Performances

Jim Brochu’s Character Man Is Affectionate Amble Through Broadway’s Past And Its Pros

If you’ve dreamed of sitting in the upstairs bar of Sardi’s to hear journeymen trade war stories about Broadway’s past, you can get a taste at Jim Brochu’s new one-man show, Character Man. The veteran New York actor-playwright, who triumphed in 2009 with Zero Hour, spends a couple of acts at Broward Stage Door recollecting his meetings with famous and not-as-famous stalwarts from Jackie Gleason to Jack Gilford, Zero Mostel to David Burns.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Actors Playhouse Rated P For Parenthood Is Frothy Fun

Rated P For Parenthood at Actors Playhouse is a 90-minute hoot that bowed off-Broadway last year strings together almost 30 vignettes that chronologically trace the joys and absurdities of raising a child from conception to empty nesting.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dramaworks’ Man of La Mancha Is Far More Than Staged Concert

Beautifully sung, passionately acted and staged with as much movement and business as anyone can ask of a limited rehearsal period, Palm Beach Dramawortks’ concert version mines much of the beauty and heart from one of the most glorious scores and emotionally-affecting scripts in American musical theater.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Slow Burn’s Wedding Singer May Be A Trifle But It’s A Cute Hoot

fSlow Burn Theatre Company’s daffy production of the summer trifle The Wedding Singer feels like a sweet, sloppy kiss from a scruffy dog that could really use a trip to the groomer, but who’s lovable all the same. What this silly smile of a show undeniably lacks in polish and consistency, its cast makes up for with grinning enthusiasm and goofball abandon

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Summer Shorts Is, As Usual, A Daffy, Uneven, Goofy Smile

By Bill Hirschman Sometimes for actors, especially playing comedy, the only option is to jump off the cliff and see if you can fly. The miracle is that sometimes, as in City Theatre’s Summer Shorts, is that, indeed, they soar. …

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Broward Stage Door’s Brighton Beach Memoirs Stumbles A Bit, But Is Genuinely Touching

Acknowledge that Broward Stage Door’s revival of Neil Simon’s thirty-year-old warhorse Brighton Beach Memories is uneven and stumbles. Then acknowledge, at least this critic will, that Stage Door’s edition frequently reaches into that moldy storehouse of decades-old memories of family relationships — and makes the throat close up, the eyes mist and starts a sudden epidemic of sniffling around the auditorium.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Outre Stages Solid Outing Of Larson’s tick, tick…BOOM!

Outré Theatre Company has mounted a smooth and solid production of Jonathan Larson’s other produced work, the semi-autobiographical rock musical tick, tick…BOOM! Built around an impassioned and winning performance by Mike Westrich as Larson’s stand-in, Artistic Director Skye Whitcomb and Music Director Kristen Long have created an emotionally satisfying evening worth the trip to Boca Raton.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | 1 Comment

Dramaworks’ Dancing At Lughnasa Is Slow Sweet Elegy

Amid blockbuster musicals and dysfunctional family dramas, one of the disappearing genres of theater and much of art is the slow, sweet sad song. And as Palm Beach Dramaworks’ slow, sweet sad production of Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa shows, nobody sings them like the Irish.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thinking Cap’s Intriguing If Flawed Tragedy Waafrika Stuns With Harrowing Climax

Thinking Cap Theatre’s production of Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko’s Waafrika is a deeply earnest and illuminating if imperfect examination of the tragic toxicity of tradition. But even Waafrika’s flaws are washed away by one of the most harrowing finales seen on a local stage.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cock Takes Hard Look At Nature of Love; GableStage Production Rises to the Occasion

Sex, despite the title at GableStage, and despite the plot, is not what Cock is about. And guess what? It’s sexy. It’s very sexy. But this is a story about love, labels and the pressure society puts on persons to make decisions about both.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment