Author Archives: Bill Hirschman

Mad Cat Names 3rd Annual Nine Lives Scholarship Winners

Mad Cat Theatre Company has named its third annual Nine Lives Scholarship Awards recipients: Cheyenne Nicole Hardy cited as outstanding high school senior and Kayla Bussel as outstanding college senior.

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Talkin’ In The Green Room With…. Nick Duckart

Three-time Carbonell winner Nick Duckart has been a rapping Dominican-American bodega owner, a Palestinian terrorist, a Polish-American assassin, and the Egyptian Pharaoh in Joseph and the… well you know. One agent called him “ethnically ambiguous.” He dances the merengue, owns every episode of I Love Lucy and spills some secrets including recalling a disastrous nude scene.

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New Theatre Hosts A 4th With BBQ, Fireworks & Short Plays

Hot dogs, fireworks and… theater? New Theatre is hoping you’ll join them this holiday weekend for its bi-annual Miami 1-Acts Festival of 16 fully-staged short plays which doubles as a fund-raiser.

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Ground Up & Rising Rises Again This Weekend In Miami Beach

Ground Up & Rising, the itinerant Miami company that has been rising and falling and rising since 2006, is rising once again with a play to bow during the holiday weekend, plans for a second production this season and the announcement of a new artistic director.

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Theater Shelf: Great Moments in Theater, Marilyn Miller, A Visit To Oz, And Betty Blue Eyes

Theater Shelf, a recurring feature, reviews recently-released books, CDs and DVDs of interest to theater lovers. Some are popular titles like a new Original Cast Recording, others are works you’ll be intrigued by, but didn’t even know about.

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Girl Play Plays Play This Weekend In Wilton Manors

The fifth annual celebration of theater that investigates what it means to be a lesbian in the 21st Century kicks off this Friday with Girl Play, staged readings of short plays sponsored by The Women’s Theatre Project.

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Report From New York: Satchmo At The Waldorf Hits A High Note Without Playing A Bar Of Music

Satchmo at the Waldorf triumphs with very little music and none of it created live by the brilliant John Douglas Thompson’s resurrection of the jazz great. Instead, Thompson summons up Louis Armstrong reminiscing near the end of his life after a performance at the titular hotel. The evening is an incisive character study not a greatest hits concert.

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Vibrant, Zesty Zorba! Gets Staged Concert At Dramaworks

From the first tinkling of the bouzouki, Palm Beach Dramaworks’ mounting of the rarely-seen Kander and ebb musical Zorba! fairly throbs with life-affirming spirit in direct spite of the vagaries of Fate.

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Ring of Fire Encircles Johnny Cash Music In Pure Song At Theatre Arts Garage

Ring of Fire, the Johnny Cash Musical, is not a biographical play about The Man in Black. It’s smarter than that. This music-heavy tableau, at the Theatre at Arts Garage i offers more depth than what its title may imply. When that appreciation hits, Ring of Fire lights a burning flame right through to your soul.

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Jay Harris, South Florida’s Theater Champion, Dead at 77

Businessman Jay H. Harris was not famous outside of theatrical circles in South Florida. But within that community, Harris was revered for his incalculable investment of time, advice and money that fueled its evolution from a region known for dinner theater into a significant center of theatrical excellence. Harris of Boca Raton died Friday at age 77 from complications during surgery to repair a prior hip replacement.

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