Outré Theatre Company announces its Broward Center season

Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center for the Performing Arts will be home to two of South Florida's professional theater companies next season, the Outré Theatre Company and Slow Burn Theatre. Slow Burn has already revealed its 2015-2016 season, which will be presented in the center's Amaturo Theater, and now it's Outré's turn.

Artistic Director Skye Whitcomb and managing director Sabrina Lynn Gore have built a lineup around the theme "The Power of Woman," and the company's productions will be done in the Abdo New River Room, where earlier this season Outré staged Othello.

The troupe's new season begins with The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, the duo's brilliant musical about an array of shady characters in London's underworld, running Aug. 28-Sept. 13.  A production of the Greek tragedy Medea will run March 11-27, 2016.  The full season closes out June 10-26, 2016, with Rooms:  a rock romance, a punk rock musical by Paul Scott Goodman and Miriam Gordon about a young couple struggling with the pressures of fame.  (A concert version of Rooms is being presented at 7 p.m. this Friday-Saturday at Stache Drinking Den, 109 SW Second Ave., Fort Lauderdale.)

Two additional pieces will get shorter runs next season.  Outré will mount a return of its Carbonell Award-nominated production of Stephen Dolginoff's Thrill Me, a two-character musical about Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb starring Conor Walton and Mike Westrich, Dec. 11-13.  And April 8-10, 2016, the company will do a concert version of the Polly Pen-Peggy Harmon musical Goblin Market.

Still coming up for Outré this season are a reading of Joel Gross' play Marie Antoinette: The Color of Flesh (featuring Katherine Amadeo, Seth Trucks and Gore) at 8 p.m. March 6-7 in the Broward Center's JM Family Studio, and the rock musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson May 1-17 in the Abdo New River Room.

The Broward Center is located at 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale.  For information, call the box office at 954-462-0222, visit the center's web site or visit Outré's site.

(Photos of Skye Whitcomb and Sabrina Lynn Gore)

Kravis Center books 'Matilda,' 'Bullets' and 'Bridges of Madison County'

As news of choices for the 2015-2016 theater season continues to roll out, we learn that the Kravis on Broadway series at the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts will feature three shows making their way to South Florida for the first time.  And there's no duplication of titles recently announced for next season at Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center for the Performing Arts (though Motown the Musical, part of the new Kravis lineup, will get a two-week run at the Broward Center starting this Tuesday at 8 p.m.).

The new season at the Kravis will kick off Dec. 8-13 with the ever-popular Blue Man Group bringing its wordless spectacle to West Palm Beach.  Next is a tour of the backstage musical 42nd Street, which will play the Kravis Jan. 5-10. Motown the Musical, a music-packed hit parade woven around the life and times of Motown founder Berry Gordy Jr., will run Feb. 9-14.  Then come the three new-to-South Florida titles.

The Tony Award-winning Matilda the Musical, about an imaginative little girl who uses her intellect to thwart cruel and misguided adults, will play the Kravis March 1-6, 2016. Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway, in which a playwright makes a deal with a mobster to back his Broadway show, runs March 22-27, 2016.  Next season winds up April 26-May 1, 2016, with the romantic The Bridges of Madison County the Musical, with a score by Tony winner Jason Robert Brown and book by Pulitzer winner Marsha Norman.

Subscription prices range from $180 to $499, and they'll go on sale to current subscribers in mid-March, to the general public mid-summer.  The Kravis is located at 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach.  For information, call 561-832-7469 or visit the center's web site. 

(Photo of Matilda the Musical)

As spring nears, 'tis the season to announce seasons

Despite the chill in the air, theaters around South Florida are looking to create some heat at the box office by announcing their 2015-2016 seasons, enticing current subscribers to renew and wooing new ones.

We already know the details of what Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables will be producing next season.  We know what Broadway Across America is planning for its lineup at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, and what Slow Burn Theatre will be doing for its first full season at the Broward Center.

So what will Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, the Wick Theatre in Boca Raton and the Stage Door Theatre in Margate be producing for 2015-2016?  Happy to share.

Dramaworks, which earlier this week announced that its concert-style summer musicals would be Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's A Little Night Music (July 9-19) and the Harvey Schmidt-Tom Jones-N. Richard Nash musical 110 in the Shade (Aug. 13-23), today revealed its new season. 

The lineup is a mixture of American classics and newer works, starting with William Inge's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1953 play Picnic (Oct. 9-Nov. 8). Next is Alan Bennett's Tony Award-winning The History Boys (Dec. 4-Jan. 3), followed by Eugene O'Neill's brilliant Pulitzer winner Long Day's Journey Into Night (Jan. 29-Feb. 28).  John Patrick Shanley's recent Broadway play Outside Mullingar (March 25-April 24, 2016) and Terry Teachout's Louis Armstrong play Satchmo at the Waldorf (May 13-June 12, 2016) close out the next season.  Current subscribers can renew beginning March 16, and new subscribers can sign up starting March 23. Single tickets go on sale Sept. 14. Dramaworks is at 201 Clematis St., West Palm Beach. For information, call 561-514-4042 or visit the company's web site.

Like Dramaworks, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre is a heavily subscribed company, so going for a season subscription isn't a bad idea at all.  A couple of plays and three big musicals will be featured on the Maltz mainstage, starting with Agatha Christie's classic whodunnit The Mousetrap (Oct. 25-Nov. 8).  Next is Billy Elliot the Musical (Dec. 1-20), then The Will Rogers Follies (Jan. 12-31).  The season ends with Peter Morgan's Frost/Nixon (Feb. 7-21) and Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate (March 8-27, 2016).  The Maltz is at 1001 E. Indiantown Rd. in Jupiter. Call 561-575-2223 or visit the theater's web site.

The Wick Theatre is presenting a summer season featuring productions of Peter Pan (June 11-28), a concert version of George M! (July 2-19) and Pump Boys & Dinettes (Aug. 6-23).  Its 2015-2016 season kicks off with A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Oct. 1-Nov. 1), followed by Hello, Dolly! (Nov. 5-Dec. 6), a holiday spectacular (Dec. 10-Jan. 3), South Pacific (Jan. 7-Feb. 14), Curtains (Feb. 25-March 27, 2016) and I Love a Piano (April 14-May 22, 2016).  The Wick is at 7901 N. Federal Hwy. in Boca Raton. For information, call 561-995-2333 or visit the web site.

Stage Door Theatre has a dozen shows planned for the new season to fill its two theater spaces.  The Pulitzer-winning comedy Harvey starts things off (July 31-Sept. 6).  Then come The Fantasticks (Sept 4-Oct. 11), Dial 'M' for Murder (Oct. 30-Dec. 6), Promises, Promises (Sept. 25-Nov. 1), Gypsy (Nov. 20-Jan. 3), Pompadour (Dec. 6-Jan. 31), Carnival (Jan. 22-Feb. 28), What's New Pussycat? (Feb. 19-March 27), Sunset Boulevard (March 18-April 24, 2016), Same Time, Next Year (April 15-May 22, 2016), Putting It Together (May 13-June 19, 2016) and A Night in Motown (June 10-July 17, 2016).  Stage Door is at 8036 W. Sample Rd. in Margate.  Call 954-344-7765 or visit the theater's web site.

Actors' Playhouse to stage 'West Side Story' next season

Heading into the final week of its wildly successful production of Ragtime, Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables is revealing five of the six shows it will produce during the 2015-2016 season.

That still-to-be finalized slot from March 16 to April 10, 2016, will be filled with another big musical.  But in celebrating its 20th year at the historic Miracle Theatre, the company and artistic director David Arisco will again tackle a Broadway classic that brought Actors' seven Carbonell Awards in 1998:  West Side Story. Running Jan. 27-Feb. 21, 2016, the great musical about a Polish-American Romeo and a Puerto Rican Juliet is as dynamic and resonant as it was when Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents created it in 1957. 

Actors' will kick off its new season Oct. 14-Nov. 8 with a smaller Off-Broadway musical, The Toxic Avenger. Based on the 1984 movie, it's a comic pop-rock musical -- the music is by Bon Jovi's David Bryan, the book by I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change creator Joe DiPietro, and both wrote lyrics -- with an environmental theme.

Mark Brown's play The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, in which the "reformed" tightwad is suing Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, will run Dec. 2-27. 

After West Side Story and the still-in-negotiations musical, Actors' will present The Tin Woman by Making God Laugh playwright Sean Grennan.  Running May 11-June 5, 2016, the play is about a heart transplant recipient who decides to meet with the family of the donor who saved her life.

And from July 13-Aug. 7, 2016, Jonathan Tolins' tour-de-force solo show, Buyer & Cellar, will be the company's summer show.  Set in the Malibu basement of superstar Barbra Streisand, the play imagines an actor (who also plays Streisand, hubby James Brolin, the home's manager, the actor's boyfriend and others) running a secret underground "mall" for the diva.

Subscriptions for the new season range from $203 for preview performances to $453 for opening night gala performances.  Actors' performs at the Miracle, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables.  For information, call 305-444-9293 or visit the company's web site.

(Photo of West Side Story tour by Joan Marcus; photo of The Toxic Avenger at Danforth Music Hall by Paula Wilson.)

Thinking Cap pushes back the opening of The Vanguard (slightly)

Fort Lauderdale's Thinking Cap Theatre has been working for months to get its new home, The Vanguard, ready for the Feb. 19 opening of Dave Hanson's comedy Waiting for Waiting for Godot.

But stuff happens in the world of theater, in this case an illness for cast member Scott Douglas Wilson (one of just three actors in the play) that brought rehearsals to a halt and forced founder/artistic director Nicole Stodard to consider her options.  Wanting to do right by the piece and longtime company member Wilson, Stodard decided to delay that show until August.  After a multimedia dance performance, The Forest Diaries by Swedish choreographer Jenny Larsson, on March 7, Thinking Cap at the Vanguard will officially open the new venue with Always...Patsy Cline March 12-April 4.

The space, which will be Thinking Cap's home and a place for all sorts of performances, was built in 1939 as a church.  During the long renovation period, the 30-foot-high Dade County Pine ceiling in what will be the main performance space was uncovered, and cool pop art touches and Sputnik chandeliers now grace the building.  Now called "The Vanguard -- A Sanctuary for the Arts," the theater is close to the always-bustling Tap 42 on S. Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale.  So once The Vanguard is up and running, it may help spark a compact new arts-and-dining district in that part of town.

You can check The Vanguard out early if you see The Forest Diaries at 3 or 7 p.m. March 7.  Tickets are $15, and the performance will feature Larsson, LIze-Lotte Pitlo and Rachel Carroll, along with an original score and film. You can purchase tickets via the Vanguard web site.  

Or plan to see Ted Swindley's Always...Patsy Cline starring Ann Marie Olson as the great country singer along with Sally Bondi as Cline's pal, Houston housewife Louise Seger.  The show will run March 13-29 at the Vanguard, 1501 S. Andrews Ave., with tickets priced at $35.  Performances will be 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 5 p.m. Sunday. For info, call 813-220-1546, visit the Vanguard site or buy tickets at Brown Paper Tickets.

(Nicole Stodard photo)

Women's Theatre Project shuts down

South Florida has lost and gained a number of theater companies since the 2006 shutdown of Miami's historic Coconut Grove Playhouse.  Today brings another loss.

The Women's Theatre Project, incorporated in 2002 as a not-for-profit company devoted to presenting work by women playwrights, has now folded.  President and artistic director Genie Croft made a statement reflecting on the company's accomplishments and announcing its closure.

Croft wrote, in part: "The Women's Theatre Project was fueled by the desires of professional women in theatre, who were drawn to the concept of creating a cultural profile of a diverse female voice on stage. Our choices broke with stereotypical portrayals

of women propelled by the media, and we created theatrical opportunities for women of all shapes, ages and races. Our 33 main stage productions, numerous staged readings, and the creation of Girl Play allowed our audiences to encounter the full spectrum of our artistic vision...Our audiences have followed us to our five different homes in three different counties, and now we are concluding our theatrical run. Since our inception, we have solicited and received hundreds of scripts from playwrights locally, nationally and worldwide, allowing us to produce southeastern and world premieres of new and impactful plays, utilizing the skills of South Florida's finest talents." 

During the majority its run, the company focused on plays with all-female casts, giving work to some of the region's best performers, including Carbonell Award winners Lela Elam, Angie Radosh and Karen Stephens.  Under Croft and fellow founder Meredith Lasher, Women's Theatre Project served general audiences, women eager to see their lives reflected onstage and, via its annual Girl Play festival, the lesbian community.

Funding, always an issue for smaller companies, and the troupe's many moves (its last, in 2012, was to a shared space at the Willow Theatre in Boca Raton's Sugar Sand Park) were factors in the shutdown. 

Croft said by phone late Monday, "Once we moved to the Willow, we could do only two shows a year, so we went from being a company with a mission to a company putting on shows.  We feel we accomplished our mission.  It was time to move on. We have no debt, we never burned anybody, and we left a legacy.  We opened doors for all these playwrights."

This loss, like others including Mosaic Theatre and The Promethean Theatre, is something to be mourned.

(Top photo shows Genie Croft and Meredith Lasher; bottom is from 2004's 'Necessary Targets')