Written By Christine Dolen

Originally Published on artburstmiami.com

Area Stage Company’s new immersive production of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” is, as the French would say, magnifique.

Presented in a transformed Carnival Studio Theater at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, the show is a two-year labor of love and creativity on the part of Giancarlo Rodaz, Area Stage’s associate artistic director.  Working with numerous collaborators, the young director has achieved a larger-scale success on the order of his immensely popular immersive version of “Annie,” which the company presented in June of 2021, in the company’s smaller South Miami theater.

Island City Stage’s 2021-2022 season is finishing up with a bang with their current production of Donja R. Love’s One In Two. The play, inspired by Love’s own experience as an openly HIV positive black gay man, gets its name from a statistic that’s hard to fathom, and one that is hard to fathom is so often ignored: as opposed to one in six gay or bisexual white men and one in four gay or bisexual latino men, one in two gay or bisexual black men will be diagnosed with HIV at some point during their life. 

Anyone who’s ever felt like an outcast—or who’s ever had a special mentor or teacher whose guidance was essential to making them the person they are today—will likely find much to relate to in Educating Asher, a charming new work from first-time playwright Eytan Deray that is currently premiering at the Wilton Manors venue Empire Stage.