Performances

Report From New York City: Nice Is Exactly the Word for “Nice Work If You Can Get It”

Charm, in fact, does go a long, long way, especially when it’s partnered with large dollops of professional polish. A classic example is this classic production of this faux classic musical Nice Work If You Can Get It with Gershwin tunes, the winsome couple Kelli O’ Hara and Matthew Broderick, and helmed by Kathleen Marshall.

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Report From New York: Visit “Other Desert Cities”

Playwright Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities takes that staple, the dysfunctional family drama, and amps up the thematic value by linking the group’s shortcomings to the social-political landscape of the past few decades. With a scientist’s observation and a cleric’s compassion, Baitz dissects the same elements of ethics, truth, family and loyalty as Arthur Miller did in All My Sons.

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Take A Ride In Wry & Rueful Becky’s New Car At Playhouse

Steven Dietz’s insightful script, David Arisco’s assured direction and a deceptively deft cast led by the ever-engaging Laura Turnbull deliver a thoroughly entertaining comedy in Becky’s New Car at Actors Playhouse that will give your mind something substantial to mull over long after the house lights come on.

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Manilow Songbook “I Am Music” Croons Crowds at Plaza Theatre

The “S.S. Barry Manilow” songbook I Am Music! has tied up at the new Plaza Theatre in Manalapan. Your reaction to this entry depends precisely on your enjoyment of the cruise ship level of manufactured entertainment. A lot of people in the Plaza opening night left downright enraptured. More demanding audiences are going to be, well, more demanding.

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Report from New York City: Catch This Streetcar

As unassailable as television actress Nicole Ari Parker is as the wounded Southern belle, Blanche DuBois, Emily Mann’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire leaps like it was hit with a cattle prod every time Blair Underwood erupts into a scene.

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Stage Door’s Six Dance Lessons Needs Evenly Matched Partners

By Bill Hirschman Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks is a gentle message comedy about lonely people reaching out somewhat obliquely for human contact. But this occasionally charming pas de deux at Stage Door’s Miami Beach venue is thrown out …

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“Time Stands Still” Is Fodder For Introspection As Drama Unfolds

Donald Margulies’ drama Time Stands Still which enjoys a solid production at GableStage is not a thrilling or enthralling production; it’s one that keeps you thinking long after the lights come back up about whether we are jettisoning our responsibility as human beings to, first, feel something and, second, act on it.

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Florida Report From New York: End of the Rainbow’s Sole Strength Is Star Turn

End of the Rainbow is an unsparing, but somewhat compassionate portrait of her final months as she lurches through a five-week gig in London’s. The play itself wears the audience down with the endless, repetitive swirls of Garland’s death spiral. It has one virtue: Tracie Bennett’s tour de force as Garland. What’s missing is any sense of what made her beloved or even an icon. It nearly makes you want to call Dr. Kevorkian to put her (and us) out of her misery.

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Florida Report From NYC: “Once” Is Charming, Affecting Tale

Or Coming To A Theater Near You (Or Not) By Bill Hirschman Welcome to our semi-annual scouting trip for shows likely to appear in South Florida in a local production or a national tour — or shows you should make …

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Florida Report From New York: Leap Of Faith & Raul Esparza

The terrific 1992 film that this musical Leap of Faith is based on contains a roof-raising gospel number with the lyric: “Are you ready for a miracle?” That’s exactly what’s needed with this tale of a con man (played by Raul Esparza) and his crew traveling the drought-stricken Midwest posing as evangelistic faith healers, ripping off indigent folks desperately looking for hope during tent revivals.

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