Tag Archives: Bruce Linser

MNM’s Grease Struts Its Stuff When The Music Starts

If you hire strong voices as they did in MNM Theatre Company’s production, the venerable musical Grease cannot help but be entertaining with its elbow-nudging pastiche of faux late ‘50s-early ‘60s rock n’ roll. The challenge in which MNM doesn’t prevail is finding the difficult to locate tone for the script scenes because Grease is not simply a straight ahead comedy as it’s played here.

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Stage Door’s La Cage Surely Entertains But Feels Lackluster

Broward Stage Door’s La Cage aux Folles stresses the universal virtues of love and loyalty, delivered with only a wry smile to acknowledge that its protagonists are an aging gay couple including one drag queen. While undeniably entertaining and featuring some rich voices, this edition is noticeably missing some of the pizzazz that the material requires to make it a memorable evening.

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Dramaworks Explores Enduring Relevance of a Plains Populist

Woody Guthrie’s American Song is most decidedly a people’s musical, at least in its vivifying production at Palm Beach Dramaworks is more of a communal hoedown with Guthrie’s music as the soundtrack. Even the songs about poverty, death and hard living hide notes of hope, if we can only come together to find them.

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MNM Theatre Co. Hosts A Welcome Return to Avenue Q

MNM Theatre ’s Avenue Q, the musical comedy with foul-mouthed and copulating puppets, has never been as clearly about education as now. It’s the curriculum about coping with disappointment waiting in the real world.
The drolly hilarious Avenue Q, being given a “fine, fine” outing by MNM, is also imbued with a quiet sadness and accompanying sympathy for the loss of hopeful naiveté.

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A Last Look Back At 2017, A Fine South Florida Theater Season

One pleasure of a theater critic’s job are these year-end retrospectives that require looking back at reviews and be reminded, “Oh, yeah, that was really great. And right, there was that. And how could I forget that one?”

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MNM’s Witty Little Shop of Horrors Is Open For Business

When entering a theater playing a musical you’ve enjoyed numerous times, it’s comforting to open the playbill to find the names of proven talents that reassure that you and the material are in good hands. Names, for instance, like Mike Westrich, Bruce Linser, Mallory Newbrough, Paul Reekie and Jim Ballard – some of the dependable hands delivering a solid entertaining edition of the delightful Little Shop of Horrors from MNM Productions.

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Wick’s Drowsy Chaperone Is A Sterling Send-up of Classic Bway

The Wick Theatre’s marvelous and contemplative rendition pulls off The Drowsy Chaperone with boundless charm and effortless sophistication. The Wick has enjoyed its share of highlights over the past five years, but this Drowsy Chaperone might just exceed its 42nd Street and Oklahoma! as the young company’s pinnacle.

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Company Has Shining Moments, Falls Short Of What Could Be

MNM’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s groundbreaking musical Company is intermittently lit with incandescent performances worth the price of admission by themselves, but the overall piece disappointingly lacks crispness, passion and, until the last 10 minutes, heart.

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News About Free Theater Fest, Speaking Shakespeare, Plus Honors And Appointments

Lots of news: South Florida Theatre League’s free Summer Theatre Fest, Curtain Call Playhouse is honored, City Theatre’s Margaret Ledford is promoted, Bruce Linser takes on a new job,and Peter Galman teaches Shakespeare

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Free Show Monday Of Snips Of Censored Plays & Musicals

What do Cabaret, Chicago, Fun Home, Almost Maine and Angels in America have in common? Somebody somewhere has banned their production at some point. To push back, Zoetic Stage and the Dramatists’ Guild Legal Defense Fund with the Adrienne Arsht Center is producing a free staged reading of Banned Together: A Censorship Cabaret at 7 p.m. Monday at the Carnival Studio Theater at the Arsht Center.

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