Any fans of the performers alluded to in the full title of On Your Feet! The Story Of Gloria And Emilio Estefan will find much to appreciate in this fun-filled celebration of their musical stylings and inspiring lives. So will those who had a good time at similarly spirited bio-jukebox musicals that have graced the stage at the Kravis Center, like last May’s Donna Summer extravaganza, or those who are simply in the mood for a catchy tune and a compelling story. 

For its southeast premiere, “Ocean Filibuster” is now showing at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County, and the performance posits the human condition from the view of the awesome ocean. Awesome in the 19th century definition, that is, being beautiful and terrible and unrelenting. South Florida Theater Magazine was there to witness it during opening weekend on Sunday, November 13.

I’m quite glad that I got the chance to catch Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Theatre and Dance’s production of Violet this weekend, one of only two that it will be playing and a relatively rare staging of this 1997 musical. As director Bruce Lindser describes in the opening note of the show’s playbill, though the piece is something of a “cult favorite” among theatre people, it also isn’t one that seems to have gained much traction as far as mainstream popularity. Speculating as to why, he suggests:

“Maybe the show’s themes of forgiveness, redemption, and personal growth cut a little too close to the bone and challenge our comfort zones just a little too much.”

One normally doesn’t find nuptials, an apparent murder plot and elegant ballroom dancing all in the same stage production. 

However, the Willow Theater at Boca Raton’s Sugar Sand Park has located just such a performance. The show, Marry. Murder. What? opened Friday for a brief, two-weekend South Florida premiere, arriving a month or so after being staged in a workshop at the Flea Theater in Tribeca, New York, under its original name, Marry. Murder. F$&@k!?

More than one meaning of the phrase A Class Act is alluded to in the play of the same name by Norman Shabel, which opened last weekend at Miami’s Sandrell Rivers Theatre. Though it is an informal term that can be used to describe “a person or thing displaying impressive and stylish excellence,” it can also be used to describe an action taken by a class of people, as in the class action lawsuit that the play’s plot centers on. 

Contestants enviously welcome last year’s Miss Glamouresse on stage, moments before finding out whether they’ll be crowned as the new winner. 

If you are looking for a hilarious and suspenseful way to spend your night, then buy yourself a ticket to Pageant at Island City Stage. As described on their website, this show can most definitely be described as “A Miss America Competition Meets RuPaul’s Drag Race!” Not only will this show have you invested in every character and secretly wishing for your favorite to win, but it will also have you gasping for air from all the laughing you’ll be doing.

Pigs Do Fly Productions, which was established with the specific goal of telling stories featuring characters over 50 “living their lives in interesting, involved and exciting ways,” embodies that mission 110 percent with their current production of The Savannah Sipping Society, staged at Wilton Manors venue Empire Stage. This charming and straightforward southern-themed comedy is centered around not one such interesting older character but a full foursome of them, all of who are brought to life by an equally vibrant coalition of mature South Florida actresses who are giving their all to respective roles. 

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to measure or calculate exactly, both the position and the momentum of an object. What this basically means, is that we can never know where someone is in their life, where they’re going, and where they want to go. 

Simon Stephens took this idea and wrapped it in an unconventional love story. The season opener for GableStage is an intimate two-hander, exploring the start and development of a friendship as it evolves and changes these two characters’ lives. 

Written by Marvin Glassman

Despite the fact that the Elian Gonzalez saga has been entrenched in American history more than 22 years ago, the 1999 story of a six year old motherless Cuban boy rescued in South Florida by a fisherman still provokes critical observations about the political battle between paternal rights of a father in communist Cuba and the rights of the young Cuban boy to grow up in a democratic country.

Miami New Drama at the Colony Theater in Miami Beach is revisiting the historical facts of the saga in Elian by Cuban-American playwright Rogelio Martinez, running now through November 20.