By AARON KRAUSE If you search Emily Dickinson on Google, one of the photos you’ll find is that of an austere-looking woman dressed in black. The famous poet from Amherst, Massachusetts (1830-1886) appears to be a no-nonsense, severe woman, rigid in her thinking. But the Emily Dickinson one encounters in William Luce’s one-woman, 1976 Broadway…
By AARON KRAUSE, Special to Theatrecriticism.com (SARASOTA, FL.) — Five-time Tony Award recipient Terrence McNally, the world-renowned playwright who also received the Tony Awards’ Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre honor last year, died March 24 in Sarasota. He was 81 . McNally succumbed to complications from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. He was…
By AARON KRAUSE WEST PALM BEACH — This isn’t how your grandparents experienced Man of La Mancha. No, the nonprofit, professional MNM Theatre Company’s intense, fourth-wall breaking, moving and at-times-grim production feels deeper and more modern. For instance, when we walk into the theater, there is no curtain. Rather, the set and the performers are…
By AARON KRAUSE MIAMI — With Hamilton capturing the theater world’s attention like few shows in recent memory, it can be easy to pass without a glance the marquee of another musical phenomenon that has played on Broadway seemingly forever. Of course, the latter show is The Lion King. It will quietly enter its 22nd year on the Great…
By AARON KRAUSE FT. LAUDERDALE — It’s funny how someone buying a white painting can nearly destroy long-lasting friendships. If you want to experience how funny, then New City Players’ intense, engrossing production of Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award winning dark comedy, Art,is required viewing. That’s partly because director Jessica Schulte skillfully finds a balance between…
By AARON KRAUSE WILTON MANORS, Fla. — You don’t have to be gay to find resonance in Mr. Parker, a funny, touching play receiving its world premiere at Island City Stage in an all-around strong production. Mr. Renaissance Man has penned and stars in the piece. More seriously, the prolific, versatile and immensely talented South…
By AARON KRAUSE WEST PALM BEACH — Characters down alcohol with an equilibrium-upsetting frequency in Billy and Me, a new, engrossing, thought-provoking memory play receiving its world premiere production at Palm Beach Dramaworks through the end of the year. One of the principle characters is, surprise, surprise, Tennessee Williams. The late, great playwright was known as…
By AARON KRAUSE MARGATE, Fla. — There’s a moment during the Tony-Award-winning musical Nine when a cacophony of voices drifts through the air, belonging to women speaking, or even shouting, on top of one another. The resulting noise vividly symbolizes the chaos racing through the mind of renown but struggling Italian filmmaker Guido Contini, an…
By AARON KRAUSE MIAMI, FL. — It’s not every day that famed magician and escape artist Harry Houdini flings playing cards at you, interacts with you and even calls you up as a volunteer to participate in one of his tricks. Then again, it’s not every day that you witness a play as unique and…
