Monthly Archives: December 2012
Plaza Theatre’s Oddball “Luv” Allows Avi Hoffman Full Rein
Back during the Cold War, a theatrical genre flourished called the American absurdist comedy. Perfected by Herb Gardner and Bruce Jay Friedman, it took hip unconventionality to an extreme degree of kookiness, one crucial millimeter short of being a living cartoon. Perhaps the most popular entry was Murray Schisgal’s hilarious Luv, hauled out of mothballs this holiday season by the fledgling Plaza Theatre in Manalapan for an older audience that remembers the original production in 1964.
Our Theater Lovers’ Gift Guide To CDs, DVDs and Books
Over the past 52 weeks, the Theater Shelf column has evaluated a host of CDs, DVDs and books you might consider as gifts for your theater friends this season – or for yourself, for that matter. You can look over the archive using the hyperlinked index at BradHathaway.Com. As the holiday season approached, however, many more titles became available. Here is a sampling of titles that might please one or more of the people on your holiday gift list.
New Theatre 1-Act Festival / Slow Burns Sets Season
Slow Burn Looks Ahead Slow Burn Theater Company, the Boca Raton troupe attracted to edgy, challenging work, has chosen the titles for their 2013-2014 season, said co-artistic director Patrick Fitzwater and Matthew Korinko. Specific dates are not nailed down, but …
Bravura Turn By Janet Dacal Is Reason To See Last Five Years
A yin and yang vibe imbues Jason Robert Brown’s intriguing and imaginative two-character musical tracking the life cycle of a romance and marriage, The Last Five Years, receiving a warm, entertaining production at Actor Playhouse. But the reason to see it is the vibrant, bravura performance by former Miamian and current Broadway actress Janet Dacal.
Immediate Closing Of Mosaic Partly Rooted In Fiscal Reasons
If personal reasons motivated Richard Jay Simon’s resignation from the Mosaic Theatre that he founded, it was money that caused his board to close his “baby” Sunday, according to Simon and board chairman Myron Levy in interviews Monday.
The company was not in dire financial straits although it was struggling with a temporary cash flow problem, Simon said. But the board believed Simon’s planned departure at the end of this 12th season would create a financial setback that they could not overcome, Levy said.
Mosaic Theatre Closes Immediately With Resignation Of Richard Jay Simon
Mosaic Theatre, one of the most respected theater companies in the region, is closing immediately, a decision made Monday by its board of directors, according to an announcement Sunday night. The closing was prompted by the resignation of its founder and Executive/Artistic Director Richard Jay Simon, also disclosed Sunday.
Dramaworks’ A Delicate Balance Delivers Uncompromising Thought-Provoking Drama
A nameless terror has upended the fragile homeostasis in Agnes and Tobias’ carefully-ordered uppercrust existence, all the more frightening because its anonymity makes it uncomfortably universal for the audience at Palm Beach Dramaworks’ production of Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance. What starts in this laudable production as a play about a troubled family of privilege, which keeps our attention simply because they are engagingly hyper-articulate, then ends as a shattering indictment of self-deception and hypocrisy in human interaction.
Miami’s Janet Dacal Comes Home From Broadway For “The Last Five Years”
Actors Playhouse director David Arisco teasingly asks the reporter doing a story on the upcoming musical The Last Five Years, “Don’t you want to take a picture of our Broadway star?’ His joke is that while former Miamian Janet Dacal qualifies for the soubriquet, Dacal seems as far from a temperamental egotistical diva as you can imagine. With a honey warm smile, flashing eyes and an unaffected demeanor, Dacal looks like the girl next door — if your neighborhood is Hialeah and the girl is the kind of fetching vision who half the boys have a crush on.
Showtime’s [title of show] Is Theatre Geek’s Nirvana
If you’ve ever kicked in the chorus line of a community theater production of Mame, you’ll likely adore Showtime Performing Arts Theatre’s [title of show]. But if you’ve ever secretly practiced a Tony Award acceptance speech in your bathroom, then [title of show] is a must-see.
Caisley’s Happy Is Corrosive Flawed, But Intriguing Comedy About Self-Deception
New Theatre’s production of Robert Caisley’s sardonically titled Happy is not an evening you “like” watching an “emotional terrorist” spend 80 minutes mercilessly carving away a nebbish’s illusion of well-being. But even with a flawed mounting of a script that still needs work, Happy is undeniably an intriguing examination of modern man burying true feelings under a socially-acceptable but life-denying veneer.
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