Author Archives: Bill Hirschman
Open a New Window: The Future of Florida Theater – Part Two
One year into the global and personal tragedies, Florida theater has embraced the sole gift that the pandemic has given regional artists across the country: Unprecedented opportunity. Some call this an intermission, but, it’s more apt to use “reset” and “reboot.” We synthesize what will we see on regional stages, what could happen how theaters operate and what should happen to fix what is broken?
Open a New Window: The Future of Florida Theater – Part One
One year into the global and personal tragedies, Florida theater has embraced the sole gift that the pandemic has given regional artists across the country: Unprecedented opportunity. Some call this an intermission, but, it’s more apt to use “reset” and “reboot.” We synthesize what will we see on regional stages, what could happen how theaters operate and what should happen to fix what is broken?
Art Heist Mixes Crime Mystery With Interactive Theater
The Art Heist Experience is an interactive true-crime theater event inspired by the theft of 13 works of art worth $500 million from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. During the play, masked audience groups walk around the crime scene (staged separately in Broward and Miami-Dade counties), interviewing “suspects,” then come up with the solution.
Faced With Pandemic, Zoetic’s Improv Troupe Soldiers On
As live arts and entertainment return in fits and starts, and our culture continues its tortoise crawl toward normal, one thing has become apparent: Face masks may be vital in impeding the spread of COVID-19, but they equally hamper the spread of comedy. The debut of Zoetic Schmoetic showed the more physical the show becomes—the more the actors’ bodies, not their voices, drive the storytelling—the better it gets.
Jan and Don McArt Recall Their Past In Radio Interview
Radio producer-host Caroline Breder-Watts recorded interviews with theater professionals over the years. Among them was this conversation likely recorded in around 2011 between the actress-impressario Jan McArt and her brother, the actor Don McArt.
Today’s Isolation Echoes In Local Co-Pro Of The Belle Of Amherst
In this time of quarantine, subtle resonances echo the underlying thread of Emily Dickinson’s isolation in Palm Beach Dramaworks and Actors Playhouse’s co-produced filming of the live play, The Belle of Amherst. The one-woman play slated for an early April cyber-release focuses on a multi-faceted depiction of the legendary poet
Book Review: Stoppard Bio Is As Complex As The Man Himself
Most biographies factually mirror the life and times of their subject in a chronological narrative. But few mirror the complexity and structure of the subject’s own work with the stunning faithfulness of Hermione Lee’s exhaustive and exhausting epic examination of one of the greatest playwrights in English or any other language, Tom Stoppard: A Life.
Kravis Sets 2021-22 Broadway Tours With “Summer” & Hansen
The Kravis Center’s Broadway tour series, resuming in November, will have the much-anticipated Come From Away and Dear Evan Hansen, but also titles that won’t be seen at the other two presenting houses in the region such as An Officer and a Gentleman and Summer, The Donna Summer Musical.
‘Long Distance Affair’ Is Back For A Fresh Virtual Journey
With most venues shut down for nearly a year, pandemic-era theater has taken many forms:
But few digital productions have achieved what Miami’s Juggerknot Theatre Co. and New York’s PopUP Theatrics pulled off in May with Long Distance Affair. Now there’s a second edition.
Island City’s “Compensation” Pregnant With Potential
Every emotion associated with pregnancy and pending parenthood is present in the 95 minutes of Hannah Manikowski’s smart and promising play Compensation. In fact, most of them appear on the playbill cover photo for Island City Stage’s world-premiere production, an image that encapsulates the disconnected expectations that propel the drama.

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