Author Archives: Bill Hirschman

Gen Y’ers Struggle With Dehumanizing Technology In New Theatre’s Leveling Up

Leveling Up getting an intriguing production by New Theatre is about far more than a 20-something gaming magus in Las Vegas hired to remotely operate drones that eliminate real targets in the Middle East.

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Casa Valentina Explores The Men Beneath The Pearls And Lipstick At GableStage

Harvey Fierstein’s thought-provoking Casa Valentina play at GableStage explores is that sexuality as an infinitely varied stew of preferences, prejudices and other ingredients in varied measures

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The Power And Pain Of Love In McKeever’s Daniel’s Husband

Michael McKeever’s stunning world premiere play Daniel’s Husband at Island City Stage is an indelible and inarguable exhibit that love between human begins is unquantifiably precious and inarguably valid — regardless of sexuality.

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Report From New York: ‘It’s Only A Play’ High And Inside Baseball

Inside baseball describes the wry and witty It’s Only A Play, if you’re one of us who can name all six shows that earned Tony nominations for Kelli O’Hara. But if you’re one of the tens of millions who can’t, you aren’t going to get a tenth of the potential pleasure out of this overhauled, updated revival of Terrence McNally’s 1982 paean to the glorious narcissistic and divine misfits who populate theater.

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Report From New York: Be Glad To Have Kristin Chenoweth Aboard On The 20th Century

We’re back from our trip to New York to scout out productions you might want to see (or not), shows that might tour South Florida and scripts that might be worth reviving in our regional theaters. We will run our reviews intermittently …

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Report From New York: Inky Comedy Hand To God Is Riveting, Riotous And Deeply Unnerving

“Dark comedy” usually refers to a blithely cynical or whistling-past-the-graveyard attitude, but in the hilarious and unnerving Hand To God the darkness is pure visceral evil.

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Report From New York: Something Rotten Is Far From It

From Elizabethan actors lining up ala A Chorus Line with oil paintings for their headshots, to a preening rock star Shakespeare spouting his greatest hits to a sycophantic crowd, Something Rotten is a non-stop unabashed hoot of silly, sophomoric, sometimes simply stupid feast of unalloyed hilarity.

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Theatre League Offers Free Readings All Summer And Free Tickets To Fully-Staged Plays

Ticket prices are not an obstacle to interested theatergoers once again this summer through the South Florida Theatre League’s annual Summer Theatre Fest that provides free tickets to major productions and new plays in development by South Florida playwrights. There …

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Fine Cast Still Can’t Make Book Club Much Of A Page Turner

Professionalism is the only explanation why this much talent—the cream of South Florida theater from the director to the cast to the creative team — invested itself so deeply into the flawed frippery of The Book Club Play at Actors’ Playhouse.

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Bell Book And Candle Only Intermittently Casts A Spell

Broward Stage Door’s quite serviceable but not bewitching production of this 1951 fantasy love story doesn’t feel especially magical in the first act, but it locates the right bag of pixie dust in the second act to show why director Michael Leeds wanted to do the play.

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