Stephen Hope and Joanna Parson in FST’s Das Barbecu. Photo by Maria Lyle With the summer heat, local stages often turn to lighter fare, and Florida Studio Theatre has launched its summer season with Das Barbecu, a musical comedy set in Texas but based, loosely, on Wagner’s famous Ring Cycle. It’s a show I remembered, [...]

Marya Grandy and Lance Baker in the Asolo Rep’s Fanny Brice, America’s Funny Girl. Photo credit: myunionhouse. If you thought you knew the story of Fanny Brice just from watching Barbra Streisand emote in Funny Girl, you might think again after seeing the Asolo Rep’s current production of Fanny Brice, America’s Funny Girl. Not that [...]

Chris Caswell, Ryan Fitts and B.J. Wilkes in Moonlight and Magnolias. Photo credit: Donna DesIsles There’s a situation ripe for comedy in Ron Hutchinson’s Moonlight and Magnolias, now onstage at the Golden Apple Dinner Theatre in the inaugural production of the nonprofit PLATO organization presenting its shows there. And there’s more than a little bit [...]

On opening night of Venice Theatre’s season-closing production of Driving Miss Daisy, the biggest laugh of the evening (an unintended one) came early on, when Daisy Werthan’s son, Boolie, tries to talk her out of driving after an accident. After all, he tells her, “You’re 72 years old.” Since many of the audience members, who [...]

When people say, “They don’t write them like that anymore,” the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, now onstage at the Manatee Players Riverfront Theatre,  might be just what they’re talking about. This tale of a frontiersman who goes into town to find himself a bride, encouraging his six brothers to do the same, is [...]

Watching a group of “average” guys strut their stuff, nude or nearly so, on stage may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But it’s seemed to work for an awful lot of people over the years since The Full Monty first hit Broadway in an adaptation of the hit British movie. And judging from the [...]

Money, money, money. It’s key to just about all of us, but for the title character in Moliere’s The Miser, Harpagon, it’s virtually the only thing that matters in life—so much so that he’s willing to make everyone around him, family, servants, etc.—suffer so he can hold on to it or accrue more. Such an [...]

Entertainer and World War II heroine Josephine Baker packed enough excitement into her time on earth for probably at least three lives, but presenting a full picture of those nearly 70 years might be beyond the scope of the average musical. Wisely, collaborators Sherman Yellen and Wally Harper stuck to just five years or so [...]

As the Sarasota Film Festival wrapped up its closing weekend, here’s a quick look back at some of the events of the past couple of days. First up: a screening of the latest film by director Todd Solondz, Dark Horse. Solondz has certainly been controversial with his work and its themes in the past (Happiness [...]

Just got back from Sarasota Yacht Club, where actress Penelope Ann Miller received the Sarasota Film Festival’s Career Tribute Award during a Filmmaker Luncheon in her honor. Miller (who’s attended the festival several times before and is here this year with the fest offering Think of Me) was introduced by film critic Thelma Adams (formerly [...]