By AARON KRAUSE MIAMI SHORES — A “hurricane party” hardly refers to a celebration involving University of Miami sports teams in the new, clever, satirical comedy Firemen are Rarely Necessary, set partly in Miami in a not-too-distant future. Normally when a mammoth hurricane is about to make landfall in a state, you’d expect to hear…
By AARON KRAUSE WILTON MANORS, Fla. — Shakespeare wrote “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” But have you ever found yourself wishing that you were the director of your life – one with the power to say something like, “OK, let’s stop right there and take it from,…
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) Like his American contemporary counterpart, author L. Frank Baum, James M. Barrie was a London playwright, who spun a tale that enchanted children so much that his creation is still a part of the popular lexicon of children’s fare. In the case of Barrie, his creation had…
By EDWARD RUBIN It is no surprise that Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, two of Broadway’s most beloved Tony-winning performers, each with their own cadre of diehard followers, are filling the seats at Broadway’s Nederlander Theatre. It is equally unsurprising that the audience goes over the moon after each Scott Frankel (music) and Michael Korie…
By ANNE SIEGEL The bling and glamour of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Cinderella was met with cheers, oohs and ahhs – mainly by youngsters – who attended a recent opening of this fabled fairy tale musical in Milwaukee. No wonder. This version, which was adapted for Broadway in 2013, started out as a modernized…
MARGATE, Fla. — There are times when we like bad, even horrible people. Look no further than musicals such as Peter Pan (who doesn’t like, or at least have fun with Captain Hook?) Chicago, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, and Sweeney Todd. Characters in these types of shows are usually either colorful, hilariously…
The American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) has selected Michael Cristofer’s Man in the Ring, the true story of a boxer who killed another man in a bout, as the winner of the 2016 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award. This award, which recognizes playwrights for scripts that premiered professionally during the preceding…
Nate Eppler has won The American Theatre Critics Association’s (ATCA) 2017 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award for an emerging playwright. The award was presented at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville on April 8. Eppler’s work The Ice Treatment premiered in July of 2016 and was presented by Actors Bridge Ensemble…
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) Sometimes a brave decision by a director or a dramaturg can enhance or expand the original intent of a playwright’s work. Blind color casting works in many instances for classic works by Shakespeare and Moliere, for example, because the color of the actor’s skin has nothing to…
By ALAN SMASON, THEATRE CRITIC, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) One of the funniest comedic sketches on Saturday Night Live entailed the reading of the secret Nixon Watergate tapes in which the serious Nixon is seen to be fully cognizant that there are people listening in and he is playing to the audience. “A million? We could…
By ANNE SIEGEL Broadway isn’t the only place currently producing Williams’ early play, The Glass Menagerie. The Milwaukee Repertory Theatre just opened an excellent production in the largest of its three theaters, the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater. The theater got part of its name – Powerhouse – from the fact that the complex resides in a…
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out”) By all things reasonable, Waitress, the Broadway musical currently serving its fare at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York, should have never made it to Broadway. It is a story of improbabilities. The musical was based on an independent film directed by Adrienne Shelly, a striking…
