Chris Silk - Page 2

Summer is just around the corner, and with its arrival comes a host of exciting entertainment options for the entire family. Here are our picks for the hottest performances that will hit the stages of northern New Jersey!

'Master Class,' Terrence McNally's play about the life of opera diva Maria Callas, seems tailor-made to continue the partnership between Gulfshore Playhouse and the Naples Philharmonic. Produced by Gulfshore, performed in the Daniels Pavilion, the show combines a larger-than-life character, smart writing, lush music and operatic arias.

There's one man (and a bunch of junk) on the stage. There's 40 characters on the stage. There's a laptop. A desk. A chair. A phone. An intercom. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. That. Incessant. ########## ####### ####### ######## ######## #######-ing RING! 'Good evening, 'Fully Committed;' could you hold please?'

There's a reason - a simple one - that Second City can fill an auditorium on a cold, windy evening in late March in Naples, when the sun is shining and the million distractions of a coastal resort town beckon. These guys are good. Very, very good.

Two rival golf clubs. A prodigy with a broken arm. A priceless vahze. A $200,000 wager. Granny's engagement ring. The Golf Channel. Oprah. Raw oysters. Champagne. There's even a couple putters, a driver and few golf balls knocking about the stage. Sounds like a recipe for a disaster on stage and laughter in the seats!

Thank you, Seth Rudetsky. The last thing you expect to hear on a wet Wednesday in March is a cover of 'I Dreamed A Dream,' that song from 'Les Miserables,' yes THAT song, as performed by Aretha oh please no Franklin. The tune. It … it … travels?

Florida Repertory Theatre scored a coup, grabbing the rights to red-hot Jon Robin Baitz play 'Other Desert Cities' for their 2012-13 season. In some ways a thinly veiled take on Ron and Nancy Reagan, the show features a daughter confronting conservative parents over long-buried family secrets.

Call. Now. Get tickets to the Florida Rep production of 'The Fantasticks.' You, dear readers, will love the show. The opening night audience cooed in delight and sheer merriment at streamers and confetti and the banging of a drum. The smooth glissando of a harp evokes a garden, washed in lunar rays, the rapid tapping of piano keys the gallop of brigands.

Gulfshore Playhouse explores the Civil War in frightening, fascinating, thrilling, daresay even extraordinary fashion in this Matthew Lopez show. 'The Whipping Man' covers a few days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. A Jewish soldier returns home to find his house in ruins, just two former slaves left and his family gone. As the starving, uneasy trio celebrates Passover with a makeshift Seder, bitter truths come out.

Let's get to the point. 'Les Miserables' is back in Southwest Florida for the second time in fifteen months, playing through March 17 at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers. Will you like it? That depends. I didn't. You will. Because Tuesday's opening night crowd went absolutely nuts. Two curtain calls and almost no one ran screaming for the exits as if Inspector Javert was hot on their heels waiting to toss them into the Bastile. If the seats don't empty during bows, you know the folks in the 239 have got some major love for what's on stage.

Mark Danni continues to tackle ambitious projects at TheatreZone. With critical and commercial hits 'Forum' and 'Grand Hotel' behind him, success augured well for edgy small-cast, sung-through musical 'Next to Normal.' The pieces just don't fall into place.

The Roundabout Theatre Club production of 'Anything Goes' sailed into the Naples Philharmonic Tuesday on a tide of tapping and trilling, carried along by one of the single greatest act one curtain numbers in musical theatre history.

Sitting in a darkened house, listening to the scrape of chairs, the clink of glasses and the rustle of napkins, you forget just how charming 'The Sound of Music' can be. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II could write songs. Not the bland, vaguely pop ditties of today's musical theatre. But tunes that audiences cherish for five decades and counting.

By the time the final notes of Aretha Franklin girl-power anthem 'Respect' die down, after Friday's opening night crowd whooped and cheered as Anne Chamberlain juggled, flipped and successfully caught an errant microphone, you're totally, completely, utterly in love with the 'Marvelous Wonderettes.'

Da da da dum (snap snap). 'The Addams Family.' You want a verdict? Not bad. Pretty good. Da da da dum (snap snap). Sitcom. Very sitcom. Which it is. (snap snap). Memorable? Not at all. (snap snap). Fun? Absolutely. But Morticia and a ghost kick line? That's entertainment. (snap snap).

The national tour of 'Billy Elliott' dances into Naples for a six-night run at the Philharmonic. The show thrills, but never quite forges the intense emotional connection it so obviously labors toward. While dazzling ballet sequences and soaring lyrics wow, they feel ever so slightly mechanical.

Gulfshore Playhouse has produced good shows, great shows and shows I wasn't quite a fan of. Now, with 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' Kristen Coury finds herself in a different place entirely. 'Earnest' is amazing. I absolutely don't care if you hate Oscar Wilde. This will be the best two and a half hours of your life. Cucumber sandwiches not included. I don't like cucumber sandwiches anyway.

'Fiddler on the Roof' is selling out on the main stage of the Broadway Palm. This review is not about that show. This review is about another show. The one about God's OTHER chosen people. Namely, Southerners. 'Dixie Swim Club' paddles over for big laughs, honest humor and Southern-fried fun.

I've long been blunt about the fact that I don't have much of a taste for improv. I don't like beer, bananas or iceberg lettuce either. It's just my preference. I can, however, recognize when it is done well. And the one-night, two-shows-only Improvised Shakespeare Company does it very, very well.

There's not really any way around this. Pulitzer Prize-winning play 'I Am My Own Wife' features one man in a dress performing 37 different roles. If you don't like that sort of thing, leave. Of course, that would be a grave mistake, because Kraig Swartz will change your life.