By AARON KRAUSE There’s a moment in the much-loved musical Les Misérables during which the theater feels more like a hushed house of worship than a conventional performance space. It comes when the protagonist, Jean Valjean, prayerfully asks God to keep student revolutionary Marius Pontmercy safe from the battle at the barricade. These days, as…
By AARON KRAUSE A social media influencer learns from a DNA test that she is among the 40 percent of individuals who can smell asparagus in their urine. An otherworldly being tells two zoo-goers that ants, not humans, are among Earth’s dominant species. A woman aboard a spacecraft sometime in the future is murdered because…
By AARON KRAUSE A small, dark statue of a woman rests among the items in Jacob Brown’s realistic set design for Main Street Players’ (MSP) shining professional production of Lauren Gunderson’s funny and moving play, The Revolutionists. Yet it is easy to overlook the black, inconspicuous statue—or notice that parts of its body are missing. Similarly,…
By AARON KRAUSE Broadway at LPAC’s engaging and believable professional production of 9 to 5 is a fitting tribute to country music legend Dolly Parton, who recently turned 79. Indeed, the production would have probably impressed Parton, who creatively appears via recorded video to narrate the show’s beginning and end. You may recall that Parton co-starred in…
By AARON KRAUSE Forget ghosts and goblins. Deborah Zoe Laufer’s frightening and moving drama, The Last Yiddish Speaker, centers on a real horrific scenario. Specifically, the playwright imagines that the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol was successful. As a result, a white supremacist regime came into power. Under its rule, authorities enforce ethnic, ideological…
By AARON KRAUSE While summer camp is over for kids, a different kind of camp is in session for adults at Island City Stage (ICS). There, the side-splitting camp comic classic Die, Mommie, Die!, which is not for children, is keeping the laughometer as high as current temperatures in hot and humid South Florida. In its intimate black…
By AARON KRAUSE The term “collision” usually carries a negative connotation. After all, serious injuries or worse can result when people or vehicles collide. But a potentially healing collision occurs in the moving, humorous, and invigorating new musical, A Shonda. It’s a clash that can hopefully, in the long run, begin to heal long festering ills…
By AARON KRAUSE “Bigger isn’t better.” So go the lyrics to a Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart song from the musical “Barnum.” At least, bigger isn’t always better. A fine example is New City Players’ (NCP) small scale, yet heartfelt, haunting, heartbreaking, and sizzling current professional production of Tennessee Williams’ classic, sultry, poetic, Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 tragedy, A…
By AARON KRAUSE If you look closely at the program for Palm Beach Dramaworks’ (PBD) polished and poignant production of the touching historical drama, Trying, you’ll notice a tilted “g.” This occurs not only on the program’s front cover, but inside. Possibly, the slanting letter symbolically suggests that we, as a society, are also slightly off…
By AARON KRAUSE Accurately depicting Damon Runyon’s fantasy world of colorful characters can prove a tough task. In particular, a director and his or her cast must aim for broad comedy without coming across as cartoonish. To their credit, a talented cast succeeds in several respects with MNM Theatre Company’s production of the classic 1950…
By AARON KRAUSE It is frigid these days at Palm Beach Dramaworks (PBD). Therefore, frostbite is a distinct possibility in a part of South Florida. But a warmth also emanates from PBD’s stage. It is rejuvenating, wholesome, hopeful, and healing. Could that warmth, in fact, counter the effects of frostbite? In the play, Almost, Maine, anything…
By AARON KRAUSE While we still do not know when the 2020 virtual Tony Awards broadcast will take place, we at least now know the nominees. The Tony Awards’ presenters, The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing, announced the nominees on Thursday. Alanis Morissette’s musical, Jagged Little Pill, leads the way with 15 nominations. In…
