Tag Archives: Jeffrey Bruce

Twelve Angry Men judging  at PPTOPA

By Aaron Krause Few plays are as riveting as Reginald Rose’s tense classic drama, Twelve Angry Men. In it, the stakes are sky-high as 12 people must decide whether a stranger lives or dies. Late last year, South Florida theater …

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PPTOPA’s Cabaret Once Again Warns Of Current Dangers

PPTOPA’s earnest, merely passable production of Cabaret is notable for a few solid performances, but especially for the script which, decade after decade, becomes an increasingly relevant warning. Even more than the original stories, Masteroff’s 1966 “book” warns of an everyday populace willing to accommodate the rise of a totalitarian regime that promises answers, even to the point of self-inflicted blindness to its dangers.

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Studying Themselves Instead Of Lines, SoFla Artists Look At Lessons From Pandemic

Many artists define themselves by a calling that relies on faith that their art form will always be there. But in 2020, the foundation of their sense of who they were and what they believed made their lives worthwhile vanished. They were forced into introspection about the primacy of their profession and their art in their lives. Here, they reveal what they learned about South Florida theater and especially themselves.

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PPTOPA’s Few Good Men Augurs Future As Professional Theater

It takes courage to mount a play whose 1992 film version is as iconic as A Few Good Men with an unforgettable performance by Jack Nicholson . But this production of Aaron Sorkin’s play by Pembroke Pines Theatre of the Performing Arts is a promising harbinger as the long-time community theater’s second production as a professional troupe.

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Andy And The Orphans: Funny, Poignant And Unsettling

Resulting from Down syndrome as an adult, Andy’s simple, blunt and truthful verbal reactions to the complex statements and relationships swirling around him slice through the theater space and the artifice of the play form itself with a painfully accurate if non-judgmental slash in Primal Forces’ powerful Andy and the Orphans, which is as incisively affecting as it is quite, quite funny.

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Boys Of A Certain Age Examines Gay Lives In The Trump Era

Flawed as it is, few would place Boys of a Certain Age in the same ranks as The Normal Heart and The Boys In the Band. But Dan Fingerman’s script being presented by Empire Stage is an incisive and insightful examination of gay life in 2019 that may be eligible as a time capsule of this moment.

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Tennessee’s Stories Sing In Nightingale But Script Rambles

Confessions of a Nightingale spends time listening to Tennessee Williams escorts visitors through a rambling tour of his life. Actor Christopher Dreeson and director Jeffrey Bruce have worked very hard shaping this fascinating material, which is inherently rewarding, but two problems dog the production.

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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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In New City Players’ Proof, The Numbers Don’t Quite Add Up

The wobbly foundations of fledgling New City Players’ production of David Auburn’s reliable Proof are unlikely to impress seasoned theatergoers, especially those who have seen the play before. From questionable acting choices to frantically paced direction, this Proof only conveys the broad strokes in Auburn’s filial drama.

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Chicken Coop’s Taking Sides Looks At Responsibility Of Artists In Nazi Germany

Ronald Harwood’s script and Chicken Coop Theatre’s production of Taking Sides supposedly even-handed look at art and politics isn’t very subtle for most of the play, but it does have two solid performances and one crippling one.

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