Reviews
The Big D Is Touching, Rowdy World-Premiere At The Abyss
For all the raunchy scenes in Michael Mizerany’s new play The Big D, the message at the weepy comedy-drama’s heart is serious and sincere. Sure, the characters engage in hard-core, unabashed horseplay and sex. Indeed, there’s a primitive, intense physicality. But this much is certain: The couple in Mizerany’s touching play with pathos and humor literally love each other to death.
Slow Burn’s Rock Of Ages Isn’t Your Grandma’s Musical
If there’s any way to get folks to the theater who don’t usually go, Slow Burn’s Rock of Ages can do it. Director/choreographer Patrick Fitzwater knows exactly how to squeeze every inch of character out of this cheesy, goo fest of a jukebox musical to entertain aforementioned non-theater types, who can’t wait to re-live the glory days of the 1980s, of which the soundtrack of the show relies.
New City Players Paint Perfect Work Of ‘Art’ At Vanguard
In the lovely confines of The Vanguard, Yasmin Reza’s modern classic Art comes to life in New City Players’ finely curated production.
Grief, Coping Commingle With Comedic Culture Clash In McKeever’s Elegant Mr. Parker
When did yesterday’s renegades, who skirted AIDS and lived boheme on a ramen noodle diet in the go-go eighties, become today’s get-off-my-lawners? These questions, and plenty more, linger between the lines of Mr. Parker, Michael McKeever’s elegant dramedy world-premiering at Island City Stage.
Pink Unicorn Puts Complex Human Face On Identity Politics
Laura Turnbull in the solo show The Pink Unicorn from Primal Forces places us in the headspace of a widowed mother in a small—and small-minded—Texas suburb who transforms into an unwitting advocate for gender liberation.
M Ensemble’s Seven Guitars Is Virtually Music As Theater
In the current production of The M Ensemble Company, August Wilson’s legendary Seven Guitars almost plays like a musical or a folk opera akin to Porgy and Bess or Floyd Collins.
Lightning Bolt’s Into The Woods Gives Modern Resonance
Into the Woods’ disturbing second act occurs in a boy’s nightmare in Lightning Bolt Production’s riveting, pulse-quickening production at the West Boca Performing Arts Center. Director Jessie Hoffman has re-imagined the musical from the narrator’s perspective. That character, who in this production is a 12-year-old boy, plays a larger role than in other mountings.
GableStage’s “I’m Gonna Pray For You” Scorches The Stage
Human beings’ desperate need for affirmation of their self-worth from some source outside themselves – whether it’s from a parent or strangers’ judgments – drives GableStage’s scorching production of Halley Feiffer’s I’m Going To Pray For You So Hard.
Miami’s Shorts Is Once Again A Welcome Summer Cooler
They make it look so easy.
The 23rd annual City Theatre Summer Shorts crew slip seamlessly from broad comedy with a hint of a moral to bittersweet drama with a soupcon of dry wit and back again in nine separate playlets.
Women’s Journey Is Familiar in Stage Door’s From Door to Door
From Door to Door, a bittersweet comedy retracing the evolution of Jewish-American womanhood through 65 years of the 20th Century, is a procession of clichés spread over 80 minutes. But if the current production at Broward Stage Door doesn’t have much vibrancy or energy, it admirably underscores that beneath tropes lies truth.
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