By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Three years ago, Jim Parsons donned the heavenly robes of the Almighty and made comedy history at Studio 54 when he starred in the Broadway premiere of An Act of God, the irreverent David Javerbaum-penned vehicle. A year later in 2016, Sean Hayes, revived the show at […]
By AARON KRAUSE WILTON MANORS, FL. — A current South Florida co-production of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning musical Next to Normal is nearly next to perfection. The performers earn every tear, sniffle, gasp and laugh. That became clear during the opening night performance Thursday of this heart-shattering, drily humorous, touching production. This co-mounting between Infinite Abyss Productions and Measure […]
By AARON KRAUSE MIAMI BEACH — Is it possible to write and stage an August Strindberg play adaptation that’s #MeToo friendly? Playwright Hilary Bettis and Miami New Drama have succeeded admirably in doing so. Patrons who enter the Colony Theatre on Miami Beach through May 6 will encounter a vastly re-imagined version of Strindberg’s naturalistic […]
By AARON KRAUSE WEST PALM BEACH — What’s a casket doing in poetess Emily Dickinson’s bedroom on a cold, snowy night in January, 1864 Amherst, Mass.? And why is it empty – or is it? You need only look on Palm Beach Dramaworks’ stage to receive the answer. There, along with Dickinson, stands Edgar Allan […]
By AARON KRAUSE MIAMI — The people who birthed us can seem the most familiar and foreign individuals…at the same time. But what if you could make better sense of this and more with a special ability you possess? If you’re someone with cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s talent, you’re lucky in that way. Art’s power to […]
By AARON KRAUSE WILTON MANORS, Fla. — In a way, The Radicalization of Rolfe is to The Sound of Music as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is to Hamlet. Consider: In Rosencrantz and Radicalization, the playwrights imagine what minor characters might be talking and thinking about when we don’t see or hear them in the […]
By AARON KRAUSE FT. LAUDERDALE — The lyrics resonate chillingly in the wake of the recent mass school shooting in South Florida, leaving 17 dead – and another shooting about a month later in Maryland, leaving two dead: Change don’t come easy You gotta believe me It ain’t gonna happen overnight. Change don’t come quickly, […]
By AARON KRAUSE BOCA RATON — On the Playbill’s cover, gold, upper case letters spell out the title of the enchanting musical playing at The Wick Theatre and Costume Museum through April 8. If the gold coloring and capitalization are coincidence, they’re appropriately symbolic. That’s because we need a “Brigadoon” these days. It’s difficult not […]
By AARON KRAUSE MIAMI — People attend live theater because they “feel other people’s emotions, see the world like they do,” opines a character in Dancing Lessons. The character, Senga Quinn, could easily be talking about the play in which she appears. The taut, yet meaty piece by Mark St. Germain is running through March […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) The Jefferson Performing Arts Society brought out an oldie, but a goodie this past week when it opened the Roger Bean standby The Marvelous Wonderettes, a four-woman mashup of late 1950s and early 1960s pop classics. Directed and choreographed by Jonathan Drury, this cast has some amazing […]