Reviews
Industrious Maltz Sinks Teeth Into Hoary Dracula Comedy
In the prologue of Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s production of Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors, the actors literally throw out the book—chucking their musty copies behind them with the satisfaction of college graduates tossing their caps. And besides, they add, they want to get us all out of here within 90 minutes—an admirable goal for many new plays and, in this case, a small mercy.
MND’s Bridge of San Luis Rey Is Highly Theatrical Journey
In this post-9/11 time, we ruminate even more than during the Black Plague about the seeming randomness of blind fate or God’s inscrutable will — and wondering is there a meaning to life. Those questions permeate a highly theatrical stage version of Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey — much of it re-told in rhyming verse — in an intriguing Miami New Drama production written by, directed and starring off-Broadway fixture David Greenspan.
We’re a Believer: Charming Shrek Lets Its Freak Flag Fly
Slow Burn Theatre Company’s Shrek the Musical is pure unadulterated fun, not just youngsters in the audience watching familiar fairy tale characters cavort in atypical ways, or older kids enjoying nose-thumbing humor involving farts and belches, but also adults quietly enjoying the more sophisticated jokes, cultural references and gentle skewering of the unrealistic tropes they were raised on.
Measure for Measure Delivers A Rousing ‘In the Heights’
Measure For Measure Theatre’s rousing production in Sunrise brings into focus that Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes’s musical is, at its heart, about the twin themes of dreams and community, and their intersection. With passion and ebullience, this edition documents an evolving fluid community of varied mutually supportive souls pursuing a variety of dreams.
Advice To The Wick’s Hot Shoe Shuffle: Don’t Stop Dancing
To paraphrase A Chorus Line for the Wick Theatre’s Hot Shoe Shuffle: Dance 10, Books 3. Whenever this troupe of supremely talented terpsichoreans start tapping in precision sync, backed by a live full-throated swing band, audiences will be thrilled. Then they open their mouths.
Family Struggles With Autism In New City Players’ Falling
Underneath, Falling is not just about a family dealing with the complex challenge of living with an autistic adult. New City Player’s profoundly moving production seems to be as much about the scores of well-practiced routines, accommodations and coping mechanisms that make any loving relationship possible long-term.
Harrowing Depiction Of Evil: An Evening With John Wayne Gacy
You may find this hard to believe, but An Evening With John Wayne Gacy Jr., — easily the most off-putting title for a theater piece in many years – is a surprisingly effective, harrowing and highly stylistic depiction of homicidal madness in Ronnie Larsen’s play at Infinite Abyss.
Boys Of A Certain Age Examines Gay Lives In The Trump Era
Flawed as it is, few would place Boys of a Certain Age in the same ranks as The Normal Heart and The Boys In the Band. But Dan Fingerman’s script being presented by Empire Stage is an incisive and insightful examination of gay life in 2019 that may be eligible as a time capsule of this moment.
Blood, Beer And Toasters: Main Street’s Ferocious True West
With the fearful ferocity of twin jackhammers running amok, the brothers of Main Street Players’ True West clash and crash, attack and retreat in an anguish-fueled release of pent-up frustration that their chosen lifestyles have not worked out.
A PaperStreet Web Design
