Tag Archives: Eric Alsford

Zoetic’s Cabaret a game changer

  By Oline Cogdill When the John Kander/Fred Ebb musical Cabaret opened on Broadway in 1966, it was a gamechanger in its staging, tone and story. Certainly, other musicals tackled politics in specific eras—such as Sound of Music (1959) and …

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Folk-County Music & Soaring Actress Power Actors’ Playhouse’s Bright Star

Actors Playhouse’s lively Bright Star is a folk-country fable replete with spirited dances, classic character types, a genuine respect for everyday folk, and, ultimately, a moral about bedrock virtues persevering over profound tragedy. But this production’s strengths are its banjo-and-fiddle bluegrass score and its soaring performance by Kimberly Doreen Burns.

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Like the Jersey Boys Sang, ‘Oh, What A Night’ at the Maltz

Much of the audience at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s opening night of Jersey Boys was its traditional well-heeled well-coiffed crowd. But their increasingly unfettered applause, then cheers, then standing ovation while clapping to their music reflected a specific message. “Our time, our music, our youth mattered.”

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Maltz Reopens With Welcome Cons of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Sometimes all you want out of an evening of theater is not Lear or Seurat. But just fun. Escapist laughter-laden fun. Dovetailing with the re-opening of the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, the daffy musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a welcome distraction from headlines and deadlines.

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Songs for a New World Is A Welcome Return For Theater

Jason Robert Brown’s brilliantly insightful and emotionally powerful Songs for a New World lets you know you’re not going crazy all alone in Slow Burn Theatre’s season opener that would be a triumph even if it didn’t signify a full-throated celebratory return of regional theater.

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MNM’s Online Filmed ‘Closer Than Ever’ Touches The Heart

MNM Theatre Company’s filmed cyber-distributed pandemic production of Closer Than Ever needs no excuses, no politely lowered expectations. Just as it would if produced live in an intimate venue, this effort mesmerizes and moves with the emotional power of performers acting this song cycle rather than performing them as if they were in a cabaret setting.

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MNM’s Closer Than Ever Staged Six Feet Apart — And On Film

It’s not lost on anyone as these Florida actors sing ardent songs to each other — separated by six feet of stage — that the musical they are filming is titled Closer Than Ever. It’s impossible to ignore that resonance in MNM Theatre Company’s production currently being edited for online streaming release Nov. 27-Dec. 31.

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Coming: Hamlet in the A.M., MNM Gets Closer Than Ever, Lupone Sends A Live Concert

With exploratory baby steps, South Florida theater companies are staging events: A cut-down Hamlet by the Shakespeare Troupe, a filmed full production of Closer Than Ever by MNM, and Patti LuPone in a livestreamed concert for the Broward Center.

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Theater Artists Struggle With Unique Fears, Fallout And Uncertainty From Virus Drama

Six months into the pandemic, theater artists are struggling with a profoundly damaging dimension particular to their purgatory-like limbo: The calling that gives their lives meaning requires interaction with other people in the same room. Late this summer, 33 South Florida storytellers agreed to draw back the curtain on their backstage battles that form the spine of an all too real three-act drama.

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They’ve Got Rhythm: Wick’s Glorious Crazy For You

In 2019, if you want some idea what the original production of Crazy For You was like, or what those Depression Era musicals were like, live and in the flesh, settle in for The Wick Theatre’s glorious revival.

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