Performances

Experience Death and Harry Houdini At Arsht Center Before It Disappears

There couldn’t be a more fitting space for The House Theatre of Chicago to bring its production of Death and Harry Houdini to South Florida than the Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center. The biographical play/magic show embraces the most famous magician of all time’s mad-as-a-hatter life. It brings to the front that mysterious element of “carny,” taking audiences on the journey from his early career as a card-trickster in a sideshow to a household name.

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FGO’s Romeo et Juliette Has Fine Soprano And Staging But Won’t Touch Your Heart

Florida Grand Opera’s incarnation of Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette under the direction of David Lefkowich is an inventively staged, well-acted mounting of this stark take on Shakespeare’s classic. But like FGO’s other essays on love this season such as La Rondine, Luisa Fernandez and Rigoletto, the technically admirable production starring Maria Alejandres and Sebastien Gueze isn’t likely to quicken the pulse of the audience.

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Broward Stage Door’s Little Shop of Horrors Is Tasty Snack

Sometimes, when the material is strong enough, success means just getting out of its way. For the most part, that’s what a cast of strong singers and the director do to make Broward Stage Door’s Little Shop of Horrors a smile-inducing entertainment.

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Mosaic’s A Measure of Cruelty Is a Benchmark Triumph

Neither protagonists nor antagonists, the haunted trio at the center of A Measure of Cruelty are desperately seeking compassion and redemption for their separate sins when all they can find in themselves are levels of self-disgust. Your awareness of your own transgressions and your ability to muster forgiveness for others is jammed into a crucible for self-examination by the spectacle of flawed humanity in this stunning world premiere at the Mosaic Theatre of Joe Calarco’s play.

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Last Call Is Worth Dropping In For Before Closing Time

In Last Call, it’s the patrons who sit and listen to the bartender talk about her life. Turns out the bartender is more fascinating and better company than her customers ever could be. The world premiere of Terri Girvin’s funny and even touching tour through the interior life of someone people take for granted is a modest gem worthy of dropping in at faux tavern inside the tiny Empire Stage.

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Rush Into The Woods To See Slow Burn Theatre Company

Slow Burn Theatre Company’s current production of Into The Woods is a solidly delightful and enthralling evening that should not be missed by lovers of musical theater in the region – and that includes people in Miami-Dade loathe to travel to the wilds of western Boca Raton.

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Andrews’ Avenue Q Badly Flawed But Material Still Funny

Just how strong are the songs and jokes in the Tony-winning musical Avenue Q? So sturdy that even with shaky voices, so-so acting and laugh-killing scenery changes, the enthusiastic and earnest cast at Andrews Living Arts Studio nearly pulled off the sassy satire of urban life. Nearly.

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Scaled Back South Pacific Is Still a Moving Classic At Broward Center

There’s a warm validation of our sensibilities in seeing a classic part of our culture fabric done right, really right.This second national tour of South Pacific at the Broward Center envelops the willing participant in a sense that when the American Musical Theater is at its best – intelligently executed, sensitively acted and lushly produced – that it takes a back seat to no other art form.

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Dramaworks’ Master Harold Remains Incisive Look at Racism

The obscenity that was racism in South Africa in the mid 20th Century depicted in Master Harold…and the boys may be less virulent today, but Athol Fugard’s 1982 play at Palm Beach Dramaworks remains a gut punch of theater because the poison so clearly persists around us all with a dispiriting universality.

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All Night Strut Will Transport Greatest Generation Patrons

If you think time machines are only found in science fiction, visit All Night Strut at Broward Stage Door and watch an audience of Greatest Generation grads be transported back 65 years to the marrow of their youth.

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