Author Archives: Bill Hirschman

Report From New York: Be Glad To Have Kristin Chenoweth Aboard On The 20th Century

We’re back from our trip to New York to scout out productions you might want to see (or not), shows that might tour South Florida and scripts that might be worth reviving in our regional theaters. We will run our reviews intermittently …

Posted in General | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report From New York: Inky Comedy Hand To God Is Riveting, Riotous And Deeply Unnerving

“Dark comedy” usually refers to a blithely cynical or whistling-past-the-graveyard attitude, but in the hilarious and unnerving Hand To God the darkness is pure visceral evil.

Posted in Performances | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Report From New York: Something Rotten Is Far From It

From Elizabethan actors lining up ala A Chorus Line with oil paintings for their headshots, to a preening rock star Shakespeare spouting his greatest hits to a sycophantic crowd, Something Rotten is a non-stop unabashed hoot of silly, sophomoric, sometimes simply stupid feast of unalloyed hilarity.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Theatre League Offers Free Readings All Summer And Free Tickets To Fully-Staged Plays

Ticket prices are not an obstacle to interested theatergoers once again this summer through the South Florida Theatre League’s annual Summer Theatre Fest that provides free tickets to major productions and new plays in development by South Florida playwrights. There …

Posted in News | Tagged | 3 Comments

Fine Cast Still Can’t Make Book Club Much Of A Page Turner

Professionalism is the only explanation why this much talent—the cream of South Florida theater from the director to the cast to the creative team — invested itself so deeply into the flawed frippery of The Book Club Play at Actors’ Playhouse.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bell Book And Candle Only Intermittently Casts A Spell

Broward Stage Door’s quite serviceable but not bewitching production of this 1951 fantasy love story doesn’t feel especially magical in the first act, but it locates the right bag of pixie dust in the second act to show why director Michael Leeds wanted to do the play.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Student Critics and Thespians Honored At 13th Annual Cappies

The Critics’ Awards Program, or Cappies, recognizing outstanding achievement in high school theater at the 13th Annual Cappies Awards Gala were held Tuesday at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

Posted in News | Tagged | Leave a comment

Dramaworks’ “Lady Day” Is A Tour De Force Play With Music

Veil after veil are slowly stripped away from the elegant sophisticated stage persona that is “Billie Holiday” until standing exposed is a blunted devastated victim of racism, sexism and abuse – some imposed and some self-inflicted — in Palm Beach Dramaworks’ incisive Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Affair In Reverse Provides Thoughtful Fodder In Betrayal

If God is omniscient, He must be inconsolably sad. Zoetic Stage’s superb production of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal puts its audience in that poignant and painful position in which Knowledge is, indeed, the poisoned apple in Eden.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report From New York: Fun Home Is Profound Look Back At Who And What Made Us

After love, compassion has to be the highest virtue of humanity. That tender melding of sympathy and forgiveness for human failings and their resulting tragedy suffuse the transcendent musical Fun Home, a front runner for the Best Musical Tony and numerous others.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment