Despite being on Broadway and various tours around the world for 50 years, the musical “Chicago” still endures. Written in 1975 with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, the latest incarnation of “Chicago” is still a razzle dazzle hit musical, playing only this week at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami through Sunday, June 22.
When America’s most recognized and awarded and prolific TV and theater comedy writer – I’m speaking, of course, of the incomparable four-Emmy and 14Tony, plus Pulitzer Prize-winning giant Neil Simon – decides to cheer himself up while “going through difficult times” by writing his “first farce” … We can expect it to be a doozy. RUMORS opened on Broadway in 1988 and ran for two years. All the while (at least in my opinion) setting a new, high bar for fast-paced, zany drawing-room comedy.
Sometimes you just need to laugh. And laugh…and laugh. No matter how silly and, well, “corny” the humor. Even at puns, lots of puns – outrageously bawdy ones, at that. It was only a few years ago that SHUCKED: A New Musical Comedy created a gee-whiz stir on Broadway for being so unprecedentedly silly yet sweet, lewd but not offensive, and always absolutely hilarious! The musical received nine Tony nominations in 2023 and won an award for Best Actor.
Carnivorous houseplants. Homicidal barbers. Psychotic wives and mothers. Miserable lives lived in figurative and literal Hell. Sometimes it feels like there’s no place too dark or outrageous for contemporary musical theater. If presented well, with talent to match, audiences will embrace any “horror” and clamor for more. But sometimes what sounds like a scary plot (like a mad killer on the loose?) is packed with so much musical talent and yes, joy, that it defies classification. Unless one is looking for colorful, beautifully executed, concert-level escapist fun.
The brutality exposed by poverty and ignorance as experienced by three individuals is the focus of the 75-minute one act drama “Mud” by playwright Maria Irene Fornes. The play, running now through Saturday, June 14 at Empire Stage in Ft. Lauderdale, marked an impressive opening to Latine Theater Lab, the new South Florida regional theater company.
Compromise your principles for the almighty dollar. Would you do it? How far would you go? What about the repercussions? … For yourself? Your family? Society at large? Nowadays, it feels like we’re confronted with this question daily – especially when it comes to actions taken by our government and industry leaders. Twenty-seven years ago, award-winning playwright and screenwriter/director Craig Lucas (best known for his 1991 Pulitzer-nominated “Prelude to a Kiss”) proposed this quandary, and a whole lot more, in THE DYINGGAUL: a groundbreaking psychological thriller set in the high-stakes world of traditional Hollywood and nascent online chat rooms.
The Florida premiere of the two act drama “The Girl On The Train” at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables will not disappoint fans of both the 2015 novel by British author Paula Hawkins or the 2016 British film starring actress Emily Blunt with the same title. Running through June 8, the two hour play written by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel proves to be the equal of both the Hawkins novel and the 2016 film. The suspense-filled story centers on Rachel Watson, a troubled woman who is struggling to remember the facts of a murder in Great Britain.
Only in South Florida (I admit I’m biased) are we lucky enough to experience spectacular world premieres, see the best of Broadway and off-Broadway, and also get to enjoy many local-talent revivals of enduring classics. We appear to have a special knack for mounting musical favorites from the distant past … to the delight of senior fans and fresh audiences who might have missed the initial run and want to see what all the fuss is about!
Leave it to Ronnie Larsen, POW! (Plays of Wilton) founder and artistic director, actor, producer, playwright and, dare I say hyper-creative mad genius? for coming up with original, out-of-the-box productions practically every quarter. (Last year’s A Shonda:The Musical remains one of my all-time favorites.) But this time, he outdid even himself by taking on classic, beloved by everyone, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and presenting the musical live and for free at a local Wilton Manors park in a way it’s NEVER been shown before.
Why are women who are overcome by passionate, sexual love so often depicted as tragic heroines? At least best-selling ones like Tolstoy’s 19th century novel, “Anna Karenina,” written in 1878 and set primarily in the St. Petersburg of Imperial Russia … followed by Kate Chopin’s short 1899 novel, “The Awakening,” which takes place in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Louisiana. In both cases, the women remain true to their feelings; the men, however, are not to be trusted. They ultimately cause their lovers’ downfall and suicidal death.
