it is so modeled after, taking us on an ambitious journey.
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.
Unconventional may be an understatement when it comes to trying to describe Alternative Canon: A Sacrilegious Romp. This new play by Erin Proctor is running for only three more performances next weekend, courtesy of fledgling theatre company LakeHouseRanchDotPng and creative collective Artistic Vibes.
And, if you hadn’t guessed from the title, which Alternative Canon: A Sacrilegious Romp very much lives up to, you know you’ll be in for something out-of-the-norm when you enter the “theatre,” which is a room equipped with two sets of folding chairs arranged in rows on either side of the stage as opposed to a more traditional playing space.
