Tag Archives: Michael Leeds

Starmaker Premiere At Island City Brings Back Old Hollywood

Starmaker, getting its world premiere at Island City Stage, is about Henry Willson, the agent behind the hunky male stars of the 1950s, who, while fooling the cameras as straight sex symbols, are hiding their biggest secret: they’re all gay, notably Rock Hudson.

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Sparkling Wit Suffuses Island City’s Veronica’s Position

Creatures with the kind of quick wicked wit you only wish you had, the kind who rarely let pass the opportunity for a pithy exit line, populate Rich Orloff’s Veronica’s Position in Island City Stage’s thoroughly entertaining production.

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The Children Is Eco-Thriller Told By Masterful Cast And Director

How do you review a play without spoilers when perception-changing revelations occur every few minutes including one halfway through that shoves the play in a 90-degree angle? Just trust us that GableStage’s The Children – eco-thriller, horror story, tale of domestic trouble, and a half dozen other themes – is a stunning experience melding playwriting, direction and acting.

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‘Bette & Barry’ Entertains, But Where’s The Story?

Bette & Barry: From Bathhouse to Broadway at Island City Stage is an imagining of if Midler and Manilow decided to do a concert together. In real pop history, they never have. This revue is strong in their greatest hits, separately and collectively, but there’s no narrative.

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‘White Guy on The Bus’ Is GableStage’s Shattering Incisive Dissection Of Race Relations

White Guy on the Bus at GableStage is a merciless dissection of race relations in the 21st Century, but stunning plot twists prevent us from explaining much further than a wealthy white businessman strikes up an acquaintanceship with an African-American nursing student on a bus. But superb performances and a fierce script make this a don’t miss.

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LGBTQIA Shorts Gone Wild 6 Comes Up A Little Short

No one could accuse the cast of Shorts Gone Wild 6 of being low energy. They spend the production’s interstitial moments cartwheeling, performing splits, engaging in slapdash chicken dances, telling jokes, winking through bawdy double entendres. But most of the plays are less memorable than their spirited introductions.

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Grief, Coping Commingle With Comedic Culture Clash In McKeever’s Elegant Mr. Parker

When did yesterday’s renegades, who skirted AIDS and lived boheme on a ramen noodle diet in the go-go eighties, become today’s get-off-my-lawners? These questions, and plenty more, linger between the lines of Mr. Parker, Michael McKeever’s elegant dramedy world-premiering at Island City Stage.

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Women’s Journey Is Familiar in Stage Door’s From Door to Door

From Door to Door, a bittersweet comedy retracing the evolution of Jewish-American womanhood through 65 years of the 20th Century, is a procession of clichés spread over 80 minutes. But if the current production at Broward Stage Door doesn’t have much vibrancy or energy, it admirably underscores that beneath tropes lies truth.

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Responsibility Examined In McKeever’s New ‘The Camp’

The Camp, a world premiere drama from the West Boca Theatre Company does not advance the age-old discussion how “good” people can be passively complicit in horrors, but Michael McKeever’s insightful script and a solid cast under Michael Leeds’ direction expertly provide a three-dimensional illustration that forces the audience to query their own souls about their responsibility to oppose evil.

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Growing Old Ain’t All Sunshine For The Boys At Stage Door

Seniors and caretaking Boomers recognize the real pain informing the facile catchphrase “Growing old is not for sissies” – a quality sharing the stage with copious laughs in Broward Stage Door’s production of Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys.

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