All stories by Bill Hirschman on BroadwayStars

Thursday, October 12, 2017

The Sound of Music Sings Once More With Feeling In Broward by Bill Hirschman

Perhaps you've seen The Sound of Music once too often. But if you have fond memories that seek reawakening or if you have never seen it on stage as opposed to the film, this is an enthusiast…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 09:18AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, October 11, 2017

MNM 's Less Zesty But More Heartfelt La Cage aux Folles by Bill Hirschman

For a show that shattered a ceiling in 1983, La Cage aux Folles has become a warhorse in 2017. MNM Productions' edition embraces the spangles, glitz and sheer Jerry Herman of it all. So if y…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 12:48AM[SHARE]
Monday, October 9, 2017

A Fraying Promise Exposed In GableStage's The Humans by Bill Hirschman

GableStage's production of The Humans is like watching a Kmart photo department family portrait that has been left too near a wall heater. Almost imperceptibly, the edges start to brown, the…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 11:33PM[SHARE]
Saturday, October 7, 2017

Estefans' Bio-Musical On Your Feet Gets Miamians' On Theirs by Bill Hirschman

Joy suffused the house on the "opening night" of the national tour of On Your Feet! the bio-musical about Emilio and Gloria Estefan. Part of the palpable elation pouring both ways across the…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 04:36PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Estefans' Inspiring Life Story Comes Back Home In A Musical by Bill Hirschman

Gloria and Emilio Estefan once again are bringing it back home. The national tour of On Your Feet!, an autobiographical Broadway musical powered by their iconic songbook, will open this week…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 10:54PM[SHARE]

City Theatre's Crackling, Provocative 'Building the Wall' Plays a Dystopian Trump Card by Bill Hirschman

City Theatre's production of Building the Wall opens with audio of then-candidate Donald Trump spewing some of his more incendiary anti-immigration rhetoric. The first line has yet to be spo…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 10:04AM[SHARE]
Sunday, October 1, 2017

A Puerile Underpants Is Challenging Sell for Main Street Players' Likable Cast by Bill Hirschman

Conjuring the lowbrow folderol of an early 20th century burlesque, Steve Martin's adaptation of this 1910 German sex comedy Underpants performed by Main Street Players is all too quaint for …

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 09:24PM[SHARE]
Thursday, September 28, 2017

Area Stage's An Octoroon' Is Stunning Controversial Play That Will Divide Audiences by Bill Hirschman

An Octoroon is the kind of art that defies a Siskel & Ebert thumbs up / thumbs down assessment. You can praise or fault elements of the script or a production, but Area Stage Company's …

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 10:18PM[SHARE]

GableStage & Dramaworks Team Up To Co-Produce Indecent by Bill Hirschman

In what is believed to be a groundbreaking move, Palm Beach Dramaworks and GableStage plan a co-production of the acclaimed Broadway play Indecent to be next fall.

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 09:18AM[SHARE]
Sunday, September 24, 2017

Mamet's Oleanna Remains An Unsettling, Provocative Night by Bill Hirschman

A quarter-century on, the temptation is to r reinterpret Oleanna, David Mamet's incendiary screed about toxic relations between men and women. But Evening Star Productions' rendition in 2017…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 08:24PM[SHARE]
Sunday, September 17, 2017

Area Stage's An Octoroon May Be Unlike Anything You've Seen by Bill Hirschman

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon virtually defines the adjective "provocative." No matter the quality of the production that the courageous Area Stage Company actually delivers next week,…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 09:48AM[SHARE]
Thursday, September 14, 2017

Not Enough Heat Or Coherence In Saturday Night Fever by Bill Hirschman

Talent, energy and enthusiasm strut across the Broward Stage Door production of Saturday Night Live " The Musical. Unfortunately, this company does not have enough of those virtues to rescue…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 09:06AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Updated Regularly " Shows Cancelled Or Postponed By Irma by Bill Hirschman

With Hurricane Irma closing in, those in charge of theater performances and venues are considering whether to cancel or postpone productions and events. We will post this information on an o…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 08:18PM[SHARE]
Monday, September 4, 2017

Charles Busch Comes To Palm Beach Without The Dress by Bill Hirschman

If you're coming to see Charles Busch camping it up in high drag at Palm Beach Dramaworks' inaugural event in its OutStage @pbd series on Sept. 16, you'll be disappointed. But if you're intr…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 12:33AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Riverside Theatre Building Its Own Housing For Visiting Artists by Bill Hirschman

The Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach has come up with a solution"build its own housing for professionals which has become a major expense for many theaters.

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 10:06PM[SHARE]
Thursday, August 24, 2017

Growing Old Ain't All Sunshine For The Boys At Stage Door by Bill Hirschman

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 Do…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 09:12AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Taking The Show On The Road: San Francisco Is A Theater Town by Bill Hirschman

The Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, Alcatraz, all beckon visitors. Yet in the popular consciousness, theater in San Francisco does not strike many as a stand-alone reason to book a week ther…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 09:36PM[SHARE]
Monday, August 21, 2017

Shorts Gone Wild 5 Is Usual Mixed Bag " But With A Twist by Bill Hirschman

Shorts Gone Wild 5, co-produced by City Theatre with Island City Stage, follows the same entertaining pattern eliciting guffaws, chuckles and a few choked back sniffles with risque and luigh…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 10:36AM[SHARE]
Thursday, August 17, 2017

Curtain Up On The 2017-2018 South Florida Theater Season by Bill Hirschman

If you know where to look, certainly you can find reliable warhorse titles in the upcoming theater season in South Florida, but it's easier to find vibrant, contemporary and challenging offe…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 08:36AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Music In The Air: A Few Sweet Notes From Radosh, Fantel, Keelor " And Even Ben Hecht by Bill Hirschman

Local stages have some special programs running for only one or two days starting tonight including Palm Beach Dramaworks, GableStage and Arts Garage.

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 12:06PM[SHARE]
Sunday, August 13, 2017

Regional Theaters Are The Country's Primary Incubator of New Plays " Including SoFla by Bill Hirschman

Indisputably, regional theaters have been a significant wellspring for new plays reaching back 30 years. But a quickening sea change has occurred quietly but demonstrably over the past decad…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 01:24PM[SHARE]
Friday, August 11, 2017

Sam Shepard's True West Explodes At New City Players by Bill Hirschman

An explosion of passionate performances (and flying silverware) mark New City Players' production of the late Sam Shepard's True West.

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 12:18PM[SHARE]
Saturday, August 5, 2017

No Frills, No Problem: Masterly McPherson Monologue Gets the Ground Up & Rising Treatment by Bill Hirschman

Gregg Weiner captures the audience in Ground Up and Rising's bare bones production of Conor McPherson's monologue The Good Thief at South Miami- Dade Cultural Arts Center

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 03:54PM[SHARE]
Monday, July 31, 2017

GableStage's Informed Consent: Is The Search For Truth Paramount? And Whose Truth? by Bill Hirschman

Is knowledge always good? Is its pursuit inherently defensible regardless of the consequences? Is there Absolute Truth?These and another half-dozen ideas careen and crisscross GableStage lik…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 10:06AM[SHARE]
Sunday, July 30, 2017

Marquee's Millie Is Blessed With Those Classic Broadway Voices by Bill Hirschman

Marquee Theater Company is still an evolving troupe. but it's a shame that this production of Thoroughly Modern Millie isn't Carbonell Award eligible " many elements would have given other c…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 11:06AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Main Street Players' Vicious Voluble Family In Bad Jews Is Equally Funny And Unnerving by Bill Hirschman

One of the joys of seeing local theater over the years is charting a new theater's growth and promise. But it's rare to see a fledgling theater develop so quickly as Main Street Players, as …

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 11:33AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Impressions Is A Pleasant Stroll Through Gallery Of Imagination by Bill Hirschman

Not every theatrical event has to be an outsized venting of passion filled with intellectual pyrotechnics. Sometimes a work can be satisfying to the brain and the heart as a gentle celebrat…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 10:36AM[SHARE]
Sunday, July 23, 2017

Company Has Shining Moments, Falls Short Of What Could Be by Bill Hirschman

MNM's production of Stephen Sondheim's groundbreaking musical Company is intermittently lit with incandescent performances worth the price of admission by themselves, but the overall piece d…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 08:36PM[SHARE]
Friday, July 21, 2017

Michael Leeds Makes 'Impressions' With Pigs Do Fly by Bill Hirschman

Pigs Do Fly Productions -- which has done mostly short plays by, for and about people 0ver 50 -- has jumped even deeper into the play-ing field by presenting the world premiere of Michael L…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 09:06AM[SHARE]
Thursday, July 20, 2017

Broadway Comes To Miramar With Cultural Center's Festival by Bill Hirschman

A production of Dreamgirls was already planned for the Miramar Cultural Center's summer season, but became the perfect "launching pad" for the City of Miramar's First Annual Broadway Festiva…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 07:24AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Slava's Snowshow At The Arsht: Winter Is Coming " In July by Bill Hirschman

For the third time in nine years, a blizzard is raging inside the Arsht Center in the middle of a blazing summer as Slava's Snowshow returns and you once again will be picking white stuff ou…

SOURCE: Florida Theater On Stage at 10:12AM[SHARE]

All that Chat

2025-2026 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 12, 2025: Call Me Izzy - Studio 54
Sep 16, 2025: Art - Music Box Theatre
Oct 08, 2025: Beetlejuice - Palace Theatre
Nov 13, 2025: Oedipus - Studio 54
Nov 16, 2025: Chess - Imperial Theatre
Mar 23, 2026: Giant - Music Box Theatre
Apr 06, 2026: Becky Shaw - Hayes Theater
Apr 16, 2026: Proof - Booth Theatre
Apr 26, 2026: Drama Desk Cut-Off