My recent adventure to the Pembroke Pines Performing Arts Theatre’s current production wasn’t my first time seeing Pippin, an endearing, inscrutable little mess of a show that first premiered in 1972. But it was my first time seeing Pippin quite like this, “this” meaning “set” during the “summer of love” as opposed to during the period in which the show actually takes place, which happens to be medieval times. 

As the play starts, lead by Krystal Millie Valdes, you can already tell something is different. Not only is this performer giving some sort of house speech, but she’s doing so while accompanying herself on guitar and switching back and forth between English and Spanish – letting us know right out the gate that this play  is not like most we have seen in South Florida. 

If you didn’t happen to pick up on the pun I tried to pull off in the title of this review, then I suppose you may not be familiar with the plot of Newsies, a 2011 musical based on a 1992 film that was itself inspired by the true story of the newsboys strike of 1899. 

Written By: Mindy Leaf

Ronnie Larsen has been busy making a name for himself as an actor, director, playwright and producer for three decades now – to growing acclaim locally, nationally and abroad. He was often seen staging plays and acting in his home turf of The Foundry in Wilton Manors, whose kitschy flexible space was known for its avant-garde horror shows, hard-core LGBT fare, and immersive Off-Off Broadway-type experiences rarely found elsewhere in South Florida.