Author Archives: Bill Hirschman
Report From New York: I’ve Never Been To Spain, But I’ve Been to Madrid With Edie Falco
I expended so much effort at Liz Flahive’s The Madrid at the Manhattan Theatre Club desperately trying to get my metaphorical arms around the shape and meaning of this play about a runaway wife that I failed to take many notes. I also failed to see why this passable script was mounted other than Flahive is a producer on TV’s Nurse Jackie, which stars The Madrid’s headliner, Edie Falco.
Report From New York: Tyson Rewarding In Trip To Bountiful
It’s rare that color blind casting is truly color blind. What happens so smoothly and appropriately in the Broadway revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip To Bountiful, is that a play about a white Texas farmer who seeks to reclaim the soul she lost moving to Houston in the early 1950s is, in fact, a perfect and effortless fit with a primarily African American cast. This edition is helped immeasurably that the part of Carrie Watts, the 88-year-old heroine who runs away from a stifling life relying on her son and daughter-law – is played by the dead solid 79-year-old Cicely Tyson.
Play Reading Series Kick Off At Plaza Theatre & Playgroup LLC
At The Plaza The Plaza Theatre in Manalapan will inaugurate Fresh Pages, a series of staged readings of new and unpublished scripts, at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 29, with the new comedy Can I Really Date a Guy Who Wears …
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.
AAPACT’s Anne & Emmett Finds Footing In Common Ground
Janet Langhart Cohen’s play, Anne & Emmett, this notion of imagination and introduction paves the way for a stirring play about intolerance and two people from decidedly different backgrounds who discover that they share a lot more in common than they or the audience could ever imagine, presented by the African American Performing Arts Community Theatre, Inc.
Priscilla Is Certified Silly Hoot, Dressed To The Nines, Tens, Elevens And Way, Way Beyond
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, is just an extravagant, downright silly and infectiously entertaining hoot, a gay fantasia – as in Disney’s Fantasia – playing for only one week at the Arsht Center in Miami before moving at the end of the month to the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.
FGO’s La Traviata Surprisingly Well-Acted As Well As Sung
The surprising virtue of Florida Grand Opera’s 11th retelling of Verdi’s La Traviata is that for all the performers singing high E’s at the top of their lungs, all the falling to their knees in sorrow or illness, for all the oversized passions, it’s believable.
Stage Door’s Jeffrey Feels Dated, But Funny And Touching
It’s weird but wonderful that two full decades after the height of the AIDS crisis that Paul Rudnick’s touching but hilarious satire Jeffrey now revived at Miami Beach Stage Door Theatre feels a bit like a period piece. The reason Jeffrey still works, Rudnick’s uninhibited wicked wit aside, is that the underlying themes are universal and timeless.
Theater Shelf: Drood, Bway to West End, Gilbert & Sullivan
Theater Shelf, a recurring feature, reviews recently-released books, CDs and DVDs of interest to theater lovers. Some are popular titles like a new Original Cast Recording, others are works you’ll be intrigued by, but didn’t even know about. By Brad …
Breaking News: Coconut Grove Playhouse Moves A Step Closer, But Debts Threaten Future
The creation of a new theater on the site of the Coconut Grove Playhouse came one step closer at midnight Monday when the state’s lease application process closed with only one party expressing interest — a partnership among Florida International University, Miami-Dade County and GableStage. But pending lawsuits threaten the future of the deal.
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