Ambitious might be an understatement to describe the breadth or enormity of what the Lake Worth Playhouse has undertaken in its first official show of its 2021-2022 season. That would be Peter and the Star Catcher, a zany play by Rick Elice that first hit Broadway in the early 2010s.
Mary Shelley’s classic will get a fresh take in the South Florida premiere of Nick Dear’s theatrical adaptation of “Frankenstein,” which kicks off Zoetic Stage’s 10th season as part of the Arsht Center’s Theater Up Close series, taking place at the Carnival Studio Theater from Oct. 14-31.
October 2 marks the one-year anniversary of the tragic, untimely death of music director Paul Reekie, 48, whose South Florida theatre legacy of about 15 years’ worth of work on dozens of area musicals, concerts and cabaret shows came to a sad end following an accident in his Boca Raton home.
After a long pandemic intermission, the theatre season is getting back into swing, and as of today, October 1st, the Carbonell Awards’ eligibility period has officially begun as well. But, after four theatres withdrew from the awards and 11 more signed an open letter calling some of their practices into questions, they aren’t quite back to business as usual. After discussions with a special committee of theatre professionals, several changes were made, which were first announced publicly at a Town Hall about two weeks ago.
Not every actor gets to clash sword-to-sword with Zorro; perform all the works of William Shakespeare within a single stage production; endure torture at the hands of a dystopian ecosphere’s evil dictator or create the character of a vain, pompous steward in a Shakespearean comedy while, at the same time, directing the show.
Jeff Kiltie, president of the Carbonell Awards, recently announced R. Kent Chambers-Wilson, a long-time Carbonell judge, has been promoted to the position of Carbonell Coordinator for the 2021-2022 theater season.
Freddy Mercury, the flamboyant front man for one of rock music’s most influential groups, Queen, died 30 years ago. But his notable accomplishments and musical achievements are still celebrated and enjoyed three decades after his passing.
“Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold”
I grew up really believing in that one line from a Girl Scout song. Believing that IF I was able to remain friends with the people I grew up with, while also expanding my circle by making new friends, that I would have all the silver and gold one could get. However, the older I got, the more I realized this one-liner expresses a nice ideal of an ever-expanding circle of friends, but ideal is not reality. Not for me anyways. I know that’s not the case for everyone and that sometimes friendships do turn out the way the song intends, and I commend those whose do, but my experience within friendships is not the same. This doesn’t mean I have had friendships end in tragic ways each time, though. Most of the ended friendships I’ve had have fallen victim to the unavoidable result of growing up and growing apart. Of course, I’ve had a few friendship breakups that were more traumatic and ended in blocking each other on all forms of social media and well, life. But every friendship I’ve had at every stage of my life, has made me the person I am today. Luckily, I have lost more friends due to growing apart than any sort of betrayal or falling out, but the constant change of friendship happens to majority of people during their lives and that’s just that.
In the past couple of years, I am sure we all have learned many lessons that we hold dear… the value of being kind, the value of life, the value of health, the value of freedom, and the value of time with our loved ones are some of the most common things I am sure we all share.
The last production the Main Street Players will offer in their current space before moving to a new location across the street later this year starts its provocations with its title. And Shakespeare is a White Supremacist, the new play by Andrew Watring that will be playing there through October 17th, definitely is taking them out on a high note.
