Current Productions for the week of May 28, 2012

Finito: The Dream Is Real
At The Red Barn Theatre Until June 2
What would happen if some of your favorite on screen characters arrived at the Red Barn for a night of uproarious song and dance? Scenes from Flashdance, to Japanese Anime and characters from Ziggy Stardust to Patrick Swayze will light up the stage with nothing short of the spectacular. Marky Pierson directs the cast and crew of Key West Burlesque in this stew of has beens, icons, and legendary songs on this wild ride into the depths of TV and movie-land.


Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies
The Gable Stage Until June 3
Sarah and James, a photojournalist and a foreign correspondent, have been together for nine years and share a passion for documenting the realities of war. When her battlefield injuries force them to return home to New York, they find their future together threatened by the prospect of a more conventional life. Penned by Pulitzer Prize Winning playwright Donald Margulies, Tony nominated Time Stands Still was hailed as one of the best new plays on Broadway!


Prisoner  of 2^nd Avenue by Neil Simon
At The Tamarac Theatre of Performing Arts Until June 3
During an intense summer heat wave and a prolonged garbage strike, Mel Edison and his wife Edna have to cope with being unemployed at middle age, noisy neighbors, loud sounds emanating from Manhattan streets up to their apartment and even a robbery of their apartment during broad daylight. After all of this it is up to Mel's family to help him get a firm grip back on reality after he suffers a nervous breakdown.


Becky’s New Car by Steven Dietz
At The Actors Playhouse Until June 3
BECKY’S NEW CAR is a laugh-out-loud amusement park ride where the comedy spins out of control like a bumper car.  Becky is married in her 40’s and working at a car dealership, when one night, by chance, she’s offered an opportunity to step into another life, and takes it.  This fresh, new, delightful and devious comedy is about life, love, marriage, and the detours we make on our way to happiness.


Disney’s The Lion King
At The Adrienne Arsht Center Until June 10
Visually stunning, technically astounding and with a musical score like none other you've ever heard.  Marvel at the breathtaking spectacle of animals brought to life by a cast of more than 40 actors.  Thrill to the pulsating rhythms of the African Pride Lands and an unforgettable score by Elton John and Tim Rice.  The New York Times says, "There is simply nothing else like it."


Proof by David Auburn
At The Palm Beach Dramaworks Until June 17
Catherine is the daughter of a recently deceased mathematical professor, Robert, whom she cared for during his lengthy mental illness.  Upon Robert's death, his ex-graduate student Hal discovers a paradigm-shifting proof about prime numbers in Robert's office.  Can Catherine prove the proof's authorship and authenticity while at the same try and sidestep her father’s inheritance of insanity?

Summer Shorts
Presented by City Theater
At The Adrienne Arsht Center Until June 17
Summer Shorts is one fast and furiously fun program of the nation's hottest "short" plays! Strung together in a whirlwind of bite-size nuggets, these mini-plays will one minute have you laughing hysterically and the next shocked beyond belief. Hang on for the ride of your life in this wonderful evening of theater that promises something for absolutely everyone!

AVENUE Q by Robert Lopez, Jeff Marx and Jeff Whitty
At The Andrews Living Arts Studio Until June 23

AVENUE Q is an "Autobiographical and Biographical" coming-of-age parable, addressing and satirizing the issues and anxieties associated with entering adulthood. Its characters lament that as children, they were assured by their parents, and by PBS's Sesame Street, that they were "special" and "could do anything"; but as adults, they have discovered to their surprise and dismay that in the real world their options are limited, and they are no more "special" than anyone else.

Warning: This Show Contains Puppet Nudity

Small Membership by Mark Della Ventura

At The Alliance Theatre Lab Until June 24

Matt, a big boy with a small problem, is 26 years old and seeking attention and guidance from a group of strangers.  The show centers on male insecurity and through a series of flashbacks we see his childhood and adulthood struggles with puberty, sexual orientation, anxiety, true love, heartbreak and self-determined celibacy.

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Small Membership by Mark Della Ventura

The Alliance Theatre Lab presents
Small Membership
Book by Mark Della Ventura
June 1 - June 24

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Summer Shorts

The Adrienne Arsht Center and City Theatre Presents
Summer Shorts
June 1 – June 17

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Current Productions for the week of May 21, 2012

HomeExchange by Hy Conrad
Waterfront Playhouse Until May 26
What happens when you trade houses with total strangers and think you’ve discovered a murder plot? A producer of TV crime shows exchanges her Manhattan apartment with a couple from England. Once in the English cottage, she and her brother (her traveling companion) grow suspicious that something is about to happen to the British husband. A suspenseful comedy in the mold of Deathtrap but with a bit of Rear Window thrown in for fun.


Love Burns by Cherie Margulies
At Thinking Cap Theatre Until May 26
LOVE BURNS brings together contemporary dramatic comedy, live music, freshly brewed coffee, and delicious desserts.  ‘DATE WITH A STRANGER’ and ‘ALL ABOUT AL’, two hilarious one-act plays by NYC-based playwright Cherie Vogelstein form the foundation for a wonderfully funny evening.   


I Am Music: The Songs of Barry Manilow
At The Plaza Theatre Until  May 27


Finito: The Dream Is Real
At The Red Barn Theatre Until June 2
What would happen if some of your favorite on screen characters arrived at the Red Barn for a night of uproarious song and dance? Scenes from Flashdance, to Japanese Anime and characters from Ziggy Stardust to Patrick Swayze will light up the stage with nothing short of the spectacular. Marky Pierson directs the cast and crew of Key West Burlesque in this stew of has beens, icons, and legendary songs on this wild ride into the depths of TV and movie-land.


Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies
The Gable Stage Until June 3
Sarah and James, a photojournalist and a foreign correspondent, have been together for nine years and share a passion for documenting the realities of war. When her battlefield injuries force them to return home to New York, they find their future together threatened by the prospect of a more conventional life. Penned by Pulitzer Prize Winning playwright Donald Margulies, Tony nominated Time Stands Still was hailed as one of the best new plays on Broadway!


Prisoner  of 2^nd Avenue by Neil Simon
At The Tamarac Theatre of Performing Arts Until June 3
During an intense summer heat wave and a prolonged garbage strike, Mel Edison and his wife Edna have to cope with being unemployed at middle age, noisy neighbors, loud sounds emanating from Manhattan streets up to their apartment and even a robbery of their apartment during broad daylight. After all of this it is up to Mel's family to help him get a firm grip back on reality after he suffers a nervous breakdown.


Becky’s New Car by Steven Dietz
At The Actors Playhouse Until June 3
BECKY’S NEW CAR is a laugh-out-loud amusement park ride where the comedy spins out of control like a bumper car.  Becky is married in her 40’s and working at a car dealership, when one night, by chance, she’s offered an opportunity to step into another life, and takes it.  This fresh, new, delightful and devious comedy is about life, love, marriage, and the detours we make on our way to happiness.


Disney’s The Lion King
At The Adrienne Arsht Center Until June 10
Visually stunning, technically astounding and with a musical score like none other you've ever heard.  Marvel at the breathtaking spectacle of animals brought to life by a cast of more than 40 actors.  Thrill to the pulsating rhythms of the African Pride Lands and an unforgettable score by Elton John and Tim Rice.  The New York Times says, "There is simply nothing else like it."


Proof by David Auburn
At The Palm Beach Dramaworks Until June 17
Catherine is the daughter of a recently deceased mathematical professor, Robert, whom she cared for during his lengthy mental illness.  Upon Robert's death, his ex-graduate student Hal discovers a paradigm-shifting proof about prime numbers in Robert's office.  Can Catherine prove the proof's authorship and authenticity while at the same try and sidestep her father’s inheritance of insanity?

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Proof by David Auburn

Palm Beach Dramaworks Presents
Proof
Book by David Auburn
May 25 – June 17

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How could technology change theatre criticism for good?

The Theater Blog over at The Guardian in the UK asks the question:  How could technology change theatre criticism for good?

Discussions about the future of theatre criticism seem to be evergreen. It is a debate that continues to impassion bloggers, and one that arose again at the latest instalment of Devoted and Disgruntled back in February, in a session challenging the barrier traditionally erected between theatremakers and critics. One linked but relatively neglected aspect of the conversation, however, is how criticism might fully explore and exploit the growing possibilities allowed by digital developments.

When it comes to digital, I think we're all still fumbling around in the dark. In the world of theatre comment, this has manifested itself in recurring, sometimes ugly debates between mainstream critics and the blogging community. But what if the technology at our disposal offers more than occasion for conflict? While words alone can create a rich tapestry of critical response, imagine how much richer this might be with the addition of images, video, audio, geotagging, experimental forms such as Pinterest – the list goes on. Despite having such options at their fingertips, the majority of those writing theatre criticism for the web remain trapped in the conventional print review format: a block of text that often tries to avoid spoilers. Myriad possibilities are there, but it seems we're slow to adopt them.

This is not to dismiss all theatre writers as luddites. Some bloggers and critics are embracing the possibilities of digital criticism and experiments are beginning to take shape. Twitter, for instance, has opened up instant discussion, allowing theatregoers to share their thoughts from the moment they step out of the auditorium. Luke Murphy has taken the trend to another level by aggregating such reviews on one feed – an intriguing idea, but one arguably limited by the tweet's inherent brevity.

Follow the link HERE or at the top to read more.

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The Past Week In Theatre History (May 14 – 18)

PLAYBILL VAULT'S Today in Theatre History: MAY 14–18
By Ernio Hernandez, Anne Bradley
Doug Nevins, and Robert Viagas

1894     Birthday of Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981), orchestrator of Broadway classics including the original Sunny; Show Boat; Anything Goes; Oklahoma!; Annie Get Your Gun; Kiss Me, Kate; The King and I, My Fair Lady, Camelot and The Sound of Music. He was honored with a special Tony Award on the anniversary of his birthday in 2008.

1907     The new Hippodrome Theatre opens in Portsmouth, England.

1920     Future composer-lyricist Bob Merrill is born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He will write Take Me Along, New Girl in Town and Carnival!, as well as the timeless lyrics to Funny Girl with Jule Styne.

1923     Sweet Nell of Old Drury runs beyond the season at the 48th Street Theatre in New York. Alfred Lunt stars as Charles II and Laurette Taylor is his mistress Nell Gwynne. Lynn Fontanne and Howard Lindsay are in the cast. J. Hartley Manners stages.

1926     Among The Great Temptations are Jack Benny, Hazel Dawn, and Billy Van. This revue of comic monologues and show parodies will run at the Winter Garden in New York for six months.

1929     American actress Mary Shaw died today in New York City. She played supporting roles to Helena Modjeska, Julia Marlowe, and Mrs. Fiske. She was 75 years old.

1931     Playwright, producer David Belasco dies today in New York City. He began his theatrical life as a child actor in California and started writing plays in his twenties. He adapted the John Luther Long story into the play Madame Butterfly in 1900. In 1905 he wrote, directed, and produced The Girl of the Golden West. In 1906 he built the Stuyvesant Theatre which is now Broadway's Belasco Theater. Belasco liked to shave six years off his age, but it's generally assumed he was 78 at the time of his death. According to Broadway legend, his ghost haunts the apartment where he lived above the theatre that bears his name.

1937     In protest of cuts in the Federal Theatre budget, the Federal Theatre Project's Dance Unit currently performing a double-bill of Candide and How Long Brethern urges the audience to join them in a sit-down strike. The audience acquiesces.

1946     "No you can't get a man with a gun," but when you're Ethel Merman you can sure try. She's the star of Rodgers & Hammerstein's production of Annie Get Your Gun. (You read that right; R&H were the producers, not the composers.) Irving Berlin supplies the words and music for this book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields. Ray Middleton costars as Frank Butler, the fellow sharpshooter Annie gets in the end. There will be 1,147 performances. Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat will costar in a 1999 Broadway revival.

1951     Actress-singer Barbara Cook makes her debut as Sandy in E.Y. Harburg's Flahooley. This musical will run for 5 weeks at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway.

1952     Among the New Faces of 1952, a revue staged by John Murray Anderson, are Eartha Kitt, Ronny Graham, Alice Ghostley, and Carol Lawrence. The will be 365 performances at Broadway's Royale Theatre.
   

1956     Peter Ustinov writes and is featured in Romanoff and Juliet. This comedy will play at London's Piccadilly Theatre for 47 weeks.

1961     Bye Bye Birdie opens at London's Her Majesty's Theater. Chita Rivera, the star of the original Broadway production, reprises her role opposite Marty Wilde, Peter Marshall and Angela Baddeley. The West End staging of the Charles Strouse-Lee Adams musical will last 268 performances.

1962     At New York City Center Jean Dalrymple begins a program of musical revivals. Tonight's opening is Can-Can.

1965     The East-West Players, formed to "truthfully express Asian Pacific American thought and depict on stage Asian Pacific American life...", open in Los Angeles. The first performance is Rashomon.

1965     Legendary theatre is made when the husband-and-wife team of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy open in The Cherry Orchard at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. Variety hails this latest production as "the outstanding presentation of the Chekhov classic in a lifetime of theatregoing and would be a credit to any company." Cronyn and Tandy will continue to grace the stage together for many years to come in such productions as Foxfire and The Gin Game.

1966     The New York Shakespeare Summer Festival is under way as Central Park's Delacorte Theater opens for its summer season. Among this year's productions: All's Well That Ends Well and Richard III, featuring such talents as Christopher Walken, Barbara Barrie, and Richard Jordan.

1969     Sir Lewis Casson, actor-director-producer died today at the age of 93. He was the husband of Dame Sybil Thorndike.

1970     Actress Billie Burke dies today in Los Angeles. She made her stage debut in London in The School Girl in 1903. Her Broadway debut occurred in 1907 in My Wife; producer Florenz Ziegfeld called her that in 1914. Burke was immortalized on screen as the good witch in the film The Wizard of Oz She was 84 years old.

1970     The Me Nobody Knows, based Stephen M. Joseph's book of the writings of inner-city children, is adapted and staged by Robert H. Livingston. Will Holt and Gary William Friedman provide the songs. It will move to the Helen Hayes Theatre on December 18; the combined run will be 586 performances

1971     Stephen Schwartz's musical Godspell opens Off Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre tonight. Three months later, it moves to the Promenade Theatre. All told, the show, which stars Lamar Alford as the up-to-date son of God, plays 2,124 performances. Godspell will also reach Broadway in 1976.

1980     The life and loves of Frank Harris are set to music in the musical Fearless Frank which opens at the Princess Theatre tonight. The short-lived homage runs only 12 performances.

1981     Caryl Churchill's gender-bending race-reversal play, Cloud 9, opens at the Theatre de Lys Off-Broadway. Jeffrey Jones and Concetta Tomei star in the production under the direction of Tommy Tune.

1983     Samuel Beckett is examined in three parts as his Ohio Impromptu, Catastrophe and What Where are presented Off Broadway at the Harold Clurman Theatre. The evening of one-acts will run 350 performances until it closes April 15, 1984. Alan Schneider directs a cast that features David Warrilow, Rand Mitchell, Donald Davis, Daniel Wirth and Margaret Reed.

1985     Jerry Zaks directs Christopher Durang's The Marriage of Bette and Boo at Off-Broadway's The Public/Newman Theatre. Joan Allen, Mercedes Ruehl and Olympia Dukakis star in this dysfunctional matrimony comedy in which Durang himself appears.

1985     Librettist and director Abram Solman Borowitz, better known as Abe Burrows, dies today at the age of 74. Best known for his work with composer-lyricist Frank Loesser on Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, he also penned the books for Silk Stockings and Can-Can.

1995     Michael John LaChiusa makes his Broadway debut writing additional music to Bob Telson's score to Chronicle of A Death Foretold, a musical directed by Graciela Daniele, based on the novel by Gabriel García Márquez. It runs just 37 performances, but gets nominated for Best Musical in the 1996 Tony Awards.

1999     Stephen Sondheim's long-unproduced 1954 musical, Saturday Night, sees the stage as it starts previews in Chicago, sporting two new songs and an edited script. The musical, about pals in 1929 Brooklyn, was to have been Sondheim's professional debut in the mid-1950s, but a production was thwarted by the death of the producer. The musical will make its New York premiere Off-Broadway at Second Stage Feb. 14 the following year.

1999     Rebecca Gilman's new play, Spinning Into Butter, opens at Chicago's Goodman Studio tonight. After extending three times, the play will move on to Lincoln Center Theater's Off-Broadway venue, the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, June 29, 2000 and officially open July 26 for a run through Sept. 16.

2000     The Laramie Project, based on research and on-site interviews by Moisés Kaufman's Tectonic Theater Project that focus on the aftermath of the 1998 beating death of gay college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, WY, opens at the Union Square Theatre Off-Broadway. The play will run 126 performance and 23 previews before closing Sept. 2.

2001     Hours after struggling musical Jane Eyre announces its closing, singer Alanis Morrissette steps forward and writes a check to keep the show open, in hopes that it will win some life-saving awards to buck the Producers tide. Star Marla Schaffel wins the Drama Desk Award as Best Actress in a Musical a few days later, but when the show gets shut out of the Tony Awards, it plays its final performance June 10.

2002     Robert Whitehead, who, over a 50-year career produced landmark stagings of everything from Arthur Miller to Euripides to Terrence McNally, dies at age 86, just two weeks after receiving a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.

2003     Les Misérables passes into the history books when the French-written, British-refined musical plays its 6,680th and final Broadway performance after 16 years. It was, for a time, the second-longest running show in Broadway history.

2003     After touring North America consistently since 1988, the third national company of Les Misérables, the Cameron Mackintosh-produced musical, takes a summer hiatus after its Utah engagement ends today.

2004     Actor and producer Tony Randall dies today at age 84. He starred in string of 1950s Doris Day films and the 1970s TV sitcom, "The Odd Couple," as well as the Broadway musical, Oh Captain!. Late in life he realized a dream by founding the National Actors Theatre, which presented revivals of classic comedies and dramas, some of them starring Randall.

2005     Frank Gorshin, 72, the actor, comedian and impressionist known for playing the frisky Riddler in the 1960s TV series "Batman," and George Burns in the solo play Say Goodnight, Gracie (for which he won the Outer Critics Circle Award), dies after a battle with lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia. He also starred on Broadway in the short-lived musical Jimmy, about NY Mayor Jimmy Walker.

2006     Cy Feuer, the legendary Broadway producer and director whose credits, with late partner Ernest H. Martin, included Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying dies at home in Manhattan at age 95.

2011     Randall L. Wreghitt, a theatrical producer known for bringing innovative dramatic work to Broadway and Off-Broadway stages, dies at age 55. His Broadway productions included Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lonesome West and The Lieutenant of Inishmore; Mary Zimmerman's adaptation of Metamorphoses; and the musical Grey Gardens.

More of This Week's Birthdays Julian Eltinge 1881. Mickey Katz 1909. Alvin Epstein 1925. Bobo Lewis 1926. Eric Morecambe 1926. Sian Phillips 1933. Herb Foster 1936. Laurie Anderson 1947. Mark Blum 1950.Julie Hagerty 1955. Polly Draper 1956. Helen Hunt 1963. Neil Patrick Harris 1973.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything that happen this week in theatre history, that post would be WAY longer than this one. To see more check out the "Today in Theatre History" blog posts on Playbill.com.

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Show reviews for the week of May 14, 2012

Thinking Cap Theatre presents Love Burns by Cherie Vogelstein.  Directed by Nicole Stodard and featuring: David Michael Sirois, Ashley Price, Mark Della Ventura, and Shira Abergel . Design Team: Lighting Design – Christopher Michaels;  Sound Design – David Hart; Set Design - Chastity Collins.

Christine Dolen reviewed the show for the The Miami Herald:

‘Love Burns’ is coffee house comedy with an edge

Choosing two short relationship plays by Cherie Vogelstein, Stodard creates an environmental evening that gets its own umbrella title, Love Burns. The director sets the plays, Date With a Stranger and All About Al, in a Starbucks-like coffee place called Hip Sip. The observant barista is played by Shira Abergel, who strums a ukulele or guitar as she croons songs about love and its flip side before, between and after the plays. The coffee and pastries that are part of the action in each play are available for sale during intermission. Wine, too, if nighttime caffeine isn’t your thing.

The first play, Date With a Stranger, is the crazier and quicker of the two.  Clark (David Michael Sirois), a health club sales guy who looks like he belongs in the 1982 Jane Fonda workout video, stands creepily close to the pretty Paula (Ashley Price) as they wait in line to order their brew of choice. Once they start talking, they take us through a relationship on fast-forward, from the flirting and white lies of a beginning to the explosive breakup that means the end. A customer reading his newspaper at the next table (Mark Della Ventura) tries to ignore them, though drama queen Paula isn’t about to let that happen. Sirois and Price find moment-to-moment truths in Vogelstein’s absurdist look at a relationship that sparks and then dies, all in the course of 20 minutes.

In All About Al, Price plays Allison, a woman who has been in a relationship with Gil (Sirois), though she’s also alluring to Lenny (Della Ventura). Lenny is Gil’s friend or acquaintance (who knows?), a mess of a guy as unlucky in love as Gil is blessed. Not that Gil, whose impulse is to end things when they get too emotionally intimate, chooses to focus on his good fortune. He’s waiting for Allison, or “Al,” intending to break up with her. The recently dumped Lenny won’t hear of it – unless Gil would give Lenny the thumbs up for a rebound relationship.

Rod Stafford Hagwood reviewed the show for the Sun-Sentinel

'Love Burns': A scalding take on relationships

If you're the kind of person who has trouble with commitment, then "Love Burns" at Empire Stage is the double feature for you.

First, you won't have to commit too much of your time, since the two one-act comedies in this Thinking Cap Theatre production clock in at 60 minutes that seem to fly by.

Second, the comedies are profoundly funny, and they slip in a few truisms on romance by shining a sliver of light on the ids of commitment-phobes.

"Love Burns" is an umbrella title for two works by New York-based playwright Cherie Vogelstein. They are playfully directed by Thinking Cap founder Nicole Stodard, who has set them both in a coffee house called the Hip Sip and paced them as breezy, quick-witted pastiches of urban relationships.

Here again, Vogelstein isn't interested in writing sitcom gags a la"Seinfeld"as much as whole riffs on relationships and sex, which the cast knows just how to pitch, playing it the way guys really talk. In the process, they are hilarious in unexpected ways.

Actors Playhouse presents Becky’s New Car by Steven Dietz.  Directed by David Arisco and features: Laura Turnbull, Ken Clement, Ryan Didato, Allan Baker, Francisco “Pancho” Padura, Anne Chamberlain, and Kim Ostrenko.

Christine Dolen reviewed the show for the The Miami Herald:

In ‘Becky’s New Car,’ a different life gets a test drive

Becky Foster is a middle-aged woman with a busy life that seems, to her anyway, stuck in idle. She has a car dealership job that demands long hours, though maybe not as many as she routinely gives. Her roofer hubby is a nice guy who wishes she’d make it home for dinner more often. Her grad student son is a psychology major who hasn’t yet mastered independent adulthood.

Lately, Becky’s thought have been like that song made famous by Peggy Lee: Is that all there is? A colleague’s late wife used to tell Becky that when a woman says she wants new shoes, she really wants a new job. A new house is code for a new husband. A new car means that Ms. Restless is really craving a new life.

The play also seems, for much of its two-hour running time, to be an observant, richly funny comedy about the existential reevaluation so many of us put ourselves through at midlife. Yet at the moment Becky leans into a kiss from a guy who mistakenly thinks her husband is dead – a moment that actually earned some gasps on opening night – it’s clear that Becky’s New Car is going to take some serious turns, popping that bright bubble of comedy to examine the consequences of choices.

Director David Arisco, who has proven his talent at staging all kinds of theater, has an affinity for comedy. In this case, like a master mechanic, he knows how to fine-tune each laugh so that Becky’s New Car just sails along, even over the scattered potholes in Dietz’s script. He blends the slightly different comedic styles of a talented cast into a cohesive, funny, sometimes poignant whole.

Bill Hirschman reviewed the show for Florida Theater On Stage

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

Steven Dietz’s play at Actors Playhouse presents a mildly dissatisfied suburban Everywoman, barely aware she is ripe for a mid-life crisis, who is suddenly faced with an opportunity to lead a double life.

What she expects to be a brief taste of a fantasy – like Cinderella planning a single appearance at the Prince’s ball before returning to the scullery – becomes a seductive spiral that leads to hard lessons about choices.

Arisco is perfectly at home helming this mixture of gentle comedy and modern angst. He keeps the evening moving smoothly and unerringly toward the quickening climax and the honest aftermath in the morning light.

He revels in Dietz’s erasure of the fourth wall by having Becky talk to us as a narrator as if we were just sitting in her living room for a cup of coffee while she cleans up after her family. Arisco and Dietz have Becky interact with folks in the front row, asking them to pitch in to put a bucket under a roof leak and help her collate some paperwork.

As far as the cast, once again, Turnbull is so bloody good that only her colleagues will appreciate how her seemingly naturalistic style hides so much craft that the result borders on alchemy. Her Becky is so immensely likeable that we happily ignore the fact that she’s flirting with being unfaithful. Turnbull has earned praise for her scathing dramatic turns in Actors Playhouse’s August: Osage County last season and Palm Beach Dramaworks’ The Effect of Gamma Rays… this season. So it’s easy to forget how skilled a comedienne she can be, blessed with flawless technique.

Double that praise for Clement’s portrayal of the steadfastly decent blue-collar husband. Under Arisco’s direction, he exhibits superb comic timing and a deadpan delivery that can wring a laugh out of almost any line he chooses. But belying that doughy clown’s face, his real achievement is communicating Joe’s pain underneath his facile quips and stoic expression.  Once we stop laughing in the last 15 minutes, it’s Clement who brings the betrayal and its price tag on the whole family back into focus.

The rest of the cast is just as solid: Playhouse veteran Padura gets to veer out of control in silly rants, Didato (fresh off Brooklyn Boy) convincingly exudes that unwarranted condescension that young adults feel toward their parents. Ostrenko renders a portrait of a rue-filled Scarlett O’Hara puzzling out a life after Tara. And Chamberlain (who triumphed last month, ironically, as Cinderella in Into the Woods) invests Walter’s daughter with warmth and intelligence.

The Plaza Theatre presents I Am Music: The Songs of Barry Manilow.  Directed by Kevin Black and features: Ben Bagby, Craig Strang, Marisa Guida, and Mimi Jiminez.   Choreography by Black, John Hensley, Isabel Trelles, and Bagby.

Bill Hirschman reviewed the show for Florida Theater On Stage

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

Barry Manilow is a secret guilty pleasure for a million Boomers and, judging by the audience Thursday, their parents. Manilow is a talented composer, lyricist, producer, arranger and musical director with an unapologetic pop romantic sensibility and a bent for anthems and ballads that echo an earlier era. I admit to having five on my iPod.

All of Manilow’s greatest hits are here; you can make up the set list yourself.  If you really are a fan of Manilow, you’ll miss his particular honey-smooth smooth tone and flawless phrasing. If you just want to hear lovely songs and didn’t make out to his voice on the radio in the backseat, you likely won’t mind.

That raw material was irresistible to creator/ director Kevin Black, who honed his creative teeth, in fact, developing shows for cruise lines. I didn’t know that fact until I Googled him after the show. But I would have bet you all a steak dinner at Ruth’s Chris that was the case even before I turned on the computer.

Black has the formula down cold: four singers, four dancers, large Pepsodent smiles, soulful gazes that rarely meet the audience’s and an endless parade of spangled, sequined costumes that sort of fit. A karaoke feel suffuses the evening since the singers often stand still and hold microphones to their mouths as they croon to a lush soundtrack of canned music, sweetened with digital background singers. There is no scenery, just images projected onto a screen covering the back wall depicting a backstage, snowfalls, etc., etc.

With one exception, the singers are all competent if not inspiring. Ditto for the dancers’ energetic if not always synchronized execution of choreography by Black, John Hensley, Isabel Trelles and Ben Bagby

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Finito: The Dream is Real

The Red Barn Theatre presents
TheFinito: The Dream is Real
Comedy – Variety – Burlesque Musical
May 16 - June 2

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Disney's The Lion King

The Adrienne Arsht Center Presents
Disney's The Lion King
May 15 – June 10

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tick, tick…Boom!

The Outre Theatre Company presents
tick, tick…Boom!
Book by Jonathan Larson
Monday, May 14

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Show reviews for the week of May 7, 2012

The Miami Stage Door Theatre presents Six Dance Lessons In six Weeks by Richard Alfieri.  Directed by Dan Kelley and features: Larry Buzzeo and Phyllis Spear.

Bill Hirschman reviewed the show for Florida Theater On Stage

Stage Door’s Six Dance Lessons Needs Evenly Matched Partners

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 of step because one partner is far more vibrant than the other.

This unabashedly sentimental trifle tells of a flamboyantly gay dance instructor  Michael (Larry Buzzeo) who has been hired by Lily, a minister’s wife and former schoolteacher (Phyllis Spear), to teach her in the living room of her senior condo in St. Petersburg.

Michael has an uncensored acerbic mouth, a blue vocabulary and a cynical view on everything from leaving his career as a Broadway chorus boy for this “last notch on the Bible Belt” to dissing enduring love as a myth like Santa Claus.

Lily initially is a buttoned-down cold fish but she eventually proves she can toss a wisecrack back as well as he can. Predictably, this is a love story in the making as the two bit-by-bit share the sadnesses in their lives, inevitably unlocking their compassion.

But it requires both actors (to) invest the script with an extra level of energy and charisma for this to really have any electricity arcing on the stage. In this case, only Buzzeo delivers that. True, he has the showier role and he makes the most of it without going over the top. But Spear needs to dig a lot deeper into her inner curmudgeon and give Buzzeo a flintier, more vital force to work with. In fact, Buzzeo starts off strong, but eventually he needs an equal partner to feed his performance.

Director Dan Kelley brings out what he can in the script (he’d have made a perfect Michael a few years ago), but the only scene that really shines is in the confessional scene when the two characters admit their deepest tragedies.

Christine Dolen reviewed the show for the The Miami Herald:

‘Six Dance Lessons’ tracks an unlikely friendship

Stage Door Theatre’s comedy pairs a judgmental widow and an uncensored ex-dancer.  At their first meeting, minister’s widow Lily Harrison and ex-chorus boy Michael Minetti are like oil and water.

Richard Alfieri’s Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks is the simplest of plays, a poignant if somewhat flawed two-character comedy that tracks the evolution of that unlikely friendship over seven scenes. It was produced at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in 2003, with ex- Golden Girls star Rue McClanahan as Lily and former Star Wars hero Mark Hamill as Michael. But as the new Dan Kelley-directed production at the Miami Beach Stage Door Theatre demonstrates, Six Dance Lessons doesn’t need stars to connect with an audience.

Set in Lily’s rather spartan condo with a nonetheless pricey view of the sunset over St. Petersburg Beach, Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks is a bit formulaic, with each scene built around Michael “teaching” Lily a different style of dance, though it’s clear from the get-go that the lady can move. What makes the play more interesting are the lessons Michael and Lily learn when there’s no music playing.

Gable Stage presents Time Stands Still by Donald Margulies. Directed by Joe Adler and features: Deborah L Sherman, Steve Garland, Gregg Weiner, and betsy Graver. Design Team: Set Design – Lyle Baskin; Lighting Design – Jeff Quinn; Sound Design – Matt Corey.

Bill Hirschman reviewed the show for Florida Theater On Stage

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

The irony of the play Time Stands Still is that, in fact, time doesn’t stand still.  It’s the inability of people to change with it that constitutes one of several tragedies in Donald Margulies’ drama enjoying a solid production at GableStage.

Forgive the inflexibility of the lovers at the story’s core. They are foreign correspondents whose work in war-torn and famine-plagued hotspots is creating frozen shards of time so that we can examine them and our conscience at our leisure.

Director Joe Adler and a fine quartet of actors deliver such a skilled naturalistic portrait of two couples that you occasionally forget you are watching theater and feel a little uncomfortable eavesdropping on private moments.

In truth, this 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. Adler, Margulies and Company have provided rich fodder for protracted post-show debates.

Lovers James and Sarah grapple with the contradictory paradigm of journalism: being knee deep in the viscera of tragedy while keeping it at an emotional arm’s length. The trick has always been preserving your humanity when you get too proficient at putting your compassion in a lockbox during crises. Sometimes you forget where you put the key when it’s time to come home and resume “a real life.”

Sarah (Deborah L. Sherman) has been scarred and crippled by a roadside bomb that killed her assistant. James (Steve Garland) was back in the United States at the time undergoing psychiatric counseling after being traumatized by yet one more horrific incident.

Sarah finds the meaning of her life in a sacred calling of spotlighting the horror for the world to see. She can’t wait to go back. “Without us, who would know? Who would care?” she says.

But James has finally seen too much and yearns for a conventional life. “I don’t want to watch children die; I want to watch children grow,” he says.

Sarah reacts with wittily sardonic and sarcastic comments when faced with the comparative banalities of everyday life. Exhibit one is the almost clichéd mid-life crisis relationship between their long-time friend Richard (Gregg Weiner), a photo editor who often commissions their work, and his newest girlfriend, the much younger Mandy (Betsy Graver), an event planner who is seemingly far shallower.

Lyle Baskin once again provides a convincing environment, this time James and Sarah’s Brooklyn apartment. But the highest praise goes to Jeff Quinn’s evocative lighting. He creates shifting moods with different lighting schemes for the same apartment, including subtly changes in the cityscape outside the window. Much as he did for GableStage’s Fifty Words, Quinn also creates different patterns by having characters turn on lights in different parts of the apartment as they move about.

Christine Dolen reviewed the show for The Miami Herald:

War wounds run deep in ‘Time Stands Still’

Photojournalists freeze moments in time, some beautiful, others gruesome. These committed visual storytellers document history, moment by moment, and their work can bring awareness or even spur change. But at what cost to the person behind the camera?

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies explores those questions and many others in Time Stands Still, a 2010 Broadway hit that has just opened at GableStage under the direction of Joseph Adler. As in Dinner With Friends, the play that won him drama’s top honor, Margulies creates believable, contemporary characters whose life issues resonate with people who go to the theater. Time Stands Still is, however, more an intriguing character study than a fully realized, compelling play.

Impeccably produced, GableStage’s Time Stands Still unfolds on Lyle Baskin’s simple but handsome loft set, a place decorated with the books and photographs and world-travel souvenirs you would expect to find in James and Sarah’s home base. Sound designer Matt Corey frames the action with mournful jazz, and lighting designer Jeff Quinn suggests both Mandy’s brightness and the moodier crossroads faced by Sarah and James. Ellis Tillman’s costume choices convey class, age and taste, from the dressed-down journalists to Richard’s expensive menswear to Mandy’s young, sexy style.

Adler gets strong, intricately detailed performances from all four actors. Sherman is a fierce, always believable Sarah, even when she and Garland are dealing with brief and unnecessary nudity that isn’t in Margulies’ script. Garland is, arguably, a bit too jolly and for a guy who’s dealing with guilt while working his way through the aftermath of a breakdown, but he and Sherman suggest a long familiarity. Weiner’s Richard is smart, manipulative and self-justifying, though he subtly melts in the presence of the life force that is Graver’s radiant Mandy.

Roger Martin Atca reviewed the show for the miamiartzine:

‘Time Stands Still’

Photograph a dying baby lying on a dusty road. Carefully replace the lens cap. Walk away. It's just a job. Move on.

You didn't help? You didn't put down your camera and pick up the dying baby? What kind of woman are you?

A badly damaged one, this war photographer Sarah Goodwin, as she enters her apartment at the top of Time Stands Still, Joe Adler's latest production at Gable Stage. A month earlier, Sarah (Deborah Sherman) had been blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Her leg is in multiple braces, arm in a sling, and the entire right side of her face is scarred from flying shrapnel. It's not only her body that's hurting; so is her brain. She's burning with the guilt of years of snapping the dead and dying all around the world. But of course she won't admit it. And never will. Deborah Sherman is perfect as the acerbic, adrenalin junky Sarah.

She shares the apartment with her live-in lover, James Dodd (Steve Garland). They've been together eight and a half years. He's the war writer to her photographer, but he got shipped back just before she was blown up. He couldn't shake off the splattered blood and brains of the young girls killed so close to him he was drenched with their remains. Steve Garland is perfect as the man who wants to flee the war zones and raise a family. With Sarah.

The editor who publishes her photos and his text is their long-time friend, Richard Erlich, (Gregg Weiner), who's finally found love with his ditzy young girlfriend. Gregg Weiner is perfect as the old friend who tries to, but cannot, chase the demons away from Sarah and James

Betsy Graver is the ditzy young girlfriend, Mandy Bloom, or so you'd like to think. But she's anything but a vapid maiden, for in reality her innocence is the only thing that makes sense in the lives of the four. Betsy Graver is perfect as the hot, hot babe who makes at least one person happy.

Chris Joseph wrote about the play for the New Times     http://www.miaminewtimes.com/

GableStage's ‘Time Stands Still’ Surveys War's Damage at Home

The only part that could be considered a review is this:

As with every GableStage production, Time Stands Still is anchored by fine work. Adler draws crisp performances from his ensemble, particularly from Sherman, who deftly gives Sarah's pain and hardened outer shell some humanity. It would be easy to dislike this war junkie, even with her injuries. But Sherman makes her wholly human, someone we all know. Garland is genuinely affable and compassionate as the loyal-to-a-fault James, all while keeping an inner passion bottled up for the sake of his and Sarah's delicate relationship. Graver does a fantastic job of keeping Mandy's simple worldview grounded without turning the character into a cliché. The always-excellent Weiner as Richard is warm and funny; he really shows his versatility by playing a more compliant role than he usually plays.

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