ORLANDO THEATER REVIEWS

Flat Stanley is a well-known children's book that is now a musical playing as part of Orlando Shakespeare's Children's Series. It's fun, perky, and great for jump starting kid's imaginations....

It's inevitable, like enjoying UCF's hypnotic production, that you'll come face to face with Her kiss. Aurora is her name and playing the dance of death is her game. All I can say is, 'Sorry' to those of you that missed out on UCF's KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN....

Cohabitation was a law that prohibited different genders and races from occupying the same nighttime residence. This was Florida's contribution to the repugnant Jim Crow Laws back. 1964 wasn't just a great year because it gave us HELLO, DOLLY!, it was also the year we got the Civil Rights Act, outla...

Season 18 at the Mad Cow Theatre Company is here, and up first: THE WHO'S TOMMY. The 1993 Best Musical nominee is considered to be Broadway's first Rock Opera turned Rock Musical. Shows like Greenday's AMERICAN IDIOT, Stew's PASSING STRANGE, and, more recently, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's HERE LIE...

There is something exhilarating about sitting in the audience watching a new work that you think could eventually become something special. More so than any other artistic medium, pieces of musical theatre require extensive gestation periods, sometimes with years numbering in the decades. So to see ...

As its opening song, and the Walt Whitman poem from which it was inspired, says, WORKING is all about the 'varied carols' of working Americans. For nearly four decades, this musical has been celebrating the high (and low) lights of the American workforce. Conceived and adapted by Stephen Schwartz (G...

'It's the language that terrifies me', trembles Anna, a single school teacher, after learning she has been diagnosed with a fatal illness humously known as Acquired Toilet Disease. Acquired Toilet Disease, or ATD, is no laughing matter! Most commonly contracted through public restrooms in school cla...

Vernon Gersch, a 70's songwriter, is a punctual and sarcastic stick in the mud and Sonia Walsk practices candor and tardiness. So when he proposes to join forces with Sonia it is clear from the start that these two are going to make a comedically disastrous pairing. A score by Marvin Hamlisch and Ca...

Amongst the vast majority of musical theatre devotees, there is little debate that Stephen Sondheim is the greatest writer that the artform has ever known. So, as I sat watching TheatreWorks Florida's soaring Opening Night performance of his darkest masterpiece, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLE...

If you haven't heard of LES MISERABLES then you're probably living under a pop-culture rock. Since making it's English-language stage debut in 1983, this phenomenon has been thrilling audiences around the world and now in Orlando. To kick off Orlando Shakespeare's 26th Season, this mega musical pack...

Few things in the world give me the same sensation like experiencing a new play for the first time. We all love the classics and how they are constantly being reinvented, but nothing beats a first viewing of the unfamiliar. Whether good or bad, new plays are excitingly fresh and make the most memor...

Alan Bennett's masterpiece, now celebrating its 10th anniversary, documents senior boys and the educators responsible for filling their minds with knowledge. When the Headmaster of an all boys school brings in Irwin, a young and ambitious teacher who believes education is applicable only to the exam...

'Backwards in High Heels,' now playing through August 23rd at The Winter Park Playhouse, is as entertaining as it is educational. The story is an account of the transformation of a young girl, Virginia Katherine McMath, into one of the country's best-known dancing idols; you may know her by her pseu...

THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE was BroadwayWorld Orlando's Summer Stages "Date Night" pick and this designation is spot on. So much more than a musical about a spelling bee, this production hits all its comedic marks and doesn't take itself too seriously....

The story is familiar, girl with long hair needs rescuing from an evil witch. Though there have been recent animated versions, Orlando Shakespeare's Brandon Roberts puts a whole new twist on the classic fairytale...

As this Summer's Throwback pick for BroadwayWorld's Summer Stages - Orlando, Winter Park Playhouse brings back SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL. Rocking the songs, stylings and culture of the 1960's in London, SHOUT promises to bring back fond memories for the forty and up crowd....

It's a show that only can truly appreciated by theater folk. FORBIDDEN BROADWAY'S GREATEST HITS is a spoof on many famous musicals, but if you don't know musicals then you won't get it. Fortunately, the Winter Park Playhouse crowd knows musicals and the troupe of four actors nail each comedic beat....

Orlando's Fringe Festival is right around the corner! Fringe is one of the most anticipated events for Orlando theater lovers. This is the 23rd Fringe and promises not to disappoint. With more than 75 shows to see, planning is key....

That's a wrap for this year's knock-out Garden Theatre season and it finishes with possibly the best musical theater production seen this year. The toe tapping Broadway/Movie Musical HAIRSPRAY is easy to love and cross-generational....

One tragedy that is synonymous with Shakespeare is JULIUS CAESAR. It is one of the classics that, at some point, is forced upon by high school English teachers. The challenge with producing a famously known Shakespeare piece is keeping it fresh and relevant to today's audience....

A variation in music occurs when a theme is repeated in different ways, but has changes in rhythm, melody, orchestration, etc. The play parallels classical composer Beethoven's later life with Dr. Katherine Brandt. This is definitely not a show to see if you want a fuzzy upbeat good performance, but...

Very rarely does a play leave you visibly shaking. Orlando Shakes' Harriett's New Play Series piece PLUTO explores the taboo subject of a mass shooting perpetrator's psyche and difficulty of accepting change. The material is heavy, but incredibly thought provoking and profoundly moving....

THE MUSIC MAN is one of those classic shows where you either have seen it and love it, or haven't seen it but know all the music. There's only one way to do a show that centers around a city's marching band right - and that's with live music. This production represents a collaboration between the UC...

It's not until you enter the Margeson Theater and begin to mingle with other theatergoers and a few of the actors that you realize how much actually happens in Part I of THE LIFE & ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY. With at least six open plot lines, it's about time to wrap things up, but it would not...

Orlando Shakspeare's 25th Anniversary promised to be its biggest season yet. It's finally time to see what all the buzz is about. Totaling 6.5 hours, the hyped mega-spectacle THE LIFE & ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY lives up to its name. Make no mistake, it's a big production, but with the talente...