General

Box Score: Folded Companies Since 1975, Recent Start Ups

The ever-morphing statuses and a lack of historical records guarantee that the following lists will be incomplete or even inaccurate. If you have additional or more accurate information, please email us at bill@floridatheateronstage.com and we’ll update this. PROFESSIONAL/PRODUCING THEATER COMPANIES …

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Arsht’s The Donkey Show Is A Midsummer Night’s….

By Bill Hirschman Reviewing The Donkey Show is irrelevant. The immersive multi-media experience at the Arsht Center joyfully cross-dressing as spectacle-drenched theater is about surrender, not analysis. A nearly naked aerialist spins above your head from a net before miming …

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FGO’s Romeo et Juliette Has Fine Soprano And Staging But Won’t Touch Your Heart

Florida Grand Opera’s incarnation of Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette under the direction of David Lefkowich is an inventively staged, well-acted mounting of this stark take on Shakespeare’s classic. But like FGO’s other essays on love this season such as La Rondine, Luisa Fernandez and Rigoletto, the technically admirable production starring Maria Alejandres and Sebastien Gueze isn’t likely to quicken the pulse of the audience.

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Last Call Is Worth Dropping In For Before Closing Time

In Last Call, it’s the patrons who sit and listen to the bartender talk about her life. Turns out the bartender is more fascinating and better company than her customers ever could be. The world premiere of Terri Girvin’s funny and even touching tour through the interior life of someone people take for granted is a modest gem worthy of dropping in at faux tavern inside the tiny Empire Stage.

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Plaza Theatre in Manalapan to Honor Caldwell Tickets

A second Palm Beach County theater will honor tickets to its own shows in exchange for tickets to the Caldwell Theater Company’s last show of the season which was cancelled last week. The Plaza Theatre, a new company that opened in the former home of Florida Stage in Manalapan, will redeem tickets from the Caldwell’s Our Lady of Allapattah show with admission to its current production of Music! Music! Music!

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On the Boards Podcasts: Slow Burn’s Fitzwater and Korinko

We initiate a new feature this week: A series of podcasts interviews produced by Arts Radio Network featuring Florida Theater On Stage’s Bill Hirschman interviewing region theater figures in Palm Beach County. While some interviews are tied to upcoming or current projects, each tries to dig deeper into the rich South Florida theater scene. The production is engineered by Arts Radio co-founder John C. Watts. It is also available at http://artsradionetwork.com/

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Talkin’ in the Green Room With: Stuart Meltzer

In this edition, we visit with Stuart Meltzer who is currently fine-tuning the world premiere production of Michael McKeever’s Moscow which opens Friday at the Arsht Center. Meltzer is both artistic director and one of four artists who co-founded Zoetic Stage in 2010.

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M Ensemble’s Harlem Duet Is Thought-Provoking But Wildly Uneven Look at Race and Sex

Playwright Djanet Sears has crafted an intriguing contemplation of the intersection of the macro issue of race on the micro-dynamics of an individual marriage in Harlem Duet. But Sears’ insightful script gets a hodgepodge treatment in M Ensemble’s production. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lowell Williams, this edition is by turns subtle and overly-melodramatic, illuminating and opaque, clear and confusing.

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GableStage’s A Steady Rain is a Deluge of Great Acting

The bond between two friends is tested by their own morality and betrayal in A Steady Rain by Keith Huff, now making in southeastern premiere at GableStage in Coral Gables. Together,actors Gregg Weiner and Todd Allen Durkin create a riveting pas de deux that is not to be missed.

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Theater Shelf: Show Tunes, Comic Operas and Singers Gordon MacRae & Howard Keel

Theater Shelf, a recurring feature, will review recently-released books, CDs and DVDs of interest to theater lovers. Some will be popular titles like a new Original Cast Recording, others will be works you’ll be intrigued by but didn’t even know about. Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers – Fourth Edition

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