Author Archives: Bill Hirschman

Blood, Beer And Toasters: Main Street’s Ferocious True West

With the fearful ferocity of twin jackhammers running amok, the brothers of Main Street Players’ True West clash and crash, attack and retreat in an anguish-fueled release of pent-up frustration that their chosen lifestyles have not worked out.

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Funny & Poignant Grindr Mom Turns A Wife’s Life Inside Out

Crucial to know about Grindr Mom is that while the heroine is a middle-class pearl-wearing politically conservative Mormon who volunteers once a week at the local school, “The Wife” as she is called in Ronnie Larsen’s script is decidedly engaging, likable and genuinely charming — certainly not a monstrous homophobic bigot.

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Wiesenthal Challenges Us To Prevent Tragedy Once Again

Over and over, Simon Wiesenthal’s words spoken in a biographical play written a decade ago based on a man who died 14 year ago, words about events that occurred more than 75 years ago, those words are as vibrant and relevant a direct undiluted challenge to the audience at GableStage in 2019 as anything heard this season in a political rally or debate

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Musical Boca Bound Is Totally For Condo Dwellers It Portrays

The world premiere of the musical Boca Bound written by, about and for well-heeled senior condo residents of what is called here a “country club” summons up a raft of adjectives intermittently applicable: cute, charming, funny, and yes, entertaining if you happen to be a senior condo dweller. It’s also predictable, not terribly subtle, clichéd, not especially engaging and wouldn’t succeed anywhere other than the Tampa-St. Pete condo circuit.

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Silver Palm Awards To Honor 26 Recipients In November

The South Florida Silver Palm Theatre Awards, founded twelve years ago to honor theatrical excellence in South Florida, has announced 26 individuals and organizations receiving the honor November 4.

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Breaking News: Maltz Theatre Withdraws From Carbonells

The Maltz Jupiter Theatre, one of the state’s most artistically and fiscally successful companies, has withdrawn its upcoming shows from consideration for Carbonell Awards for the coming season. The Carbonell board interpreted a brief letter from company to mean that it did not want its past productions from calendar year 2019 to be considered either.

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Matilda Will Charm The Kids, But Will Resonate With Their Folks

Area Stage Company’s Matilda is not really a children’s musical, although children will have a fine time when they are not storing up nightmarish images for future midnights. Matilda’s witty lyrics, satirical jibes and a multi-level script with psychological overtones are really aimed at those parents bringing their children.

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Ideals Prevail Over Darkness In MNM’s Man Of La Mancha

When Man of La Mancha is performed as well as MNM Theatre Company’s production, then the magic is savoring how the innate worth of ideals ultimately prevails over an all-too-recognizable world of violence and evil. Its message does not ignore the profound power of darkness, it avers that its virtues can transcend the darkness, and that their pursuit is an informed choice.

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JCAT Drives Home ‘Miss Daisy’s’ Relevance To Our Times

There are plays that you may have seen ithat, when you experience them in today’s environment, bring more of a tear then they might have 10 years ago. This is the experience with JCAT’s Driving Miss Daisy — an underlying reality that some of the experiences that many of us thought, probably Alfred Uhry, too, when he wrote it in 1987, would be reflective are once again front and center.

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Report From New York: You’ve Never Seen Oklahoma! Like This

Sitting in Circle In The Square’s deep-thrust proscenium-less theater, it’s inescapable that director Daniel Fish and his team have gone way, way out of their way to let you know that this is (to repeat an oft-used phrase) not your grandma’s Oklahoma! — even before the show starts, and then aggressively tossing paradigm-shifting trope-trashing curve balls at the audience.

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