Wrapping up its opening weekend at the Arsht Center in Miami, Miami City Ballet’s Peck: Miami in Motion offers an evening devoted entirely to the work of Justin Peck, one of the most visible choreographers exploring contemporary ballet. The program features three of his ballets: “Year of the Rabbit,” “Chutes and Ladders,” and “Heatscape.” These trace more than a decade of Peck’s creative output. An homage to the choreographer, the performance on opening night was both beautiful and forgettable; I was left thinking on certain moments, already losing trace of the awe that usually lingers after the final bow.

Would you kill for a hit? With my mom, South Florida Theater’s own wonderful Mindy Leaf 

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? That eternal question slinks across the boards in Deathtrap, Ira Levin’s devilishly clever thriller now playing at Empire Stage courtesy of exciting new theatre company on the block, Upstage Productions. Directed by DK Kondelik, this new staging takes the classic four-Tony nominated 1978 play—a wicked satire of ambition, authorship, and ego—and gives it fresh voltage, its twists snapping like trapdoors underfoot. What begins as a witty drawing-room mystery unfurls into a gleeful study of human deceit, Clue meets hall-of-mirrors fever dream.

At Wednesday’s matinee, Kimberly Wick’s (production supervisor/costumes/properties manager) upbeat words of welcome to The Wick Theatre & Museum Club’s 12th Season confirmed their highly successful formula of providing audiences with the best “Oldies but Goodies.” What better show to personify this mission than staging the world’s longest running musical! THE FANTASTICKS is an off-Broadway legend that ran for 42 successive years at the same theatre, since 1960, was awarded the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in 1991, then took off across the country (boasting some 250 new productions yearly), including a 2006-2017 off-Broadway revival. Based loosely on the 1894 play “Les Romanesques” by Edmond Rostand, the musical boasts a Book & Lyrics by Tom Jones and Music by Harvey Schmidt.

Rosemary Clooney was one of the first stars who introduced me to the magic of Golden Age Hollywood, before I even really knew who she was. White Christmas was one of the first classic movies I saw growing up, and Clooney’s charming personality and melodious singing voice immediately endeared her to me and so many other viewers. However, if you want to know more about this talented star, beyond the glitz and glamour on the surface of her career, Tenderly is the show for you. Written by Janet Yates Vogt and Mark Friedman, and directed by Jim Tyminski, Tenderly tells the comprehensive story of Rosemary Clooney’s life. Set in 1968 in a psychiatrist’s office at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills, where Clooney is making visits due to her mental health struggles, the musical constantly flashes back and forth in time to paint viewers a picture of this icon’s life and career—whether it’s the highs, the lows, or everything in between.

Just in time for the spooky season, Lake Worth Playhouse dares to feed their ambition by showing a mightily-portrayed production of Little Shop of Horrors. With a number of notable improvements, including a PhD director in Christy Rodriguez de Conte, Lake Worth is having a meteoric rise, and they welcome plantlike aliens into their ranks on that ascent. Little Shop captures the camp, the laughs, and the terror that make this quirky musical one of the best ever.

They say “truth is stranger than fiction” but if the plot of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN: The Musical were a work of fiction, it would never fly. I’m also using “fly” here literally for that’s how we are introduced to the young high-flyer who posed as a pilot and was ultimately caught at an airport, about to board a plane. From the age of 16 to 18 (early 1960s, in our storyline), he was the youngest, most prolific, and genius conman to ever have gotten away with two years of multiple professional identities (Pan Am co-pilot, surgeon, lawyer – though he did later study and pass the bar exam) along with printing millions of dollars-worth of counterfeit checks.

Leave it to New City Players (NCP) to find the perfect “new” (to South Florida audiences) play to open their milestone Tenth Anniversary Season. The ambitious young theater company, which began with bold idealistic dreams of making a difference in the community through “must-attend-live” creative theatrical engagement and performances, has definitely arrived! By presenting both classics and originals, along with lesser-known fantastic finds, they’ve reaped dedicated followers of all ages and walks of life, prestigious local awards, and ongoing critical acclaim.

There’s a reason why some stories become timeless classics. They tend to feature truths about the human condition that resonate anew for each generation. Pulitzer-prize-winning author Larry McMurtry’s novel about an intense, difficult yet devoted mother-daughter relationship, marital troubles, and issues with lovers called TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, became a literary sensation in 1975. His highly emotional-yet-relatable story gained cinematic fame when the 1983 movie-version won five Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay by James L. Brooks. 

Nothing beats seeing a brand-new show by a brand-new theater company where you haven’t a clue (really) about what to expect and are completely blown away! I was instantly, and repeatedly, delighted and astonished during the entire 90-minute (no intermission) flashy space opera and lifestyle-parody show that’s out-of-this-world (literally and figuratively) creative, futuristic, and riotously funny while keeping satirically grounded in the inanities of contemporary life – especially the youth culture of Gen Z.