Reviews

Last Call Is Worth Dropping In For Before Closing Time

In Last Call, it’s the patrons who sit and listen to the bartender talk about her life. Turns out the bartender is more fascinating and better company than her customers ever could be. The world premiere of Terri Girvin’s funny and even touching tour through the interior life of someone people take for granted is a modest gem worthy of dropping in at faux tavern inside the tiny Empire Stage.

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Rush Into The Woods To See Slow Burn Theatre Company

Slow Burn Theatre Company’s current production of Into The Woods is a solidly delightful and enthralling evening that should not be missed by lovers of musical theater in the region – and that includes people in Miami-Dade loathe to travel to the wilds of western Boca Raton.

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Andrews’ Avenue Q Badly Flawed But Material Still Funny

Just how strong are the songs and jokes in the Tony-winning musical Avenue Q? So sturdy that even with shaky voices, so-so acting and laugh-killing scenery changes, the enthusiastic and earnest cast at Andrews Living Arts Studio nearly pulled off the sassy satire of urban life. Nearly.

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Scaled Back South Pacific Is Still a Moving Classic At Broward Center

There’s a warm validation of our sensibilities in seeing a classic part of our culture fabric done right, really right.This second national tour of South Pacific at the Broward Center envelops the willing participant in a sense that when the American Musical Theater is at its best – intelligently executed, sensitively acted and lushly produced – that it takes a back seat to no other art form.

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Dramaworks’ Master Harold Remains Incisive Look at Racism

The obscenity that was racism in South Africa in the mid 20th Century depicted in Master Harold…and the boys may be less virulent today, but Athol Fugard’s 1982 play at Palm Beach Dramaworks remains a gut punch of theater because the poison so clearly persists around us all with a dispiriting universality.

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All Night Strut Will Transport Greatest Generation Patrons

If you think time machines are only found in science fiction, visit All Night Strut at Broward Stage Door and watch an audience of Greatest Generation grads be transported back 65 years to the marrow of their youth.

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Zoetic & McKeever’s Moscow Is Rich Comedy With a Heavy Load

Michael McKeever’s Moscow’s in its world premiere by Zoetic Stage in the Adrienne Arsht Center’s intimate Carnival Studio Theater is rich in so many ways with deep characters, dialogue that is quick and witty, and, for this production, a cast that couldn’t give more of its all. The only downside is that the mule in this Moscow is saddled with way too many burdens.

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Juan C. Sanchez’s Property Line Is Promising But Needs Work

Comedy. Tragedy. Absurdist farce. Subtle satire. Family drama. Sociological tract about race relations. Juan C. Sanchez’s world premiere Property Line at New Theatre encompasses all these and more in an intellectually intriguing, promising script that needs a lot of work before it will gel into a satisfying evening of theater.

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Arts Garage’s Woody Sez Is Affable, Moving Songbook

Of course, any musical revue of Woody Guthrie’s work must end with the anthem “This Land Is Your Land.” What the musical revue Woody Sez at Arts Garage does is put that expression of patriotism and brotherhood in a sobering context of Guthrie’s chastening life experiences.

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Sarah Kane’s Cleansed Is Violent, Surreal Offering

Like Kane’s Blasted at GableStage in 2010 and 4:48 Psychosis at Naked Stage in 2008, Cleansed defies reactions that involve verbs such as “liked” or even “appreciated.” Even more than those other two plays, this minimalist script given flesh and form by the imagination of director Nicole Stoddard is a harrowing and frankly upsetting descent into Hell jammed with random sadistic violence targeting those who dare love.

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