Author Archives: Bill Hirschman
Dear Adults: Matilda the Musical Is Much More Than Kids’ Fare
Matilda the Musical, with a national tour that’s made a stop at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, may star a cadre of kids, but it is no Annie. I say that in the most positive way possible. The thought of sitting through 2 ½ hours of a children’s show wasn’t on the top of my list, but from the opening number, Matilda zapped that idea right out of my head.
Houdini Defies Death One More Time In Return To The Arsht
(The following is an updated review from 2012 plus a feature story written about this same production’s original visit to the Arsht four years ago. Most of the cast is the same, but several magical effects have been tweaked or …
Women Rule Across The 1960s In The Wick’s Retro Revue Beehive
Beehive, yet another innocuous transitorily entertaining revue tracing music sung by women through the 1960s, highlights, intentionally or not, one trenchant observation. The same early Baby Boomers who started the decade enthusiastically singing along to Lesley Gore’s “It’s My Party” ended up wailing with Janis Joplin’s “Cry Baby.”
Slow Burn’s Aida May Not Top Your Wish List, But The Pop Opera Burns Down The House
If American Idol produced a Broadway musical with choreography often found behind a diva in a stadium tour, the result would resemble Slow Burn Theatre Company’s production of Aida. The result is often entertaining and occasionally moving. But the entire effort is unapologetically drenched in a late ‘90s pop sensibility that is by turns earnest and kitschy, insightful and shallow, deft and manipulative.
The Meaning Of Life’s A Joke In Evening Star’s Waiting For Godot
In Waiting For Godot, that classic of the Theater of the Absurd, nothing is more absurd than Man’s insistent search for some meaning in life. In Evening Star Productions’ courageous run at this Everest of a play, their response is broad comedy suffused into the intentionally pointless and protracted slog that is Beckett’s brilliant but unsettling manifesto of existentialism.
‘No Way To Treat A Lady,’ About A Serial Killer Is Just A Light Musical Comedy — Really
There have been few musicals about a homicidal maniac. As far as peppy musical comedies with the accent on comedy, there’s only been one about a schizophrenic serial killer, No Way To Treat A Lady. Broward Stage Door has taken on this off-beat tuner about a put-upon detective tracking a failed actor who dons different personas to get in the apartments of lonely ladies he plans to strangle.
MSP’s Marjorie Prime: A Second Chance To Say What Was Left Unsaid To Your Parents
Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime at Main Street Players posits 21st Century technology giving people a chance to say what was left unsaid, to finish unfinished business. The insightful script for the Pulitzer finalist will resonate deafeningly with Baby Boomers caring for parents edging into senility or who have already lost their parents.
Son At Island City Stage Deserves To Be Embraced
Just about two years after Island City Stage premiered Michael McKeever’s Daniel’s Husband and it currently playing off Broadway, Island City Stage takes on another world premiere play that has the makings of what could be a successful regional theater offering.
Theatre Lab Hosts 24-Hour Project To Aid New Play Festival
The future of the 24-Hour Theatre Project – a popular fund-raiser that cemented the theater community’s solidarity – seemed endangered when its founders, the Amadeos, announced they would be leaving the state. Enter the Theatre Lab, which will present Project on May 1 with the Amadeos’ blessing.
McKeever/Zoetic’s ‘After,’ GableStage’s ‘Royale’ Top Winners At 41st Carbonells
Michael McKeever, a beloved and prolific figure in local theater, set a record Monday when he won his eighth Best New Work at Monday’s Carbonell Awards for the scorching drama After, but he was unable to accept the honor personally because he was in New York City the night before the opening of his play Daniel’s Husband, which won the same prize last year.
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