Island City Stage’s 2021-2022 season is finishing up with a bang with their current production of Donja R. Love’s One In Two. The play, inspired by Love’s own experience as an openly HIV positive black gay man, gets its name from a statistic that’s hard to fathom, and one that is hard to fathom is so often ignored: as opposed to one in six gay or bisexual white men and one in four gay or bisexual latino men, one in two gay or bisexual black men will be diagnosed with HIV at some point during their life.
Anyone who’s ever felt like an outcast—or who’s ever had a special mentor or teacher whose guidance was essential to making them the person they are today—will likely find much to relate to in Educating Asher, a charming new work from first-time playwright Eytan Deraythat is currently premiering at the Wilton Manors venue Empire Stage.
The basic premise of Black Sheep, a play by Lee Blessing that premiered in 2001 at Florida Stage and is now reappearing in South Florida for the first time since courtesy of the Main Street Players, is one that is rife with dramatic potential. Karl, the proverbial black sheep of the obscenely wealthy Winship family, is set apart from his WASPy relatives not only by his sordid past, which involves a conviction for the murder and a ten year prison sentence, but by his skin tone, the result of an ill-fated interracial marriage. Though he has been disowned by his parents due to his crime, Karl’s uber-rich Uncle Nelson is all too eager to take him under his wing, as is the rest of Nelson’s quirky family: his wife Serene, his son Max, and Max’s soon-to-be fiance Elle.
Theater arts students at Florida Atlantic University are bringing their Summer Repertory schedule to an energetic conclusion with an unconventional musical production described by Director Kevin Covert as a “celebration of humanity and the human spirit.” Rent — a rock retelling of Giacomo Puccini‘s 1896 opera, “La Bohème” – taps an abundance of talented students, dresses them in meticulously crafted costumes and places them in the center of a stunningly designed set that portrays the seediness of a niche New York neighborhood circa 1996.
Miami’s Actors Playhouse continues its commitment to mounting the productions it put off due to the pandemic with a production of Hank Williams: Lost Highway, a 1987 musical about the life of the titular country music legend. One of an array of biographical jukebox musicals probably chosen for the certainty the star’s name recognition will have, as far as attracting crowds. The show devotes much of its running time to recreations of the performances of Williams and his bandmates, who were together known as the Drifting Cowboys.
Though the Halloween season may be a few months away, any impatient horror fans or theatre lovers can get a dose of spookiness a lot sooner than October thanks to Infinite Abyss’sFright Night. Though the thrills the show offers are more in the campy vein than truly scary ones in this send up of the 1985 film of the same name, the relatively straightforward story is still genuinely creepy and suspenseful enough to easily keep audience attention for its two hour running time.
Conundrum Stages and the Theatre Of Collaborative Arts recently partnered to present Love is in the Air: A Musical Mystery Show, a fun-filled performance that offered a twist on the time-tested genre of the cabaret by incorporating a mystery-themed frame story to make things a little more intriguing. Along with having migrated from an initial performance in West Palm Beach to Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale, the show was also adapted from an original dinner theatre format, a context that the style and silliness of the show were probably somewhat better suited to.
Though a musical that makes references to date rape, bulimia, child abuse and features not only multiple teen fatalities, but the prospect of a blown up school seems like an unlikely choice for a riotous night of comedy. However, there’s at least as many laughs as there are pathos in Heathers: The Musical. Based on the 1989 film, this zany high school musical is at once achingly earnest and outrageously risque, making for a slightly uneven but ultimately satisfying night of theatre in its current incarnation at the Lake Worth Playhouse.
While finding some excuse to enclose characters in a small space and then letting them duke it out isn’t totally new theatrical territory, there is a lot that is refreshingly original about Borrowed, a new play by The Broadway Factor’s Jim Kierstead currently making its world premiere at Miami Ironside’s House Of Games.
‘Brighton Beach Memoirs’ could easily be subtitled Neil Simon’s Family in Crisis. But the esteemed playwright didn’t do that. Instead, he crafted a stellar autobiographical drama that melds whimsy with pathos, anger and, ultimately, forgiveness. He takes the time to develop the characters and spotlight their ability to deal with adversity without ripping apart the family bond.
