Tag Archives: Daniel Capote

Cruz-Directed Anna in the Tropics Melds Prosaic and Poesy

Miami New Drama’s triumphant 20-year-anniversary production of Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer-winning Anna in the Tropics., directed by Cruz, enables us to see ourselves and all around us more clearly. It exposes truths and secrets we may not have been aware of and to varying degrees changes us;

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Feature: Nilo Cruz Directs 20th Anniversary Anna in the Tropics

The drama Anna in the Tropics, about a family of Cuban-American cigar makers in Ybor City near Tampa in 1929, has now turned 20, and Miami New Drama is presenting a production directed by its author Nilo Cruz.

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Zoetic Stage’s Breathtaking Frankenstein Delivers A Different Brand of Horror

The “horror” in Zoetic Stage’s Frankenstein shares little kinship with the film monster with bolts in his neck terrorizing the countryside or even the 1818 novel of science gone wrong. But a different very contemporary terror is there all the same from the breath-taking wordless prologue of a stitched together embryo clawing out of a pod to the silent final image of two bodies crawling through Arctic waste.

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Dracula’s Prey At Zoetic: No Helpless Fainting Victims Here

In Zoetic Stage’s premiere Dracula, the vampire is a sexist pig (as are several men in the play). The protagonists are strong-willed proto-feminists. Together, they embody a society struggling with re-envisioning what self-empowered women can and should be. Michael McKeever’s script as directed by Stuart Meltzer presents social commentary told with droll, wry and self-aware humor, and the retelling of the classic horror narrative.

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Playhouse’s Noises Off Is Inherently Funny, But Uneven

Noises Off is one of the funniest farces written in the English language and a solid match for Actors Playouse talents. The laughs are plentiful, but this production didn’t wring everything out of this piece that you’ve seen done elsewhere.

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Island City’s Hir: How Do You Move Forward When You No Longer Know Where You Are

In this uncertain world, the ever-changing standards of what life is or even should be make it nearly impossible to chart a path forward when we have less idea what might be ahead than Columbus. That may be one of the takeaways – there are likely a half-dozen more — from the nightmarishly dark but hilarious 2014 comedy Hir bowing at Island City Stage.

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Beauty In The Eye Of The Beholder: McKeever’s Finding Mona Lisa At Actors’ Playhouse

The world premiere of Michael McKeever’s Finding Mona Lisa at Actors Playhouse initially might seem a light, fascinating beach read about Leonardo DaVinci’s masterpiece — a sometimes droll, sometimes broad comedy for a summer evening. But this episodic time-travelling romp is far more about the multi-faceted relationship of Art and human beings

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Whatever It Means, Zoetic Stage Delivers Bravura Edition Of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker

Zoetic Stage’s brilliantly-executed bravura production of Harold Pinter’s 1960 The Caretaker may be as baffling as Waiting For Godot. But every element of this comic drama is superb from acting that embraces Pinter’s notorious silences to the fluid staging to the evocative set design to the transcendent lighting.

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Current Events Amp Audience Angst In Perfect Arrangement

When Topher Payne’s Perfect Arrangement bowed in 2013, the satirical indictment of homophobia, hypocrisy and a half-dozen other themes was a witty and insightful commentary. In the context of last week’s election, Island City Stage’s production is a terrifying reminder of the dangers of navigating a repressive culture through submissive accommodation.

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Area Stage’s The Nether: Moral Implications Of Living Forever In An Internet Fantasy World

Area Stage Company delivers an unsettling, thought-provoking evening with its musings on the implication of an unbridled Internet of the future in The Nether.

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