Tag Archives: Palm Beach Dramaworks

New Dramaworks Play Honors Life of Extraordinary Gertrude Berg, The Real ‘Molly Goldberg’

Awe is not a quality you usually hear in the voices of theater pros when they describe the central character in a work. But that is the sense listening to director William Hayes, playwright Joseph McDonough and actress Elizabeth Dimon talking about Gertrude Berg, the heroine of their world premiere this month, Ordinary Americans at Palm Beach Dramaworks.

Posted on December 3, 2019 by Bill Hirschman
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Dramaworks’ Streetcar Delivers Own Scalding Vision Of Classic

Even for Palm Beach Dramaworks, its A Streetcar Named Desire creates a category of its own with an emotionally scalding portrait of flawed human beings scraping each other raw until the inevitable tragedy erupts. But before that, almost chemically mismatched spirits reach out in desperation, fence for position, attack each other, embrace each other and execute a dozen other choreographies in this edition of Tennessee William’s iconic classic

Posted on October 15, 2019 by Bill Hirschman
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News Roundup: Dramaworks, Jan McArt / Lois Pope, Wick, Playgroup LLC, Slow Burn

Lots of news about Palm Beach Dramaworks’ new play festival, Lois Pope teams up with Jan McArt, Playgroup LLC to close, fundraisers for Slow Burn, GableStage and Insight for the Blind

Posted on October 3, 2019 by Bill Hirschman
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Funny & Tragic Pursuit Of Fame In The House Of Blue Leaves

The House of Blue Leaves gets as funny and touching a production from Palm Beach Dramaworks as anyone can ask for. Its virtues include superb direction, a flawless creative team and a wall-to-wall cast of actor-clowns willing to bury themselves inside the off-kilter and flawed characters.

Posted on May 18, 2019 by Bill Hirschman
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An Absurdist Take On Celebrity Worship At PB Dramaworks

Palm Beach Dramaworks is reviving the funny, poignant The House of Blue Leaves about a Queens family whose life is turned inside out when the Pope visits NYC in 1965. Ordinary people spurred by the papal visit will seek validation of their own worth by pursuing celebrity for themselves – or at least vicariously by their idol worship.

Posted on May 14, 2019 by Bill Hirschman
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Dramaworks’ Fences Rages Against The Dying Of The Light

In Palm Beach Dramaworks’ triumphant production of August Wilson’s Fences, this Troy Maxson rages. Whether this physical kinetic Troy is delivering a defiant challenge to death, railing at the racial prejudice that has undercut his dreams, or privately excoriating his own guilt for making destructive choices — this Troy unleashes a lifetime of festering wrath in a basement barrel baritone.

Posted on April 5, 2019 by Bill Hirschman
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Actor Returns To Fences To Explore New Vulnerability

Last July, Lester Purry had just finished playing the volcanic Troy Maxson in August Wilson’s most popular play Fences at Portland Playhouse in Oregon. “I told my wife, I’m never doing this play again,” he recalled last week. Then the phone rang.

Posted on March 27, 2019 by Bill Hirschman
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Dramaworks’ Spitfire Grill Is One Of The Season’s Finest Musicals

When was the last time a musical slipped into your veins and rode your bloodstream for two hours? When did a musical speak so accurately of your own pain and longing that you knew you were not alone? With The Spitfire Grill, Palm Beach Dramaworks has gifted South Florida with one of the most heartfelt, moving evenings of musical theater in recent years.

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Bill Hirschman
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Palm Beach Dramaworks And Theatre Lab To Host New Play Festivals On The Same Weekend

South Florida will reinforce its commitment to new play development in January with two simultaneous new play reading festivals at Palm Beach Dramaworks and FAU Theatre Lab during the first weekend of the year.

Posted on December 28, 2018 by Bill Hirschman
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Painful Drama, Absurdist Comedy Commingle In Dramaworks’ House on Fire

The script and the production of Palm Beach Dramworks need some refining, but when it’s most in the pocket, the world premiere of Lyle Kessler’s House on Fire dances a delicate pas de deux between comedy and tragedy, tension and levity, verisimilitude and whimsy, operating in its own subgenre of magic realism aka screwball existentialism.

Posted on December 11, 2018 by Bill Hirschman
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