Author Archives: Bill Hirschman

Promethean’s Swan Song, The Unseen, Is A Hell Of An Exit.

The cruel irony is that The Unseen, the last show before The Promethean Theatre closes its doors forever, is one of the finest productions that the company has mounted in its eight-year history. Craig Wright’s tale depicting two political prisoners tortured in a Kafkaesque dungeon is one of the most incisive explorations of existentialism since Waiting For Godot and No Exit. But the script is elevated to agonizing, visceral life by actors Antonio Amadeo, Andrew Wind and Alex Alvarez, led by the inestimable insight of director Margaret M. Ledford.

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M Ensemble’s Harlem Duet Is Thought-Provoking But Wildly Uneven Look at Race and Sex

Playwright Djanet Sears has crafted an intriguing contemplation of the intersection of the macro issue of race on the micro-dynamics of an individual marriage in Harlem Duet. But Sears’ insightful script gets a hodgepodge treatment in M Ensemble’s production. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Lowell Williams, this edition is by turns subtle and overly-melodramatic, illuminating and opaque, clear and confusing.

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Briefs: Summer Shorts Preview, Maltz Auditions Kids, Lauren Feldman Premieres New Work

Shorts Stuff Want a peek at some of the 10-minute plays under consideration for City Theatre’s annual Summer Shorts program? Joseph Adler is hosting a reading at 7 p.m. Monday of some of the playlets, with talkback sessions slated after …

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Billy Elliot Mines Imaginative Staging, Superb Choreography

With its flights of imagination – literally, since the hero imagines himself soaring — Billy Elliot, The Musical is a triumph of theatrical staging. If this road tour at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts is not overwhelmingly moving, it remains one of the most thoroughly entertaining musicals to pass through here in some time.

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In The Heights, Godspell Slated As Part of Actors Playhouse 2012-2013 Anniversary Season

Actors Playhouse’s 2012-2013 season will feature something old, something new, something you may have heard of but likely never seen, and something only the playwright’s mother is aware of — and all intriguing: In The Heights, Godspell, Fox on the Runway and The Last Five Years

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GableStage’s A Steady Rain is a Deluge of Great Acting

The bond between two friends is tested by their own morality and betrayal in A Steady Rain by Keith Huff, now making in southeastern premiere at GableStage in Coral Gables. Together,actors Gregg Weiner and Todd Allen Durkin create a riveting pas de deux that is not to be missed.

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Working Is A Successful Labor of Love At Caldwell Theatre

  By Michelle F. Solomon When Grammy-winning composer Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Wicked, Pippin) first adapted Studs Terkel’s 1974 book Working for Chicago’s Goodman Theatre it was 1977. Terkel’s book was an oral history of working life; its complete title was …

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Promethean Takes Final Bow “Because It’s Time” — And Lack of Donor Support

In the sense that economics are the root cause, observers might group The Promethean Theatre’s imminent closing with the high profile problems plaguing other South Florida theaters during the past year.

But co-founder Deborah L. Sherman makes a distinction. The eight-year-old theater in Davie is closing in the black, before it owes a dime, and, most important to her, while the quality of its productions allows her colleagues to hold up their heads with pride.

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High at Parker Playhouse Finds Salvation in Kathleen Turner

There’s no taking your eyes off of Kathleen Turner for a minute as she commands the stage in Matthew Lombardo’s addiction-focused play High. While the star vehicle has some fairly unexceptional dialogue and a clichéd plot, which certainly contributed to its closing on Broadway a mere five days after it opened last April, Turner uses all the tricks in her veteran actress’s tool box to ensure that her audience hangs on every line. And they do. But while she is a force to be reckoned with in her role of the foul-mouthed, unconventional Sister Jamison “Jamie” Connelly, it’s not enough to lift High to angelic proportions.

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Kathleen Turner’s Commitment to Play About Addiction Stems From Her Own Past

Kathleen Turner doesn’t shy from acknowledging that her devotion to the play High, a harrowing look at the world of addiction, is somewhat rooted in her own battle with alcoholism. “I think I have some information,” she said with wry understatement on Tuesday, the day before she opens the play at the Parker Playhouse in Fort Lauderdale. “I certainly was abusing alcohol when I was fighting RA (rheumatoid arthritis.).”

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