By AARON KRAUSE POMPANO BEACH — There’s no question “Big Brother” is staring at us in Outre Theatre Company’s production of the disturbing, thought-provoking George Orwell classic 1984. It runs through July 30 at the Pompano Beach Cultural Arts Center. Several images on stage show an elderly, cross, if not outright intimidating man looking straight at us. This […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) When composer and lyricist Marc Shaiman and his writing partner Scott Wittman opened Hairspray: The Broadway Musical 15 years ago, there could not have been an expectation as to how well-received and how pervasive the musical, based on the same-titled 1988 John Waters film, would become. Summer […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) During the summer months, New Orleans is a city beset in its defense from raging storms. But the mystical literary storm that approaches it now via the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival at Tulane University – The Tempest – has much to be admired, not feared. Director and […]
By AARON KRAUSE FT. LAUDERDALE — Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is classified as a comedy, and for good reason. There’s plenty of mischief and merry making, which merge to form a frolicking night of theater. It ends (mostly) happily. But there’s a darker side to the play involving mourning, unrequited love and a resultant lovesickness. If you dig […]
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 ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) Kenneth Lonergan recently received an Academy Award for his screenplay of “Manchester by the Sea,” a dark and depressing tale that produced an Oscar winning performance by Casey Affleck. Lonergan seems to excel in writing about depressing people in dismal places, people who have a glimmer of […]
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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, […]
For those who truly love classic Broadway theatre, there are few shows that pack as much firepower as Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun. It was a tour de force for Ethel Merman, perhaps the greatest belter known on the Great White Way, and has since provided vehicles for the likes of Bernadette Peters, Reba […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out”) Although he only lived to be 39, Thomas “Fats” Waller produced one of the most impressive volumes of popular music during the swing period of the 1930s and 1940s. With his characteristic stride style on the piano, he took jazz and popular music to new heights it […]
By AARON KRAUSE CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Go ahead, poke fun at drag queens all you want. Call them weirdos, freaks or any other name to express your disapproval at their lifestyle or your inherent dislike of them, for whatever reason. The bottom line is that at least twice now in the make-believe world of theater, […]