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.

Between my lack of much prior knowledge about the Miami Acting Company and the fact that I found myself at a school auditorium rather than any more conventional theatre venue when I showed up to attend their current production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from their rendition of the 2005 musical. 

As of last weekend, under the radar West Palm Beach theatre group Bob Carter’s Actor’s Workshop and Repertory Company is officially making its post-pandemic return with a compelling production of A Kid Like Jake, a thought-provoking play by Daniel Pearle that first premiered in 2013 and has only become more relevant as issues surrounding gender identity have found a place at our cultural forefront.

First produced in 1984 and written by pioneering queer playwright Charles Ludlam, this witty script is specifically designed for only two actors despite the fact that it features four principal characters—and that’s before you count any of their werewolf, vampire, or mummy alter egos! 

Unless you’ve ever considered pairing the music of eighties chart-topping girl group The Go-Gos and an epic poem written in the 1590s (The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, which also inspired many of Shakespeare’s works), the disparate elements that make up Head Over Heels may initially sound as mismatched as the star-crossed couples at its center. But while the resulting show, which enjoyed around six months on Broadway in the latter half of 2018 and is now hitting the So-Flo stage thanks to Slow Burn Theatre Company, may not quite be seamless, it is the rare feel-good musical comedy that I actually left feeling good. 

Like most writers worth their salt, I’m at least somewhat familiar with the work and life of extraordinary essayist Joan Didion. But even the extraordinary among us are by no means immune to the ravages of ordinary human tragedies, or to ordinary human grief, as both her book The Year Of Magical Thinking and her theatrical adaptation of the same name can attest.

Fefu and Her Friends is a 1977 play by María Irene Fornés that’s almost as well-known for being unconventional as it is for being remarkable. But the thought-provoking iteration that marks Thinking Cap Theatre’s post-pandemic return to full-fledged productions proves that this is a play as excellent as it is experimental, and one that deserves its lasting place in the American canon.