Reviews

Top Gun! The Musical in FTL Crashes and Burns

This production of Top Gun! The Musical at Empire Stage suffers from Shoulda Woulda Coulda Syndrome: It shoulda been cast with performers who could actually sing and act. It woulda had a shot at being a cult hit. And it coulda been a lot of fun, if it were only in more capable hands. But as it is, Top Gun! The Musical crashes and burns.

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New Theatre’s Chilly Winter Is Family Drama For All Seasons

Robert Caisley’s world premiere script for Winter at New Theatre could use some pruning and the two lead actors could use a bit more stage time to get comfortable with the punishing cascade of dialogue. But neither flaw cripples the three from creating an ultimately harrowing evening of drama under the direction of Ricky J. Martinez as we watch the already fractured family melt down completely.

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Rigoletto Has Much To Admire, But Won’t Make You Weep

Rigoletto is the third Florida Grand Opera production this season with much to admire, even a few moments of technical artistry that you can describe as thrilling. But it’s admiration from a distance, more intellectual appreciation than emotionally touching.

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Parade Productions’ Brooklyn Boy Is Mildly Funny, Mildly Moving But Flawed Evening

Avi Hoffman’s performance as a troubled writer, struggling to deal with success but escape his past, is one of the virtues in the promising but flawed inaugural offering from Parade Productions, a professional company performing in Mizner Park. There’s a lot of talent here working very hard, but not a lot of electricity emanating from the elegiac, mildly funny, mildly moving tale.

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FGO’s Rarely Performed Puccini La Rondine Benefits From Stirring Lead Actress

Say what you will about artifice and overheated emoting, few art forms other than Harlequin novels can touch opera for depicting idealized love. What fascinates about Florida Grand Opera’s production of Puccini’s rarely-seen La Rondine is how the fantasy of love collides with the realities of social-climbing and the class system

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Slow Burn’s Urinetown Will Make You Laugh ‘Til You… Well…

Slow Burn Theatre’s production of Urinetown the Musical marks another milestone in the young troupe’s evolution as a reliable purveyor of edgy, offbeat musical theater that few other mainstream companies have the courage to produce.

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Area Stage’s Snoopy! The Musical Lacks Bark, Bite

Yet, Snoopy! The Musical at Area Stage, the second of two musicals derived from the popular comic strip, Peanuts, just doesn’t have the same pedigree. Its songs are repetitive, its characters are caricatures and its messages are targeted to the Sesame Street crowd.

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Actors Playhouse’s Outstanding Next to Normal is Anything But

Perhaps God invented musicals just so someday we could be thrilled and troubled and moved and enriched by next to normal, Actors Playhouse’s finest work since Floyd Collins in 2003.

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NE 2nd Avenue Is Funny And Insightful Look Inside Multi-Cultural Miami

Teo Castellanos’ NE 2nd Avenue at the Arsht Center, funny and profound literally at the same time, is a sociological-anthropological field trip as if Castellanos was a hip-hop Margaret Mead. It takes us on a tour of the adjacent neighborhoods on the titular boulevard highlighted by encounters with a variety of inhabitants.

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Promethean’s Boeing Boeing is a Door-Slamming Chuckle

Boeing Boeing is a 1962 farce with doors that slam, swing, shut slowly, burst open in ones, twos and probably threes. Promethean Theatre and its house director Margaret M. Ledford, benter new territory with an out and out comedy that requires skill and discipline. As proven by the copious laughter in the hall, they acquit themselves well.

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