Author Archives: Bill Hirschman
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.
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 …
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.
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.
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.
Color Blind Casting Poses No Obstacle To Filipino-American Dancing As British Billy Elliot
Initially, it’s impossible to ignore that 15-year-old actor J.P. Viernes leaping and soaring through the musical Billy Elliot is not a typical youngster in a downtrodden unsophisticated mining village in northeast England in the 1980s. John Peter Viernes, with a broad grin and flashing eyes, is inescapably a Filipino-American with caramel-colored skin and half-moon eyes. But by all accounts, his infectious charisma, joyous dancing and sheer acting skills successfully banish most audience members’ resistance to the color-blind casting within a few minutes.
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