Tag Archives: Sally Bondi
Raucous ‘Women In Assembly’ Reflects An Unique Vision
Thinking Cap’s world premiere, Women In Assembly, is a satirical comedy credited to Aristophanes but transmuted into a bawdy irreverent satire about Greek women taking over government and reshaping it to their saner philosophies. It’s awash in inventive staging and the cast’s energy, but the riffs go on long after the underlying point is made.
Heartfelt Performances Elevate Thinking Cap’s Patsy Cline
Savoring the pungent joy and sorrow of Always…Patsy Cline does not require the audience to love the Eisenhower Era musical moment when country-western music began morphing into pop-rock. You just have to surrender to the skill and enthusiasm flooding Thinking Cap Theatre’s production inaugurating The Vanguard Sanctuary of the Arts venue in Fort Lauderdale.
The Last Romance At Stage Door Twinkles With Realism
Broward Stage Door Theatre has mounted a warmly delightful production of Joe Di Pietro’s The Last Romance, a bittersweet play about love, loss and loneliness and how the twilight years hold out that last hope for the shimmer, twinkle and spark of love’s first bliss.
Thinking Cap’s Absurdist Dramedy Lets Sleeping Dogs Die
Thinking Cap’s U.S. premiere of Sarah Kosar’s Hot Dog comes across as a mean-spirited hate letter to a dying parent whose time can’t come soon enough. It’s a play about caring, yet we hardly care about anyone in it.
Another Openin’ Another Show, Another Openin’ Another Show, And Another Openin’ Another….
The snowbirds have gone home, but South Florida theater never seems to go dark these days. This year-round trend has never been clearer than right now with a calendar is jammed with an overwhelming cornucopia of options over the next two or three weeks. Here’s an incomplete overview:
Showbiz Lampoon Ruthless Is A Bit Long, But Wickedly Funny
Everything about Ruthless! The Musical at Actors Playhouse from dripping furs to the Ethel Merman voices, everything is over the top. Way over the top. Thank goodness. Well, actually, don’t thank goodness. Ruthless is a gleefully uninhibited celebration of greed, venality, ambition and ego. In other words, show business.
Stage Door’s 46th Revival Of Beau Jest Remains Funny
There’s a reason, as seen in Broward Stage Door’s revival, that Beau Jest has survived for so long. . Despite a sentimental mechanical finale and humor so vaudevillian you can hear the rim shots, James Sherman’s may be script may be formulaic but it’s also truly funny, especially when enhanced by the skills of star Matthew William Chizever and director Michael Leeds.
BRTG’s Chicago Is Entertaining But Needs More Razzle Dazzle
A muted clarinet makes beautiful music, but sometimes what’s called for is the blare of a clarion trumpet and the insolent snap of a snare drum. That’s the problem facing the almost but never quite satisfying Boca Raton Theatre Guild production of the Kander & Ebb musical Chicago.
This Show Boat Has Lovely Music But Uninspiring Acting
Warm, full-singing voices swiftly carry a happy audience down the Mississippi through a glorious score in Broward Stage Door’s Show Boat, but the acting and directing are so pedestrian that they rob the masterpiece of the magic it is capable of delivering. The magic is missing because Show Boat is more than its music. Still, audiences just wanting to hear Kern’s rich melody and sweeping underscoring tied to Hammerstein’s deceptively simple but deeply evocative lyrics will relish what Stage Door has wrought.
Promethean’s Boeing Boeing is a Door-Slamming Chuckle
Boeing Boeing is a 1962 farce with doors that slam, swing, shut slowly, burst open in ones, twos and probably threes. Promethean Theatre and its house director Margaret M. Ledford, benter new territory with an out and out comedy that requires skill and discipline. As proven by the copious laughter in the hall, they acquit themselves well.