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“) 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 […]
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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, […]
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 […]