For the second time in just one year, a musical by Lin Manuel Miranda has provided me with the sole motivation to sign up for an entire streaming service. Last July, it was Hamilton and Disney Plus; this time, it was In The Heights and HBOMax.
Few scripts have had more cultural influence than Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. First performed in 1879, the play incited much controversy when protagonist Nora challenged the period’s social norms by walking out on her husband and children after coming to the realization that her stifling marriage would never allow her to be her true self. And when she did, according to critic James Huneker, the door that she slammed behind her “reverberated across the roof of the world.”
If you’d told me a few weeks ago that one of the most exciting and innovative productions to hit South Florida so far this year would be a staging of Annie, I may have been a bit skeptical. While the classic 1977 musical has been widely beloved for its spunky main character and touching storyline, it isn’t exactly known for its iconoclasm.
Maybe you’d be hard-pressed to believe that a botched sex-change operation could be a winning premise for a feel-good night of musical theatre, but Hedwig and the Angry Inch proved a lot more fun and a lot more poignant than its vulgar title and peculiar subject matter might at first suggest. Playing until June 20th at the Lake Worth Playhouse, this unconventional musical by Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell first premiered off-Broadway in 1998, and later spawned a 2001 film version and a Tony-winning Broadway revival.
Though most area theaters are still firmly closed for indoor productions, some smaller venues around South Florida have already opened their doors, with a few notable precautions in place. Each pod of audience members at the Lake Worth Playhouse’s current production of Lady Day At Emerson’s Bar And Grill by Laine Robin, playing there until this May 16th, were seated at a healthy social distance from all others and instructed to wear their masks throughout the performance.
What, exactly, makes a thing theatre? That straightforward question has turned on its head by the COVID-19 pandemic, which made the conventional theatrical experience all but impossible.
In a way, I suppose it’s my sinful nature that saw me impulsively buying a ticket to the second of two opening night performances of Miami New Drama’s deliciously wicked Seven Deadly Sins at near to the last minute. There’s no denying I’m a glutton for theatre, and after a near-nine-month fast, I was positively ravenous.
The quick pop-up pop-down nature of most of the super-cool virtual theatre that has been happening also isn’t conducive to written reflection. An adaption of a play into a podcast series has the benefit of being a permanently available object to direct my attention. Fort Lauderdale company, New City Players, has also thought of a way to maintain the “shared experience” aspect of theatre in a safe and contactless way by holding an in-person listening party for their play-turned-podcast Little Montgomery this coming Saturday, November 14th.
