Music historians and lecturers always credit Black gospel, rhythm & blues, along with boogie woogie and jazz, for giving birth to America’s 1950’s rock ‘n’ roll craze – a perennially popular music genre to this day. I’ve attended several such scholarly talks, but getting it with your brain is nothing like feeling it in your gut … and soul. That’s why MEMPHIS, the musical that’s creating a sensation over at Broward’s hottest new musical venue, the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center (LPAC), made me wonder: “Where has this phenomenal show been all my life?”

Written by Christine Dolen

Originally published on artburstmiami.com.

Aristophanes’ 411 B.C. “Lysistrata,” in which the women of Greek city-states try to end the Peloponnesian War by withholding sex until peace is achieved, is an ancient Greek comedy that endured because of its author’s brilliance and the timeless truth-telling it contains.

Currently on through an extended run, Palm Beach Dramaworks presents “The Cancellation of Lauren Fein,” a world premiere of a play; a tragedy in a modern era of accountability. Written by Christopher Demos-Brown, this play provides a thought-provoking story of a collegiate professor with privilege being held accountable for her insensitivity. It is a story of stereotypical characters fearing cancel culture, with no rise or break for their transgressions, resulting in tragedy for all.

Written by Christine Dolen

Originally published on artburstmiami.com.

Playwright, director and actor Layon Gray has a talent for getting inside so many different facets of Black life and history – and for taking engaged audiences on that journey with him.

Miami’s M Ensemble, the state’s oldest Black theater company, has just begun its 53rd season with a production of Gray’s The Girls of Summer.

As has been the case with past Area Stage productions of the family musicals Annie, Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid, once again Area Stage Artistic Director Giancarlo Rodaz has immersed the audience into the stage in the company’s unique presentation of Oliver!, running now through February 25 at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami.

The middle child is often considered the quiet one, and nothing special in the family.  Slow Burn Theatre Company’s mid-season blockbuster hit SISTER ACT – which comes on the heels of earning a Carbonell for programming and a record-breaking season – has turned “middle malaise” upside down by managing, once again, to make their exhilarated audiences feel this is their “best show ever!” Till they see the next one, of course. 

The Cancellation of Lauren Fein by Christopher Demos-Brown. A world premiere that on the surface, the title alone tells you what the play will be about – for those up to date on cancel culture and everything around it. There is no doubt that this topic is something that should be explored, a complicated subject that deserves to be talked about, dissected, and analyzed because it is a difficult one to understand and come to terms with. Christopher Demos-Brown has started an important conversation with this play… but maybe this wasn’t the way to go about it.

Ana Nogueira’s most recently celebrated dramedy, with songs, WHICH WAY TO THE STAGE, is a true New York original. With a plotline that shifts dramatically among the trials of fanatic Broadway autograph seekers, their deep passion for musical theater, the power and limits of close friendship, the search for love in unexpected places, and perhaps underlying it all, the struggles of young actors everywhere – but especially those trying to make it in the Big Apple.

Director Shari Upbin and producer Hy Juter teamed up for the fourth time in creating “To Life 4”, the fourth in the ‘To Life’ musical cabaret series that celebrates Jewish composers and singers from the 20th century that is running now through February 4 at the Willow Theater in Boca Raton.