At the end of The Last 5 Years, which the Maplewood Playhouse is currently staging, the play’s central couple breaks up. The breakup is no spoiler; because they also do it at the play’s beginning!
Theatre Meets Stand-Up In “My Son The Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy”
My Son the Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy, a one-person show performed and written by talented actor and comedian Brad Zimmerman, is described in its program as “part stand-up, part theatre.” However, while the evening indeed featured more highs than lows, this viewer found herself wishing it had included a little more of the latter – and a little more originality in the former.
“Ordinary Americans” In Extraordinarily Awful Times
My last review was of Watson, a show which explores the consequences of giving into nefarious pressure. Playwright Joseph McDonough’s new play, Ordinary Americans, instead illustrate the cost of speaking up against the powers that be.
Once Upon The Time I Saw “Once”
Based on the 2000s hit movie of the same name, Once, playing until this December 22nd at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center, is pretty non-traditional as musicals go. For one, most of the musical numbers do not serve as inexplicable expressions of the character’s internal states but instead spring organically from the characters’ status as musicians.
Everything May Not Be Super Great, But “Everything Is Super Great” Was
For… reasons that are definitely reasons, our eternal and often futile struggle to create and maintain human connection is a bit of a preoccupation of mine. Maybe that’s why I felt so affected by Everything Is Super Great, the new play by Stephen Brown that appeared in its co-world premiere at Theatre Lab last weekend and is playing until December 22. (In a co-world premiere, more than one company produces a play at about the same time so they can share world premiere credits.)
Watching Watson, And Wondering Where Culpability Begins And Ends
Watson, playing at Gablestage until this December 22nd, replaced the show originally scheduled for this slot in the company’s season. Director Joseph Adler, who also helped playwright James Grippando develop the show, felt that its story was especially urgent, and it doesn’t take any great leaps of the imagination to see why.
Luscious and Lascivious “Lipstick”
While I doubt any comedy will ever get quite as close to my heart as darker material tends to, there’s also really no bad time to take a visit to one. Theatre, after all, is as much escapism as it is anything else, and the breakneck pace, too-perfect coincidences, and fast-paced dialogue of well-done humorous farces like Lipstick, which finishes its run this upcoming weekend, often constitute a perfect evasion from every day.
A Funny Review Of That Musical About The Forum
Fortunately, you still have a whole weekend of performances left in which you might behold A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, a uniquely uproarious musical farce. The show was produced by MNM Theatre Company, a group that can be distinguished by its live music and its practice of showcasing exclusively Florida-based actors, which made the musicals more or less perfect casting and the sheer caliber of everyone onstage all the more impressive.
A Visit to “Visiting Mr. Green”
I got a chance to see Jeff Baron’sVisiting Mr. Green, this past weekend at Bob Carter’s Actor’s Repertory Company in West Palm Beach, and found the script so old-fashioned that I was initially surprised to find out it was written only in 1996—a little over twenty years ago!
A Look At “Andy And The Orphans”
The play Andy and the Orphans, currently onstage at Sol Theatre courtesy of Primal Forces Productions, was originally titled Amy and the Orphans. This version of the play was gender-flipped to accommodate the casting of Edward Barbanell, a Coral Springs resident who actually understudied the role on Broadway last year and shares his character’s diagnosis of Down’s Syndrome.