Author Archives: Bill Hirschman
Misbegotten Sound Quality Cripples Outre’s Admirable Attempt To Do The Wild Party
Tragedy suffused opening night at Outré Theatre Company’s inaugural production of the dark musical The Wild Party, but it wasn’t the story of Jazz Age hedonists plummeting through a doomed love quadrangle. It was so many hard-working artists’ work going down the toilet because of the worst sound of any production since Actors Playhouse’s infamous Hairspray last season.
Outre Theatre’s First Show Is Challenging ‘The Wild Party’
Some troupes ease into existence with a modest, surefire and frugal first full production. Not Outré Theater Company. South Florida’s newest professional company bows Friday with Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party. The 2000 off-Broadway cult hit combines a brilliant but edgy Jazz Age score with a jet black story of self-destructive hedonists in the 1920s who indulge in virtually every vice imaginable.
MTC’s Inventive Staging Of Chekhov’s Three Sisters Is By Turns Brilliant And Bothersome
Miami Theater Center’s inaugural adult project, a fresh vision of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, is not a smoothly gelling work of art, let alone entertainment. The flaws are considerable, persistent and cannot be discounted. But they are outweighed by sustained bursts of dazzling imagination, passion, skill, craft, ingenuity and a commitment to creating a unique theatrical experience.
Mosaic’s Birds Is Insightful Sociological Drama Not Hitchcockian Thriller
Cannily, there is not a feather in sight during the entire 85-minute The Birds at the Mosaic Theatre — appropriate because the subject is not an eerie avian apocalypse, but how humanity reacts under extreme pressure. Conor McPherson’s adaptation is far more a sociological morality tale than Daphne du Maurier’s 1952 suspenseful novelette or Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 pure thriller.
News: Stage Door, AAPACT & Demos-Brown’s Allapattah
Someone Must Have Said, “Macbeth” Backstage The opening of Broward Stage Door’s return engagement of the bittersweet comedy Six Dance Lessons In Six Weeks was postponed last week when actress Phyllis Spear fell off the stage in dress rehearsal. The …
Catch Me If You Can Entertains But Won’t Stick With You
Once upon the 1960s, there existed theatrical offerings on Broadway unapologetically called the tired businessman’s musical. They were well-made, well-executed but unassuming diversions that left audiences feeling they had been transiently entertained if not especially moved, inspired or provoked to reflection. Ironically set in the same period, the 2011 musical Catch Me If You Can unintentionally qualifies for the category as evidenced by the peppy road show making its South Florida debut at the Kravis Center’s stand-alone Broadway series.
Comic Actor Don McArt, Stalwart At Royal Palm Dinner Theatre, Dies In Boca Hospice
Comic actor Don McArt, visually memorable for his short stature and prominent ears, as well as his frequent appearances with his sister Jan McArt, died Tuesday in a hospice in Boca Raton.
Long Night’s Journey Into Day: The 24-Hour Theatre Project
It’s likely a goodly number of actors, directors and certainly some playwrights slept in late this morning. They earned it. Many spent 7 p.m. Sunday to 10 p.m. Monday being creative at gunpoint. In other words, the sixth 24 Hour Theatre Project benefiting The Naked Stage has now melted in ephemeral history other than some digital photos and dog-eared scripts.
Art Transforms Lives In Thinking Cap Theatre’s Haunting The Drawer Boy
The bonds of friendship and the power of art to transform lives are illustrated in The Drawer Boy by Michael Healey, now receiving a lovely production at Thinking Cap Theatre in Fort Lauderdale.
Tarell Alvin McCraney’s American Premiere Of His New Antony and Cleopatra At GableStage In 2014
Tarell Alvin McCraney, the Miami-raised playwright who has forged an international reputation, is bringing a new Haitian-flavored adaptation of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra to GableStage in January 2014. The American premiere will be sandwiched between its world debut at the Royal Shakespeare Company in November 2013 and its subsequent co-production at The Public Theater in New York City in late January 2014.
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