With a grand statement, Miami City Ballet opens their 2024-2025 season with George Balachine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” For those connecting the dots, Balanchine choreographed a ballet inspired by William Shakespeare’s ethereal play of the same name, scored by Felix Mendelssohn’s music also titled after the play. What Miami City Ballet has premiered before, they bring back with vigor and polish. Their own take on the woodlands of the Fairie Kingdom? An underwater, coastal plane, nodding to their Florida roots.
Audience members of all stripes are likely to find much to love in Island City Stage’s charming production of The Fantasticks. After first premiering off-Broadway in 1960 to mixed reviews, this little-show-that-could shocked even its investors by proceeding to run for a record-breaking 42 years. It has since had one major off-Broadway revival, during which it ran 11 more, and continues to be one of the most performed musicals around the world.
If anything, Broward Center-based Slow Burn Theatre Company knows how to pick their musicals and put on a spectacular show. They chose the perfect opener for their exceptional 15th Anniversary Season in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK: A Musical Comedy, with book and lyrics by John Dempsey and music by Dana P. Rowe. The musical features a trio of sexy, unfulfilled women who discover their supernatural powers together, claim their right to happiness, then join in extinguishing the evil “influencer” they’d inadvertently conjured up to fulfill their deepest desires.
No less impactful for its understated nature, Thinking Cap Theatre’s current production of playwright Abi Morgan’s Lovesongis a beautifully bittersweet journey through one heterosexual couple’s 40 year marriage. Somewhat more down-to-earth than some of the company’s more experimental ventures, the play features the aforementioned couple as the only onstage characters. But, adding a stirring spark to what would otherwise be a fairly conventional domestic drama, the play intersperses scenes of the couple in their youth with snapshots of them in their old-age.
Back with another rockstar production, Lake Worth Playhouse’s “The Prom” is a testament to love, acceptance, and the magic that prom night can bring. As the second production in their 72nd season, “The Prom” is another facet in cultivating the next generation of theater-goers that this playhouse and so many others like it are doing. Lake Worth is giving performing opportunities to students, and few do. Students and adults alike who haven’t seen “The Prom” are going to love it.
A person’s wardrobe can evoke just as many memories as their camera roll or scrapbook can. My own closet still boasts the cozy zip-up hoodie I gave my bat mitzvah guests as a party favor, the classic floor-length black dress I wore to my senior prom, and the chunky orange-and-green beads my university handed out at graduation. Love, Loss, and What I Wore takes this idea of one’s closet being a time capsule and brings it to life onstage, kicking off the Pompano Players’ inaugural season at the Pompano Beach Cultural Center in the most unforgettable, relatable, and of course, hilarious way possible.
The Wick Theatre in Boca Raton has just kicked off its 11th season with a praiseworthy comic production – a side splitting one-man show that lets audiences re-experience the feisty spirit, delightful mirth and wild merriment of the funnyman we called “the one, the only – Groucho.”
We appear to still be in the midst of a Stephen Sondheim revival. While tributes and accolades have increased exponentially since his passing at age 91 in 2021, the American composer and lyricist – regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th century musical theater – has never been out of fashion. How could he be? After all, he’s the theatrical elder credited with reinventing the American musical!
It ain’t easy being second fiddle. Even for TV’s most famous and beloved “second banana” Ethel Mertz who played Lucille Ball’s frumpy, housecoat-wearing neighbor for nine seasons of “I Love Lucy” and related TV comedies from 1951 through 1965. Everyone loved Vivian Vance’s portrayal of Ethel which won her the first Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in 1953. But when fans begged for her autograph and Vivian signed her real name, they’d ask for a redo as “Ethel.”
Whether or not you remember the famous “Golden Girls” situation comedy television series about the everyday antics of four senior women living together in a Miami home, audiences will laugh heartily as five actors team to recreate the nostalgia of the series in “Golden Girls The Laughs Continue” running now through September 29 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Ft. Lauderdale.
