Reviews

Glad To Be Conned By Stage Door’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

It’s a genuine compliment when a critic doesn’t particularly look forward to a show based on past productions and recordings – and then reassesses his antipathy based on seeing a fresh new production. So it’s saying something that Broward Stage Door’s Dity Rotten Scoundrels is a pleasing romp.

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GableStage’s Admissions Asks Liberals What Happens When It’s Your Own Ox Being Gored?

GableStage’s Admissions is one of the more uncomfortable evenings of theater that avowed liberals and proud progressives will sit through any time soon. It holds up an unsparing mirror that asks whether such advocates will stay true to their ideals when the consequences directly affect them and their families.

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Dracula’s Prey At Zoetic: No Helpless Fainting Victims Here

In Zoetic Stage’s premiere Dracula, the vampire is a sexist pig (as are several men in the play). The protagonists are strong-willed proto-feminists. Together, they embody a society struggling with re-envisioning what self-empowered women can and should be. Michael McKeever’s script as directed by Stuart Meltzer presents social commentary told with droll, wry and self-aware humor, and the retelling of the classic horror narrative.

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Lightning Bolt Returns Again To Little Shop & Audrey II Too

Lightning Bolt Productions,’ Little Shop of Horrors delivers yet another merry recreation of one of the most amusing small musicals in the canon: an intentionally silly, unapologetically unsubtle hoot. If you haven’t seen in it in a while or, hard to believe, haven’t seen it at all, Lightning Bolt’s ebullient edition is a perfect reason to visit or re-visit Skid Row.

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Colored Museum’s Incisive Satire Could Not Be Better Timed

A thrilling cast and an impossibly talented young director from the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center mine all the raucous mirth and underlying blues in George C. Wolfe’s stinging social satire with music in The Colored Museum to depict the complex African-American experience and contemporary efforts to deal with its legacy.

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Friendship, Revelation, Determination Are Hallmarks of The Ladies Foursome

The Pigs Do Fly company, dedicated to work by and for people over 50 years old, examines women’s issues during a day on the golf course in the full-length play The Ladies Foursome.

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MNM Recalls The Music In My Way, A Tribute To Frank Sinatra

Instead of attempting the impossible task for imitating Ol’ Blue Eyes, MNM Theatre Company’s My Way, A Tribute to Frank Sinatra, is a solid, polished, thoroughly entertaining stroll through 58, yes 58, of the songs closely associated with his career

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Sound Problems Cripple Earnest Measure For Measure’s 35mm

It doesn’t matter how beautifully these performers sing with strength and skill, no matter how tight the bands, no matter how much energy flows , if a musical is primarily a song cycle reliant on storytelling, you have to be able to understand the lyrics. Measure For Measure Theatre’s production of 35mm has all the above strengths, but tragically the audience Sunday could not understand two-thirds of the words.

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D&D Heroines Vs. Demons In Area Stage’s She Kills Monsters

She Kills Monsters is a dramatic comedy given an inventive and enthusiastic production by Area Stage Company — a show proudly described as “theater for nerds,” or more accurately, for young adults raised on video games who have infused their fantasy life into every cranny not reluctantly committed to jobs, family and responsibilities in general.

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Thinking Cap’s Crooked Captures The Pain of Adolescence And The Pain Of Being A Parent

Thinking Cap Theatre’s Crooked superbly captures the fear, confusion and pain of being an adolescent – and the same fear, confusion and pain struggling to raise one. With vibrant performances expertly directed, its an absorbing, moving and shattering journey that touches on religion, sexual awakening, and especially the prickly but prevailing mother-daughter relationship.

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