Performances
Miami New Drama Offers Free Season Opener “A Special Day”
What better way to mark the return of live, in-person theater than to celebrate the major role that an audience’s imagination plays in this unique art form? In fact, the professional, nonprofit Miami New Drama (MIND) is offering audiences free admission to a return engagement of the Mexico City and New York-based, nonprofit company Por Piedad Teatro’s production of A Special Day.
Swirling Realities Within Realities In Gay-Themed ‘Twentieth Century Way’
The Twentieth Century Way creates intersecting, overlapping realities in Island City Stage’s celebration of its 10th season by restaging its 2012 inaugural play. This thought-provoker melds questions about people acknowledging their true identity, amalgamating actors in general hiding behind their roles, and gay men hiding their sexuality from a homophobic society and themselves.
Racial Issues Permeate Main Street’ Players’ ‘Shakespeare is a White Supremacist’
The premise: A white director leads a multi-ethnic cast in a Midsummer’s Night as an answer to charges of institutional racism. But with wry humor and painfully incisive drama, Main Street Players’ edition of Andrew Watring’s “Shakespeare is a White Supremacist” examines the intersection of theater and racism as a metaphor for larger problems afflicting society in 21st Century America.
Despite The 10-Foot Star, ‘Mastodon’ Not Just Child’s Play
Yes, there is broad humor, over-the-top characters, cartoonish sets, a fairy tale vibe and a 10-foot tall puppet, but Theatre Lab makes it clear that Rachel Teagle’s world premiere script of The Impracticality of Modern-Day Mastodons is not children’s theater, but an adult evaluation of dreams.
Hilarious, Moving ‘Fuacata’ Returns Even More Relevant
Fuácata! has been tweaked by star Elena Maria Garcia and director Stuart Meltzer with references to non-binary, Uber and “draining the swamp.” But the exuberantly hilarious and moving work from 2017 already had elements echoing the subsequent rise of #MeToo, hardening of ingrained bigotry, explosion of immigration crises, renewed uproar over Cuba and other topics. This production at Actors’ Playhouse is cause for celebration.
Main Street Players’ Wolf & Badger Wrestles With Post-Recession, Pre-Trump America
The ghosts of O’Neill and Shepard creak the floorboards of Main Street Players’ Wolf & Badger, the latest exorcism of filial trauma from New Jersey playwright Michael John McGoldrick. Unfolding in 90 minutes of real time, MSP’s first production since the pandemic is a story of brotherly conflict as old as Cain and Abel as well as a contemporary portrait of late capitalism in decline,
Area Stage’s Inventive Rethink Of Annie Is Fresh and Engaging
Young, visionary director Giancarlo Rodaz’s winning approach in Area Stage Company’s current unorthodox, yet triumphant production of the classic musical Annie features eight adult actors playing all roles in a stripped down environment in the round.
Slavery & Mythos of the West Haunt M Ensemble’s Cowboy
M Ensemble’s production of Layon Gray’s Cowboy is everything audiences expect of a rousing western, but it’s also an inherent indictment. It is not of little significance that the play is presented with entirely Black actors in a genre that has only recently begun to welcome melanin in its ensembles.
Bright Colors Is Manic Tour de Force for Island City Stage
Drew Droege’s Bright Colors and Bold Patterns deftly avoids common tropes of the solo show in its compulsively watchable regional premiere at Island City Stage, a fringe festival-style tour de force for actor Thomas Mark.
JCAT’s A Class Act Is Pretty Black & White Day In Court
The line in the legal play A Class Act, ““For the right money, I’d settle with Hitler,” stands out as much as it does because the virtuous play and JCAT’s heavy-handed production are otherwise absent this moral slipperiness, favoring a reductive arc of cardboard villains earning their comeuppance.
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