Blame it on Nietzsche a ‘Thrill Me’ Review

Everything’s coming up musicals nowadays … and no subject is taboo.  Almost feels like the more outrageous the premise, the more likely it is to become a huge hit. Take joyfully murderous “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” or Mel Brooks’ Nazi-themed comedy, “The Producers,” featuring “Springtime for Hitler in Germany” as examples. A few weeks ago, even the universally beloved Star Trek brand has seen fit to choreograph an entire episode as a musical. (Check out S2 E9 “Subspace Rhapsody” of the “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” series on Paramount+. I consider it both thematically and choreographically out of this world!) In this episode, original musical numbers are weaponized to save the known universe – but not before presenting one of the best and briefest explanations for the art form, i.e., a song reveals the singer’s deepest, true emotions.

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31 Years Later, Mamet’s ‘Oleanna’ Is As Powerful And Divisive As Ever

Perhaps the fact that I find myself genuinely conflicted as I try to assess David Mamet’s Oleanna is actually something of a mark in its favor. After all, as opposed to the many perfunctory crowd-pleasers that do little to challenge convention, this script offers plenty of food for thought, ensuring an intellectually stimulating experience for practically all audience members regardless of what they come away thinking about the work.

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FUNNY PLAY ON RELATIONSHIPS ‘TIL DEATH DO US PART…YOU FIRST’

Many comedians, including actor/comedian Peter Fogel, will tell you that the funniest things that make people laugh are the absurd realities that happen to all of us every day. The veteran 62-year-old Fogel from Delray Beach has struck gold with his recollection of his life as a Jewish middle-aged bachelor who has yet to marry in his one man play “Til Death Do Us Part…You First,” to be performed August 12 at 8 pm at ArtServe in Fort Lauderdale.

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The Playwright Who Changed the Face of American Theater

This post was originally published on NY Times - Theater

Written by: Patti Hartigan

Since 1965, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, tucked away in the bucolic seaside town of Waterford, Conn., has lured theater professionals every summer for the National Playwrights Conference. Named for the Nobel Prize-winning playwright who spent his childhood summers nearby, the O’Neill was initially informal and heady, but Lloyd Richards, who directed the 1959 Broadway production of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” brought a sense of gravitas when he became artistic director in 1969.

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A Landmark Lesbian Play Revitalized In ‘Last Summer At Bluefish Cove’

New initiative Women of Wilton (WOW)—a project of Ronnie Larsen of Plays of Wilton and Nicole Stodard of Thinking Cap Theatre—is getting off to a great start with a seriously wow-worthy production of Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. Written during the late 70s and first produced in 1980, this play by openly lesbian playwright Jane Chambers was considered monumental for its time. This is primarily due to the fact that it was one of the first commercially successful works to portray gay women as full-fledged, well-rounded human beings as opposed to tortured by self-hatred or as stereotype-ridden caricatures. 

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Something Witchy This Way Comes…

Well, you know what people say. It’s all fun and games until somebody murders a king. Ok, maybe that isn’t quite what they say; but I am quite enjoying my time in rehearsal for another of my favorite Shakespeare plays (which I do, admittedly, have a lot of): good old Macbeth. And, as ought to surprise absolutely noone, I find myself cast as one of the three witches that appears to the title character and forever alters his fate. Typecasting, amIright?

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