By AARON KRAUSE WEST PALM BEACH — Some plays require preparation before seeing them, even for the most sophisticated, knowledgeable theatergoers. You can’t just walk into the theater knowing nothing about the work and expect to be able to easily follow it without getting frustrated. Tom Stoppard’s Olivier-Award-winning Arcadia is such a work. If you haven’t […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out”) It’s never an easy subject matter to discuss within the family circle, but death is an inevitability. Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate not only begs the question, but deals with the practicalities when death intercedes before estate planning has been properly effected. The time is set in 1987 […]
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 AARON KRAUSE CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The two characters with opposing views in “Dry Powder,” a scorching, relevant, riveting and unpredictable comic-drama set in the high-stakes world of big-city finance, might as well wear protective helmets and faceguards. There’s enough verbal combat to leave the combatants bloody and bruised if the power of the […]
By AARON KRAUSE FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Ft. Lauderdale-based Slow Burn Theatre Company demonstrates why it received 12 Carbonell Award nominations this year through its strong production of “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” It’s easy to gloss over the musical’s flaws with the talent on display on the Broward Center for the Performing […]
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — You might have seen the 1977 Italian, Academy Award-nominated film “A Special Day” (“Una Giornata Particolare” in Italian). But you likely haven’t seen it performed on stage in the ingenious manner Miami New Drama is presenting the comic, touching story. You have four more chances to do so, and if minimalist, […]
By AARON KRAUSE FT. LAUDERDALE — If you need extra incentive to advocate for arts funding in the wake of the proposed elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities as part of President Trump’s budget, what better way to receive that added drive than by experiencing the Renaissance? […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) In 1999 the Walt Disney Animation Studios released “Tarzan,” which would be its final major animated film during the Disney Renaissance era that began a decade earlier with “The Little Mermaid.” Based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel “Tarzan of the Apes,” told the story of the […]
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 ALAN SMASON, Theatre critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) In 2014 when “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” opened at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre in New York, critics and pundits were applauding Jessie Mueller for what seemed an impossible role to fill. Not only did the actress have to emulate the singing style of an iconic American […]