Reviews

The Wick Theatre’s Singin’ in the Rain Has a Familiar Patter

The Wick’s Singin’ in the Rain, for all of its talent and technical achievements and good cheer, offers too few reasons to experience the stage version of the definitive MGM movie musical on its own merits. It’s such a studied, careful, conservative Xeroxing of the movie that it only occasionally gives way to the woollier possibilities of the stage experience.

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Island City Stage’s Musical Hoot Zanna, Don’t! Is Zanna Do

Island City Stage’s highly entertaining production of the musical Zanna, Don’t! will never be confused with a show by Stephen Sondheim, though there are numerous references to the famed composer. Amid the numerous pop culture references, , and well-timed humor, Zanna, Don’t! slyly, yet forcefully, maintains that everyone has a right to love whom they want.

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A Gentleman’s Guide To Love And Murder And Laughter

We could tell you that A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder is a satire of the artificiality of the class system and an affectionate lampoon of British theater genres such as the music hall and Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. All of which would be accurate. But, actually, the Tony-winning musical touring at the Broward Center this month is simply deliciously devilish fun.

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Report From New York: Come From Away & Anastasia, A Season Old; Fresh As Last Week

Two musicals open since March are still worth taking in any time you make to Manhattan. And if you can’t afford a trip up north, rest assured that these will tour in the next couple of years and should not be missed. One is the least likely to gather angels’ backing in an elevator pitch, Come From Away; the other is a surprisingly solid satisfying reinvention of an animated movie initially aimed at preteen girls, Anastasia.

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Million Dollar Quartet Has A Whole Of Shakin ‘ Goin’ On

They may not look like their counterparts, but they sure sound like them. They’ve got the moves, the stylings and so much rock ‘n roll energy you’ll feel like you’re at a concert rather than the theater. Indeed, whether it’s tribute or jukebox, the musical Million Dollar Quartet at Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach is sure to entertain

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Chicken Coop’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Is Not Equal To Script’s Potential

Christopher Durang initially wrote Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike to precisely match the inimitable talents of David Hyde Pierce, Sigourney Weaver and Kristine Nielsen. So it’s no surprise that the earnest, eager and ambitious Chicken Coop Theatre troupe based at the Levis JCC in Boca Raton only succeeds in brief flashes and rarely delivers the script’s potential

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Fine Voices Battle Miserable Script, Lyrics In Flashdance

Broward Stage Door’s production of Flashdance the Musical has aspects worth recommending such as two charismatic leads with powerful voices worthy of a brass band. That’s fortunate because the Stage Door crew is fighting a losing battle with miserable lyrics and a mediocre script awash in crocheted sampler homilies about taking chances, never giving up, believing in yourself, risking it all, finding your true worth, Remember the Alamo, etc. etc. etc.

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Savor A Cup Of Memories At Stage Door’s Smokey Joe’s Cafe

Smokey Joe’s Café, the quintessential plotless rock n’ roll jukebox revue, is as dependable as light entertainment gets in the hands of experienced directors like Kevin Black at Broward Stage Door.

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Slow Burn Hosts Lovely Swirling Visit To The Secret Garden

Be grateful that Slow Burn Theatre Company with its audacious affection for large scale challenging musicals has decided to mount The Secret Garden, that ode to rebirth, memorable for its lush unconventional score that resembles streams of music intertwining into an aural waterfall.

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Straight White Men Succeeds At Thinking Cap Despite Thoughtless Jerks In Audience

Thinking Cap Theatre’s opening performance of Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men might have been among the best nights of theater in South Florida so far this season. I say “might have been” because I can’t be sure. The evening was crippled by drunken thoughtless, self-centered, rude patrons who learned their audience etiquette from watching Jerry Springer reruns in their underwear at home.

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