I applaud The Wick Theatre for continuing to tap into many of our happiest memories at a time when we need them more than ever. Just entering their classy, luxurious venue and perhaps, like I did, indulging in rich chocolate gelato and coffee under crystal chandeliers in the lobby before the show, hearkens back to more relaxed and hopeful times.

When Slow Burn Theatre Company’s artistic director/choreographer Patrick Fitzwater welcomed the audience to his inaugural show of their 2023/2024 season, he asked how many of us had seen INTO THE WOODS before. Most hands went up. Obviously, Stephen Sondheim’s (music and lyrics) and James Lapine’s (book) two-time, Tony-award winner (for both new production and best musical revival) had a large South Florida fan base. Could Broward Center’s local regional professional theater live up to the memories of traveling shows or even Broadway? Fitzwater seemed to think so, going so far as to call this production their “most beautiful show ever”… though you might recall their last season boasted one groundbreaking blockbuster after another. 

This past weekend marked three things for Lake Worth Playhouse (LWP): the opening weekend of Rent; the second performance of its 2023-2024 season, its 71st; and the first show premiering after the recent passing of its Executive Director, Stephanie Smith. Her usual chair in the theater was left reserved, adorned with a bouquet of flowers. 

Famed Pulitzer Prize playwright August Wilson (1945-2005) shared his experiences growing up as a young Black poet in his native Pittsburgh in the one man play “How I Learned What I Learned”, running now through October 22 in the South Florida premiere of the play at GableStage in Coral Gables.

I’m writing this just as word came in of a tentative deal that would end the Hollywood writers strike. Which is welcome news, of course, for our country’s creatives and, by extension for all of us, their audience. But I can’t help feeling sorry for everyone involved in the glittery, glamorous, immensely lucrative (for the rare few) … but also incredibly caustic and phony movie business.

Prolific playwright Stephen Brown may be heading toward his late thirties, but he looks at least a decade younger and has managed to retain incredible knowledge of and insights into all the angst and anger of teen and preteen life. Whether his plays revolve around the actions and passions of a troubled young boy or girl, they always ring true, inciting gasps of recognition from his audience. 

This post was originally published on NY Times - Theater

Written by: Rhoda Feng

Despite its thunderbolt of a title, the focus of this memory play is on the relationship between a self-involved author and his long-suffering agent.

Amid an ongoing strike by Hollywood screenwriters and actors, a play with the nifty title “Pay the Writer” courts applause before anyone has uttered a word. Never mind that its turf is mainly the literary world, not the cinematic one; the author at the center of Tawni O’Dell’s play, Cyrus Holt (Ron Canada), seems to speak for all underpaid writers when he inscribes that feisty injunction in a copy of his book that is being adapted as a movie.

South Florida Theatre is undergoing a change… or at least that is what the evolving audience should hope for. 

With smaller companies like LakeHouseRanchdotPNG, that change is at its most present. Having just made it to their second season, this small but growing theater company is still making strides in going against the grain that is South Florida theatre. They do this by not only choosing experimental and absurdist plays for their season, but by operating as a playwrights theatre, something you don’t see enough of within the community. All of their work comes from new, exciting, and challenging playwrights – a mission that not only expands the outreach of the community, but in a way might also alienate certain audiences… and maybe that’s okay.

At 26, Area Stage Company of Miami director Giancarlo Rodaz became the youngest director to win a Carbonell Award for creating an immersive theatrical experience in his production of the musical Beauty and the Beast in 2022.

Everything’s coming up musicals nowadays … and no subject is taboo.  Almost feels like the more outrageous the premise, the more likely it is to become a huge hit. Take joyfully murderous “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” or Mel Brooks’ Nazi-themed comedy, “The Producers,” featuring “Springtime for Hitler in Germany” as examples. A few weeks ago, even the universally beloved Star Trek brand has seen fit to choreograph an entire episode as a musical. (Check out S2 E9 “Subspace Rhapsody” of the “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” series on Paramount+. I consider it both thematically and choreographically out of this world!) In this episode, original musical numbers are weaponized to save the known universe – but not before presenting one of the best and briefest explanations for the art form, i.e., a song reveals the singer’s deepest, true emotions.