Our Fund Foundation has made it their mission to support an arts community that has been largely neglected in the past. However, The LGBTQ+ community has come a long way from where they first started, especially the South Florida Society of LGBTQ+ Arts because of organizations like Our Fund leading the way. Founded in 2010 by a board of committed advocates, Our Fund focuses on areas that need the most aid through community assessments – primarily in the areas of health and wellness, social justice, and cultural needs of LGBTQ+ Arts in Florida. They award over $1 million annually to non-profit companies that hold the same missions.
The comic sitcom “Laverne and Shirley” brought a lot of laughs to a lot of viewers during its eight-year run on ABC television.
One of its stars, Cindy Williams, who portrayed Shirley Feeney opposite Penny Marshall’s Laverne DeFazio, in the long-running show, has brought a spate of memories — along with lots of clips from L&S and other films in her prolific career – to create a delightful, nostalgic and very funny one-woman performance of “Me, Myself & Shirley,” playing through June 27 at Boca Raton’s Wick Theater.
Fantasy Theater Factory celebrated Father’s Day this year with a collection of twelve monologues, entitled Dear Dad, which premiered online on June 20th and will remain available for free streaming on their Facebook page throughout the next month.
For the second time in just one year, a musical by Lin Manuel Miranda has provided me with the sole motivation to sign up for an entire streaming service. Last July, it was Hamilton and Disney Plus; this time, it was In The Heights and HBOMax.
Few scripts have had more cultural influence than Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. First performed in 1879, the play incited much controversy when protagonist Nora challenged the period’s social norms by walking out on her husband and children after coming to the realization that her stifling marriage would never allow her to be her true self. And when she did, according to critic James Huneker, the door that she slammed behind her “reverberated across the roof of the world.”
Kelley Shanley, president and CEO of the Broward Center, made a remarkable admission of practicing what he called “unconscious bias” during a recent panel discussion at his venue, billed as “Arts For Action: Black Voices — Bridging the Gap.”
If you’d told me a few weeks ago that one of the most exciting and innovative productions to hit South Florida so far this year would be a staging of Annie, I may have been a bit skeptical. While the classic 1977 musical has been widely beloved for its spunky main character and touching storyline, it isn’t exactly known for its iconoclasm.
Maybe you’d be hard-pressed to believe that a botched sex-change operation could be a winning premise for a feel-good night of musical theatre, but Hedwig and the Angry Inch proved a lot more fun and a lot more poignant than its vulgar title and peculiar subject matter might at first suggest. Playing until June 20th at the Lake Worth Playhouse, this unconventional musical by Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell first premiered off-Broadway in 1998, and later spawned a 2001 film version and a Tony-winning Broadway revival.
When we share stories of our cultures and those we have lost, it reminds the world of the struggles people have faced that have been swept under the rug throughout history.
In the wake of awards organizations such as the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, and the Tonys all facing diminished ratings — not to mention suffering public relations nightmares such as a lack of diversity and inclusion in their nominations process — are the Carbonell Awards waning in significance?
