Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD) – our multi-award-winning jewel of a professional theatre – took the unprecedented step of extending the run of the first play of their 25th Anniversary Season days before opening night. Due to enormous popular demand, LOST IN YONKERS by Neil Simon is now running through November 23. 

The holiday season is drawing near, and for many of us, that’s cause for excitement. The lights! The parties! The food! And of course, the much-needed quality time spent with our loved ones. However, these wintery months can also bring a sense of seriousness and reflection, giving us the chance to think about ourselves, the year we’ve had, and the year ahead. These two conflicting states of celebration and contemplation are beautifully depicted in Delray Beach Playhouse’s production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo, directed by Keith Garsson.

It’s the best time of the year: theater season-opening time. On Tuesday, October 29, the Kravis Center began its 2024-2025 season of Kravis on Broadway with the hilarious musical adaptation of “Mrs. Doubtfire.” The beloved role of Robin Williams takes the theatrical stage with new characters, a litany of songs, and removes the layer of transphobia present in the movie’s side characters. It expands on the plot, providing more context while modernizing things with hidden caller ID on cell phones and emails, and what is left is an incredible piece of art retelling one of your favorite childhood movies.

Forget about Halloween Fright Nights. Nothing can compete with scary reality. Last night my Holocaust survivor parents (deceased for over two decades) suddenly appeared  in my dreams. Not all that surprising as I’d just returned from FAU Theatre Lab’s opening of THE LAST YIDDISH SPEAKER by Deborah Zoe Laufer. The last time I’d heard so much Yiddish – my first/only language till the age of 3 – was when they were still alive. My father also often quoted an Aramaic saying from the Talmud (we are a people schooled in many tongues), “Girsa de-yankuta girsa,” which basically translates to “Lessons learned as a young child are lessons learned for life.”  

Written By Michelle F. Solomon

Originally published on artburstmiami.com

Remember sitting around a campfire listening to ghost stories? For me, it was the pitch black of the forest of the Pocono mountains, each storyteller trying to top the one before them with a yarn even more horrific. Zoetic Stage’s season opener provokes a similar feeling with its in-the-round production of British playwright Martin McDonagh’s “The Pillowman” running through Sunday, Nov. 10 at the Carnival Studio in the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami.

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.

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 Lovesong is 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.