I’m quite glad that I got the chance to catch Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Theatre and Dance’s production of Violetthis weekend, one of only two that it will be playing and a relatively rare staging of this 1997 musical. As director Bruce Lindser describes in the opening note of the show’s playbill, though the piece is something of a “cult favorite” among theatre people, it also isn’t one that seems to have gained much traction as far as mainstream popularity. Speculating as to why, he suggests:
“Maybe the show’s themes of forgiveness, redemption, and personal growth cut a little too close to the bone and challenge our comfort zones just a little too much.”
One normally doesn’t find nuptials, an apparent murder plot and elegant ballroom dancing all in the same stage production.
However, the Willow Theater at Boca Raton’s Sugar Sand Park has located just such a performance. The show, Marry. Murder. What? opened Friday for a brief, two-weekend South Florida premiere, arriving a month or so after being staged in a workshop at the Flea Theater in Tribeca, New York, under its original name, Marry. Murder. F$&@k!?
More than one meaning of the phrase A Class Actis alluded to in the play of the same name by Norman Shabel, which opened last weekend at Miami’s Sandrell Rivers Theatre. Though it is an informal term that can be used to describe “a person or thing displaying impressive and stylish excellence,” it can also be used to describe an action taken by a class of people, as in the class action lawsuit that the play’s plot centers on.
The Actors Community Theatre (ACT) of Davie opened their production of Sylvia, a Broadway comedy, on Nov. 11. The play is written by A.R. Gurney and features the story of a marriage, a man and his dog. It runs for two weekends, Nov. 11-20. There will be eight performances, with each lasting two hours with a 15-minute intermission. Tickets are $10 online at ACTofDavie.org, or $12 at the door. Performances on Fridays and Saturdays are at 8 p.m. There are matinee performances on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m.
“Zan doesn’t want to read to Dorothy, and she’s not too sure she wants him to! But his community service assignment is not optional. And book by book, the two of them begin to form an unexpected friendship… just when they need it most.”
“The last 5 or 6 – 8 years have been pretty damn tough, so it’s not a shock that past season of most theater companies have been so heavy. But now, after all this time, we want to leave people hopeful with the idea of how maybe, we can still save one another.” So says the artistic director, Matt Stabile, of Theatre Lab, who also happens to be directing the world premiere of Dorothy’s Dictionary by E.M. Lewis.
The 45th Annual Carbonell Awards Announces Winners in First Live Ceremony Since 2019
From 20 Categories, Miami New Drama Wins Seven Awards, Four to Area Stage, and Slow Burn Theatre Nets Three
Nine Theater & Arts Legends Honored with Special Awards
(South Florida – November 2022) Gary Schweikhart, board president of the Carbonell Awards, South Florida’s Theatre & Arts Honors, today announced that the 45th annual awards—the first live ceremony since 2019—attracted nearly 500 theater activists and enthusiasts.
Boca Stage kicks off its 2022-23 season with a haunting new play, an evocative drama postulating that death is, in fact, a two-way door, and that everyone who ever lived and died continues to exist in this in-between spiritual dimension.
Contestants enviously welcome last year’s Miss Glamouresse on stage, moments before finding out whether they’ll be crowned as the new winner.
If you are looking for a hilarious and suspenseful way to spend your night, then buy yourself a ticket to Pageant at Island City Stage. As described on their website, this show can most definitely be described as “AMiss America Competition Meets RuPaul’s Drag Race!” Not only will this show have you invested in every character and secretly wishing for your favorite to win, but it will also have you gasping for air from all the laughing you’ll be doing.
Pigs Do Fly Productions, which was established with the specific goal of telling stories featuring characters over 50 “living their lives in interesting, involved and exciting ways,” embodies that mission 110 percent with their current production of The Savannah Sipping Society,staged at Wilton Manors venue Empire Stage. This charming and straightforward southern-themed comedy is centered around not one such interesting older character but a full foursome of them, all of who are brought to life by an equally vibrant coalition of mature South Florida actresses who are giving their all to respective roles.
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to measure or calculate exactly, both the position and the momentum of an object. What this basically means, is that we can never know where someone is in their life, where they’re going, and where they want to go.
Simon Stephens took this idea and wrapped it in an unconventional love story. The season opener for GableStage is an intimate two-hander, exploring the start and development of a friendship as it evolves and changes these two characters’ lives.
