Monthly Archives: February 2012
Color Blind Casting Poses No Obstacle To Filipino-American Dancing As British Billy Elliot
Initially, it’s impossible to ignore that 15-year-old actor J.P. Viernes leaping and soaring through the musical Billy Elliot is not a typical youngster in a downtrodden unsophisticated mining village in northeast England in the 1980s. John Peter Viernes, with a broad grin and flashing eyes, is inescapably a Filipino-American with caramel-colored skin and half-moon eyes. But by all accounts, his infectious charisma, joyous dancing and sheer acting skills successfully banish most audience members’ resistance to the color-blind casting within a few minutes.
Miami Made Features Off-Beat Works By Mad Cat, The Project Theatre and Mark Della Ventura
Mad Cat Theatre Company’s Paul Tei, Alliance Theatre Lab’s Mark Della Ventura and The Project [theatre], all known for their edgy approach and Gen X/Y/Z-oriented material, are featured in free offerings this weekend at the crockpot of regional performance arts festival, Miami Made.
Broward Stage Door’s Disappointing My Fair Lady Lacks Magic and Charm
This edition of My Fair Lady at Broward Stage Door is a disappointing muddle other than a few adequate performances under the direction of the usually reliable Michael Leeds. The first two thirds of this evening is mostly a listless, lackluster effort. Surprisingly, the quality improves so significantly in the final third of the show that you wonder if they switched out the casts. But by that time, it’s too late. Even at its best moments, and it has some, there’s no magic, no charm.
Theater Shelf: Show Tunes, Comic Operas and Singers Gordon MacRae & Howard Keel
Theater Shelf, a recurring feature, will review recently-released books, CDs and DVDs of interest to theater lovers. Some will be popular titles like a new Original Cast Recording, others will be works you’ll be intrigued by but didn’t even know about. Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers – Fourth Edition
Another Shade of Red at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre
Red, John Logan’s illumination of art and artists now at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, is so insanely popular (50 productions licensed this season across the country; six in Florida) that snobs are beginning to sneer that anything that ubiquitous can’t be really good.Director Lou Jacob’s clear vision here, executed by Mark Zeisler as the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko and JD Taylor as his young assistant/acolyte, favors passion as its primary color.
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