Reviews

Slow Burn Theatre’s Violet Blossoms But Doesn’t Bloom

Fine talent, stirring music and Slow Burn Theatre’s enthusiasm elevate the musical Violet, but the material has consistent void somewhere deep down in this musical’s emotional investment.

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GableStage’s It’s Only A Play Skewers And Honors The Craziness Of Theater Folks

GableStage has produced a version Terrrence McNally’s satire about theater, It’s Only A Play, that is funnier and has far more heart than the Broadway edition.

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FGO’s Rarely Seen Norma Is Powerful Triumph For Two Divas

Florida Grand Opera’s infrequently mounted Norma, a marathon challenge for sopranos, is a superbly executed triumph that melds technical mastery and gut-wrenching emotion.

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Glorious Voices Outweigh Unsubtle Script In ‘The Journey’

The scruffy damaged denizens of New Orleans’ underclass depicted in the musical The Journey: The Story of Your Life really only have one dimension and the subtlety of a freight train, but, good God, the power that this cast and creative team from Outré Theatre Company invest in that one dimension is overwhelming.

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Chicken Coop’s Taking Sides Looks At Responsibility Of Artists In Nazi Germany

Ronald Harwood’s script and Chicken Coop Theatre’s production of Taking Sides supposedly even-handed look at art and politics isn’t very subtle for most of the play, but it does have two solid performances and one crippling one.

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Island City Stage’s ‘Joan Crawford’ Cranks Up The Camp

Island City Stage gives the first full performance of Michael Leeds’ Who Killed Joan Crawford, a comedy mystery about male friends invited to a birthday party dressed as Crawford characters.
Break out the martinis. It isn’t perfect, but it’s still a helluva lot of fun

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Haunting Jewish-Cuban ‘The Golem Of Havana’ Explores Cross Cultural Tragedies

Miami New Drama’s musical The Golem of Havana melds warm comedy and profound tragedy in an intriguing, sometimes moving, often thought-provoking evening. It encompasses the Holocaust, the Castro revolution, a hymn to a Yoruban deity, and Old World klezmer music pivoting instantly into a hot salsa celebration.

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Area Stage’s The Nether: Moral Implications Of Living Forever In An Internet Fantasy World

Area Stage Company delivers an unsettling, thought-provoking evening with its musings on the implication of an unbridled Internet of the future in The Nether.

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What Happens When You Get What You Asked For: Zoetic Stage’s Rapture, Blister, Burn

Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn is rooted in an wry examination of post-feminism. But Zoetic Stage’s finely wrought comedy-drama goes much farther and deeper in examining the complex interrelationship of dreams, choices, responsibilities and consequences applicable to human beings of all sexes.

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Joyful Matt Loehr Leads A Winning “Will Rogers Follies”

The Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s pull-out-the-stops revival is about as lush and entertaining a rendition as anyone could hope for and benefits immeasurably from Matt Loehr in the title role.

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