Author Archives: Bill Hirschman
Dramaworks Explores Enduring Relevance of a Plains Populist
Woody Guthrie’s American Song is most decidedly a people’s musical, at least in its vivifying production at Palm Beach Dramaworks is more of a communal hoedown with Guthrie’s music as the soundtrack. Even the songs about poverty, death and hard living hide notes of hope, if we can only come together to find them.
The Big D Is Touching, Rowdy World-Premiere At The Abyss
For all the raunchy scenes in Michael Mizerany’s new play The Big D, the message at the weepy comedy-drama’s heart is serious and sincere. Sure, the characters engage in hard-core, unabashed horseplay and sex. Indeed, there’s a primitive, intense physicality. But this much is certain: The couple in Mizerany’s touching play with pathos and humor literally love each other to death.
StageBill Blog: Shows I Wish Someone Would Produce Here & Some Casting Ideas UPDATED
In looking over my huge collection of play scripts, I kept coming across shows I either have seen and am anxious to see undertaken by a local company, or titles I’ve read but never seen – and really want to. When I hit the lottery, the Florida Theater On Stage Players will undertake them all. We already daydream about some local professionals we’d cast.
Slow Burn’s Rock Of Ages Isn’t Your Grandma’s Musical
If there’s any way to get folks to the theater who don’t usually go, Slow Burn’s Rock of Ages can do it. Director/choreographer Patrick Fitzwater knows exactly how to squeeze every inch of character out of this cheesy, goo fest of a jukebox musical to entertain aforementioned non-theater types, who can’t wait to re-live the glory days of the 1980s, of which the soundtrack of the show relies.
New City Players Paint Perfect Work Of ‘Art’ At Vanguard
In the lovely confines of The Vanguard, Yasmin Reza’s modern classic Art comes to life in New City Players’ finely curated production.
Grief, Coping Commingle With Comedic Culture Clash In McKeever’s Elegant Mr. Parker
When did yesterday’s renegades, who skirted AIDS and lived boheme on a ramen noodle diet in the go-go eighties, become today’s get-off-my-lawners? These questions, and plenty more, linger between the lines of Mr. Parker, Michael McKeever’s elegant dramedy world-premiering at Island City Stage.
Pink Unicorn Puts Complex Human Face On Identity Politics
Laura Turnbull in the solo show The Pink Unicorn from Primal Forces places us in the headspace of a widowed mother in a small—and small-minded—Texas suburb who transforms into an unwitting advocate for gender liberation.
M Ensemble’s Seven Guitars Is Virtually Music As Theater
In the current production of The M Ensemble Company, August Wilson’s legendary Seven Guitars almost plays like a musical or a folk opera akin to Porgy and Bess or Floyd Collins.
Lightning Bolt’s Into The Woods Gives Modern Resonance
Into the Woods’ disturbing second act occurs in a boy’s nightmare in Lightning Bolt Production’s riveting, pulse-quickening production at the West Boca Performing Arts Center. Director Jessie Hoffman has re-imagined the musical from the narrator’s perspective. That character, who in this production is a 12-year-old boy, plays a larger role than in other mountings.
GableStage’s “I’m Gonna Pray For You” Scorches The Stage
Human beings’ desperate need for affirmation of their self-worth from some source outside themselves – whether it’s from a parent or strangers’ judgments – drives GableStage’s scorching production of Halley Feiffer’s I’m Going To Pray For You So Hard.
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