Reviews

Pigs Do Fly’s 2 Across Is No Puzzle, Just a Warm Comedy

You may never view crossword puzzles the same way again after watching Jerry Mayer’s romantic, touching, and hilarious character-driven comedy, 2 Across. Fortunately, the Ft. Lauderdale-based nonprofit professional theater company, Pigs Do Fly Productions, is giving Mayer’s warm, compelling play a believable and energetic production.

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Shattering is Just One Way to Describe The White Card

Shattering. Penetrating. Upsetting. Only a few of the adjectives elicited by Claudia Rankine’s drama The White Card at GableStage, a searing if polemic evening cross-examining progressive white citizens who believe they are opposing racial inequity and racist violence. How you interpret what you hear and see here will vary wildly depending on how you view yourself and what you believe.

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Nothing is Simple in Boca Stage’s Thought-Provoking Luna Gale

Social workers face tragedies in which there may be no satisfying solutions and in which the warring parties truly want “what’s best for the child.” Those dilemmas echo larger questions in which we all seek to choose the best path in a world of complexity and limited options. Such is the core of Luna Gale virtually defining “a thought-provoking play,” receiving an engrossing production at Boca Stage.

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Dramaworks’ Duration Poses Troubling Questions About Who We Are Post 9/11& Today

Bruce Graham’s world premiere The Duration developed at Palm Beach Dramaworks is an intellectually and emotionally powerful drama rooted deep in a post 9/11 world, but also in a timeless inquiry into how human beings cope with limitless tragedy. It asks who we are – and the answers suggest upsetting revelations about dealing with grief, prejudice, fear and anger.

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MNM’s Sister Act Surprisingly Better Than Past Editions

MNM Theatre Company’s Sister Act, is a work that you may not have taken to the first time or two, but can surprise you when a company invests freshness, energy and skill. You see it as if it were the first time.

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Estefan Musical On Your Feet is Triumph at Actors Playhouse

The moment after the house lights go down at Actors Playhouse, there’s a percussive warmup of Latin beat and then the auditorium explodes with a blinding almost deafening assault of light, sound and vivacity as you are immersed into the Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine’s iconic “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You.” Odds are you’re a goner from that moment on.

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Maltz Reopens With Comical Romp on Acting, I Hate Hamlet

The art of acting – alternately glorious and mundane – is celebrated in the Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s return to live production after 700 days with Paul Rudnick’s delightfully comical I Hate Hamlet.

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Female Army Combats Colonialism in The Dahomey Warriors

For the majority of white Americans, the word “colonialism” is an abstract term usually confined to history courses. But in Layon Gray’s consciousness-expanding drama The Dahomey Warriors, foreign powers occupying your homeland becomes a palpable personal three-dimensional tragedy at M Ensemble’s tale of an African tribe whose military was comprised of women.

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The Temptations Musical is Inarguably a Tempting Treat

Bio-jukebox musicals hinges on the strength of the music and the audience’s connection. Music takes you back to where you were and who you were. The exuberant production of Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts checks all those boxes.

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Be More Chill Is Uneven (But Mega-Pop) Sci-Fi Fantasy About the Hell of Being a Teen

A nerdy teenager struggling with being an outsider takes a pill with a dangerous computer that advises him on dealing with high school hell in Area Stage Company’s intriguing but flawed sci-fi fantasy musical Be More Chill which has been a huge hit with the target peer group.

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