Author Archives: Bill Hirschman
Style And Script Clash Through Ground Up ‘s The Good Father
By John Thomason Since its return to regular summer programming in 2014, Miami’s Ground Up & Rising has been specializing in a particular strain of western theater: the austere, bone-scraping two- (or three-) hander, minimally produced and ferociously acted. Christian …
Report From New York: Nose-Thumbing School Of Rock Is Surprisingly Entertaining
Silly, stupoid and surprisingly successful, the Broadway musical spin on School of Rock works fine without Jack Black — a good sign for the national tour.
Report From New York: The Reason To See The Humans When Visiting Broadway
Sometimes the confluence of talent that occurs in a New York City production creates something that won’t be duplicated elsewhere. South Florida has proven that a regional production actually may be better in its own way, but it cannot replicate that specific recipe for alchemical magic. Within two years, you’ll see the same thing with The Humans.
Tight Harmonies Transport the Audience Back to the 1950s In The Wick’s Forever Plaid
The Wick Theatre has nearly mastered the musical revue genre by hiring solid talent and adding in a few extra production values – all of it evident in this summer’s frothy paean to middle-class America’s music of the 1950s, the venerable Forever Plaid.
Dramaworks’ 1776 Provides Lessons All Too Relevant Today
in these terrible times of violence, deprivation and polarization, the resonances in Palm Beach Dramaworks’ imaginatively reinvented production of 1776 are deafening. Amid the laugh lines, the dancing and the drama, there is a challenge to us across two and half centuries to deal with our current trials with the same virtues that our forefathers did.
An Unusually Apropos 1776 For Our Times At PB Dramaworks
A deeply polarized citizenry, partisans with irreconcilable ideas about the role of government, a stalled deliberative body, confusion, anxiety. Sound familiar? The current political climate has spurred Palm Beach Dramaworks to reinvent that July perennial musical 1776 to highlight the similarities between us and the Founding Fathers in its production July 1-24.
Report From New York: A Poignant Slice Of Small Town Dreams In Waitress
While the production of Waitress faithfully follows the schematics of Adrienne Shelly’s charming 2007 film, it does exactly what a musical should do: use the added tools of melody, lyrics and dance to amplify, augment and dig deeper into the human condition in ways that declaiming lines from a script cannot do, no matter how deft the thespians.
Updated Story: New Theatre Announces It is Closing, In Part To Eroding Audience
New Theatre, one of the most high-profile Florida theaters for 30 years and developer of the Pulitzer-winning Anna in the Tropics, is closing, its board of directors announced Thursday. The cause appears to be economics although the specifics have not been disclosed. Artistic Director Ricky J. Martinez actually resigned May 23.
Report From New York: Folky Bright Star May Be Fading On Bway, But Look For It Locally
The new musical Bright Star is a 21st Century celebration of the folk tradition complete with plucky heroines, gentle humor, unbending fundamentalists, facile fiddling, profound personal tragedies and the eventual reconciling redemption with a distinct but not overbearing reliance on faith in a higher power.
Evening Star’s Shakespeare Abridged Is 90 Minutes, 125 Minutes Of Comic Anarchy
The running time for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) (Revised) is advertised at 90 minutes On opening night at Evening Star Productions, it ran two hours. This is a testament to how downright hilarious this production is, the advantage of an an audience of partisans to interact with, and a yin-and-yang vibe of sloppy undisciplined anarchy.
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