At The Arsht, William Kentridge Converges Visual Arts, Music and Theater For Miami Art Week

William Kentridge’s “The Great Yes, The Great No” is a visual arts-musical-theatrical spectacle at the Arsht Center programmed during Miami Art Week from Thursday, Dec. 5 through Saturday, Dec. 7. (Photo by Monika Rittershaus/courtesy of the Arsht Center) 

It was 2022 when South African artist William Kentridge brought his monumental “The Head and the Load” as part of an epic pageant during Miami Art Week.

The production required that the spacious backstage of the Ziff Ballet Opera House inside the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts be splayed open to accommodate the plethora of performers, projections, and props. The work was a sometimes dizzying, ultimately stunning choral, dance, and multimedia collage.

The subject matter brought into sharp relief the African theater of World War I and the ill-compensated, nearly forgotten Black conscripts who kept the absurd but implacable war machine moving, hauling impossible loads on their backs across the continent in service of their white colonial officers.

Kentridge returns for Miami Art Week 2024 and the Arsht Center along with a brilliant cadre of collaborators from The Centre for the Less Good Idea” “The Great Yes, The Great No” from Thursday, Dec. 5 through Saturday, Dec. 7. It too, he says, examines the “paradoxes and questions of colonialism.”

As with “The Head and the Load,” Kentridge collaborator and dramaturg Mwenya Kabwe explains that in this piece “set and costume really do some big meaning making in a big way.” Great projected images play across the screen at the back of the stage—images of archival photographs, altered maps, typewritten lines of text, and of course, Kentridge’s hand-drawn charcoal animations. Kentridge, she reminds us, “is a visual artist at the end of the day, so this work led with the visual.”

The piece treats another historical event, this time a 1941 boat journey which departed Marseilles bound for the Caribbean island of Martinique. Fleeing the authoritarian, Nazi-adjacent Vichy regime, the ship’s passenger list included such luminaries as poet and writer André Breton, who penned the 1924 “Manifesto of Surrealism,” Cuban painter and Picasso protégé Wilfredo Lam, and the anthropologist and philosopher Claude Lévi Strauss.

To fictionalize the journey, Kentridge adds other passengers to the ship’s manifest. Frida Kahlo, Josephine Baker and Frantz Fanon, among others. Death himself, in the form of Charon, the mythical ferryman of the River Styx, captains the boat. Most importantly, Kentridge gives berths on the ship to two of the Caribbean’s influential 20^th century thinkers, the writers Aimé Césaire and his wife, Suzanne.

The fertile soil of tiny Martinique was a fecund birthplace for poets and philosophers. Some of them, like Aimé Césaire and Suzanne Roussi, would find their way to Paris, a city whose art world was abuzz with a revolutionary creative fervor. There Aimé and Suzanne would meet, marry and lay the foundation for the Négritude movement of the 1930s. Inspired by the Harlem Renaissance, Négritude called for Black artists and thinkers to embrace an aesthetic centered on the cultures of Africa rather than those of Europe. It was Aimé Césaire who declared that we must “decolonize our mind, our inner life, at the same time we decolonize society.”

The two writers also embraced Surrealism, which Suzanne Césaire would call “a permanent readiness for the Marvelous.” Kentridge has long had an affinity for the Surrealists’ style of art making, says Kabwe. He found its embrace of freedom, chance, collage and the world of dreams seductive, and this show incorporates their methods as much as it does their aesthetic.

Kentridge explains that, although he and his collaborators don’t use chance in precisely the same way the Surrealists did, they do rely on “the category of recognition, being aware of something that you hadn’t expected and holding onto that.”

“Collage,” he says, “is also an important way of working in ‘The Great Yes, The Great No,’ taking fragments and seeing if those fragments add up to more than simply a catalogue of items . . . whether one just has a number of different ingredients separate one after another or if they cook into more than that.”

Kabwe emphasizes that Kentridge’s performance work “tends to evade easy definition by design,” so it was her task as dramaturg to help him find a path of congruity in this decidedly non-linear piece. “In spite of not following a narrative, there is still coherence to be made. And a question is, ‘What is the structure of that coherence?’” This presents a particular challenge when the work in question treats a group who completely radicalized the way the Western world would look at art.

There is an emotional core, however, in “The Great Yes, The Great No,” says Kabwe. That throughline can be found in the human voice, through seven female singers “who really sit at the center of the show and who … hold the emotional heartbeat of the work.”

Kentridge, too, points to the centrality of these women, not just to the performance itself but also to the creation of the work:

“They come together in a remarkable way, and they’re not simply performing music that’s been given to them, that’s been done, but are very much active in the construction of the different choral pieces, writing different lines, translating texts, working with each other to find how harmonies and rhythms work together.”

In the end, Kentridge asks that the audience simply give itself over to the too-muchness of the piece, to the “drowning excess” onstage that will be plenty to take in all at once. “Take it in,” he says, “the way a child would take it in.” Relax, and follow wherever your eyes and ears take you. The show that you see will be different than the one the person sitting next to you sees, but that is the nature of the work, and the nature of the world.

Finally, Kentridge is grateful for the support that the Arsht and Miami has afforded his recent performance work. “I think that Miami—and Florida—contains different worlds within it,” says Kentridge. “We’re looking forward very much to coming back to the audience and the world that we met two years ago.”

WHAT: “The Great Yes, The Great No” by Willliam Kentridge and associate directors Phala O. Phala and Nhlanhla Mahlangu

WHERE: Knight Concert Hall at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Dec. 5-7  

COST: $50 – $226

INFORMATION: 305-949-6722 or arshtcenter.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Actors’ Playhouse’s ‘tick, tick . . . BOOM! Has Local Ties To Its Famous Composer

Adam Kantor (Jon), María Bilbao (Susan), Director Andy Señor Jr. and Nate Promkul (Michael) in rehearsals for “tick, tick . . . BOOM!” at Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre. It runs from Friday, Nov. 15 through Sunday, Dec. 8. (Photo by Alberto Romeu)

When Actors’ Playhouse opens the curtain on its production of “tick, tick . . BOOM!” there are many behind-the-scenes stories about close degrees of separation.  The musical by Jonathan Larson, famously known for the Broadway hit “Rent,” is a semi-autobiographical story about the late composer.

But so many involved in the Playhouse’s production have up close and personal stories about Larson, which brings an interesting context to the Miami production. “tick, tick . . . BOOM” is in previews at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables for two shows Wednesday, Nov. 13 and Thursday, Nov. 14; the official opening is on Friday, Nov. 15 and it runs through Sunday, Dec. 8.

Director of the production is Andy Señor Jr., a Miami native, who made his professional debut on Broadway in Larson’s “Rent” playing one of the main characters, Angel Dummott Schunard, a percussionist drag queen. He imbued his character with Miami, “tropical vibe,” a Cuban immigrant backstory. Señor later joined the London cast in the same role and then embarked on an international tour. He turned to directing working with “Rent’s” original director Michel Greif, then he re-staged the musical in Japan and Korea. His journey of developing a production of “Rent” in Havana, Cuba, is the subject of a 2019 HBO Original Documentary. In 2022, for Actors’ Playhouse, he directed Gloria and Emilio Estefan’s musical “On Your Feet!” and also associate directed the Broadway production of the show.

This will be Señor’s second time directing “tick, tick . . . BOOM!”, which he first helmed in Japan. “I proposed it to Actors’ Playhouse. I told them I was doing the show in Japan and I’d love to bring it to South Florida.”

Larson created the musical as a solo show in the 1990s. A few years after the composer died, suddenly at the age of 35 and just a day before “Rent’s” first preview, “tick, tick  . . .BOOM!” was reconfigured into a three-person off-Broadway musical in 2001.

The show centers around a composer named Jonathan and his creative struggle. As the clock ticks closer to his 30th birthday, he feels like he’s running out of time to write a hit musical, comparing himself to his idol. Composer Stephen Sondheim had written the lyrics for Broadway’s “West Side Story” when he was only 25 years old.

“I’ve always known the show and I’ve always loved the music, but I was never really connected to this as much as ‘Rent,’ ” says Señor. Then, the creator of the hit musical “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda sent him a preview of the film he was making of “tick, tick . . .  BOOM!” that would be released in 2021.

“He said to me, ‘Hey, I would love your thoughts on this. It was before he finished the final cut.”

Señor recalls that he had a pen and pad and was ready to take notes to offer director-type insights. But what he hadn’t expected was how he became overwhelmed with emotion. “I was saying to myself, ‘This is the story of how Jonathan struggled. And now how my dreams – like everything I’ve dreamed of in my life, I’ve been able to create and it has been so sourced by Jonathan just showing up at that piano.”

It was also showing up at Actors’ Playhouse as a kid that had an influence on the now 50-year-old’s career choice. It was on a field trip to the original Actors’ Playhouse location in Kendall where he saw a production of the musical “Godspell.”

“It changed my life,” he says.

Playing the lead character, Jon, is Adam Kantor, who also has ties to “Rent” and to Miami. He made his Broadway debut in “Rent” starring as Mark Cohen, an aspiring filmmaker. Kantor was in the last cast on Broadway in “Rent” and appeared in Sony Pictures’ “Rent: Filmed Live on Broadway,” which captured the final performances.

While he’s never worked at Actors’ Playhouse before, he says he feels like he’s “known about it his entire life.”

His grandmother, Barbara Sussman, still lives in South Beach and Kantor says he’s spent time in South Florida visiting her and his aunt and uncle who live in North Miami. “So, Miami has always been my second home and when I was growing up, often my grandparents would take me to the theater, so I’m sure we saw something at Actors’ Playhouse.”

His aunt, Marcia Sussman Frantz, is well known in Miami arts circles having worked with Edward Villella as a prima ballerina in the 1990s with the Miami City Ballet. “She still lives in Miami with her husband, Jeff,” says Kantor.

Kantor says he and Señor have a long and rich history, too. “Because we were both part of the ‘Rent’ family.’ ” He says it has been thrilling to work with Señor on tick, tick . . . BOOM!”

“He is just an expert on the world of Jonathan Larson.”

Ironically, there’s another connection to Miami, the world of Larson and to “tick, tick . . . BOOM!” The character, Michael, is inspired by Larson’s childhood best friend Matthew O’Grady. The two grew up in White Plains, N.Y., and met in third grade. “He lived four blocks away. We just always knew each other. I didn’t have a brother, I had four sisters, and he didn’t have a brother, just a sister, so we just became brothers.”

To add to the local connections, O’Grady lives in New York but also has a place in South Florida. “I’m a snowbird. I fly my mother and her little dog down to her apartment.” O’Grady has his own apartment in Belle Isle in Miami Beach. Ironically, it’s Kantor’s grandmother, Barbara, who lives in the apartment next door.

In “tick, tick . . . BOOM!”, the character of Michael is Jonathan’s best friend since childhood, just like Matt. There are some differences, O’Grady points out. “Michael is an actor. I’ve never been an actor, but Jon told me he took some artistic liberties,” says O’Grady, who runs a retail analytics firm.

What he didn’t take liberties with, says O’Grady, is the character’s health status. “I’ve been HIV positive since I was 26 years old. I’m 64 now. They call me a long-term non-progressor. I’m healthy. It’s just painfully ironic that the first person I tell in my life about being HIV positive is Jon and he ends up dying nine years later. And I’m still alive today.”

O’Grady says he wouldn’t miss the opening night at Actors’ Playhouse. “The show still gets me. I always cry. Who wouldn’t cry? You’d have to be a cold fish not to be moved in some way by the relationships – the friendship between Jonathan and Michael. Jon was a witness. He observed everyone and he was curious. Quite honestly, I didn’t expect, no one expected this fame and the success of ‘Rent’ or ‘tick, tick . . .’ But Jon’s stories and music just strike a chord.”

When O’Grady sits in the balcony theater of Actors’ Playhouse and the lights go down and he’s ready to watch his friend’s production once again come to life, he says he’ll remember what he always does when he sees the show.

“Jon told me when he wrote it that ‘this is your 30th birthday present because I can’t afford anything.’ And so I’m so humbled and honored by all of it.”

WHAT: “tick, tick . . . BOOM!” by Jonathan Larson

WHERE: Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theater, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables

 WHEN: Previews Wednesday, Nov. 13 and Thursday, Nov. 14. Opens Friday, Nov. 15 through Sunday, Dec. 8; 8 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. Special weekday matinee 2 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 20.

 COST: $40 for preview performances, $45, $55, and $65 weekdays, $55 , $75, and $85 on weekends (seniors 65 and older, 10 percent off weekdays), $15 for students with valid ID for rush tickets available 15 minutes before weekday performances.

 INFORMATION: (305) 444-9293 or actorsPlayhouse.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Review: At GableStage, ‘King James’ Reigns In Endearing Buddy Story

At left, Shawn (Melvin Huffnagle) and Matt (Gregg Weiner) form a friendship over their love of basketball and LeBron James in “King James” at GableStage, Coral Gables, through Sunday, Nov. 24. (Photo courtesy of Magnus Stark)

You know you’re in for a treat when three-time NBA champion and Miami Heat’s all-time leading rebounder Udonis Haslem does the opening speech to welcome the audience to GableStage via video for its latest production of “King James.” It sets the stage for the two-person play by Pulitzer-prize nominated Rajiv Joseph about a pair of Cleveland Cavaliers fans who form a bond over their love of basketball and their love-hate obsession with NBA star and basketball icon LeBron James, the King in “King James.”

However, knowing basketball or sports isn’t a requisite to enjoy this wonderfully emotive buddy-bonding play. Most everyone can relate to being fixated on a celebrity. Joseph uses the sport as a frame on which he creates a relationship story that takes place using highlights of James’ career as the scaffolding. In a creative twist, Joseph breaks his play into quarters like a basketball game.

The first quarter is February 2004; James is named NBA’s Rookie of the Year.

The second quarter is 2010, when the now established veteran leaves the Cavs landing a devastating blow to fans to join the Miami Heat, then 2014, when the star player makes a return and in 2016 with the team’s first championship win in more than 50 years.

As we relive James’ milestones so are there highlights and lowlights in the two characters’ lives.

The bro-ship between Matt (Gregg Weiner) and Shawn (Melvin Huffnagle) begins when Shawn shows up interested in buying Matt’s season tickets to Cavs games: Section C-126 midcourt.

“They were my dad’s. He’s had them since I was six. We went to basically every game together. They’re mine now,” Matt tells Shawn.

Shawn has arrived at the east side Cleveland wine bar La Cave du Vin, where Matt’s working. He’s just finished a solo game of trashcan b-ball and he’s got the television tuned to, what else? A basketball game.

The price Matt wants for the season is too steep, which leads to a conversation on why Shawn wants to buy the tickets in the first place. He’s sold his first short story, which fascinates Matt, but not enough for him to, at first, relinquish his tickets for a much lesser price than his original $6,500.

They eventually come to an agreement, but before that happens the two find a common ground in name-dropping players and a word scuffle over the rookie – we see a foreshadow how these two will meet in the middle but sometimes can be as far apart as two people can be. Will James ever be as good as the legendary Michael Jordan?

“LeBron has already eclipsed Jordan,” posits Matt. “He’s a rookie, what are you talking about?,” counters Shawn.

The strength of the play lies in Joseph’s dialogue, which is realistic, punchy, emotional and so believably delivered by Weiner and Huffnagle, who almost lend shades of Felix and Oscar in “The Odd Couple.” Weiner as the scrappy Matt and Huffnagle as the loner Shawn bring out the best and the worst in each other.

At one point, the issue of race bubbles up as Matt makes the statement that James shouldn’t have left Cleveland because he should “have known his place.” Shawn, who is Black, believes he’s seen a side of his once newfound friend that hasn’t come to the surface. But Joseph merely creates this as a growth point for the two pals not fixating on race. Overall, the play is energetic, enjoyable, and a nice way to escape a divisive world.

The second half of the play is stronger than the first as Joseph spends most of the beginning establishing the characters. Now that we know them in the second act, he brings us into the world of their dreams: Matt who wants to own a successful sports bar, and does, for a while anyway, and Shawn who leaves for Hollywood where he gets a writing job on a television show, but finds out that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the country. Weiner and Huffnagle move through the emotional rollercoasters separately and together with a bond that’s believable to the core and are invested in the lives and outcomes of these characters bringing the audience along with them on the journey.

Director Ruben Carrazana, originally from Miami, who is now working in Chicago, provides the dialogue-heavy play with plenty of action. He moves the characters around the space and the pace, while not hurried, glides along with the momentum of a nail-biter of a game.

In its four quarters, “King James” has two sets – first the wine bar, which in dialogue, Matt says was a former church; Shawn remembers it as a Baskin Robbins. The second act is set in the bric-a-brac shop, filled in every crevice and corner with something, owned by Matt’s parents called Armand’s — a stuffed armadillo as the mascot.

Frank J. Oliva’s scenic design captures the essence of both locations. A large shot clock above the stage demands attention counting down to the time the next scene begins. Marcela Paguaga and Emily K. Perdomo get dual credit as set dressers and properties designers, adding plenty to look at, especially in Armand’s with a store stuffed with everything from an antique adding machine to a large globe that opens into a bar service area. And, of course, the stuffed Armand. A set change in the second act is seamless with its inventiveness, too, as two stagehands in Cavs and Heat jerseys quickly shuttle pieces off the stage to create the next segment and set the stage for a move forward in time.

Lorena Lopez’s costume designs follow the two men’s careers from Matt’s bartender look to bar owner – cool sunglasses to boot, and lively bowling-styled shirts as they both staff Armand’s, which add to the comedic tone. No surprise that the guys have more than a few pairs of basketball shoes to wear throughout the play.

LeBron doesn’t appear as a character but he comes to life in brilliant projection designs by Steven Covey from different phases of the NBA star’s career. Much of the game-day video captures a sports fan’s excitement. Sean McGinley’s sound design serves the atmosphere, from realistic street sounds outside the bar to the basketball buzzer that sounds as each scene begins. Tony Galaska’s lighting design reinforces each setting, from the cool shades of the wine bar to the other choices throughout that serve the emotional world of the two friends.

While LeBron may make scoring a three pointer look easy, what goes into it is hard work. The same can be said for GableStage’s production: the talented actors who carry the show, the director’s deep understanding of Joseph’s play, and the brilliantly precise production aspects.

GableStage’s “King James” shoots and scores.

WHAT: “King James” by Rajiv Joseph 

WHERE: GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables 

WHEN: 2 and 7:30 p.m., Wednesday; 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday through Sunday, Nov. 24.

COST: $40, $45, $50, $55, $65, $75, all with additional $10 service fee (discounts for students, teachers, artists, military and groups). Special event: Talkback following Sunday, Nov. 24 matinee with Pauline Winick, the Miami Heat’s first executive vice president, on what it took to create Miami’s legendary team.

INFORMATION: 305-445-1119 or gablestage.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com. 

‘I Elect’ Short Film, Showing At FLIFF, Remains Relevant, North Miami Filmmaker Says

“I Elect: Power Every Four Years,” a short film by North Miami playwright Bill Spring, follows Bella, portrayed by Carey Brianna Hart, as she finds renewed purpose through voting. The short will be shown at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival on Sunday, Nov. 10. (Photo courtesy of News Travels Fast)

In this election year, “I Elect: Power Every Four Years,” a 26-minute film on voting rights, urges viewers to reflect on the impact of civic engagement and the power of their vote. Created to encourage young voters in the 2020 election, the film’s themes resonate in today’s political landscape.

Originally a theatrical work written by playwright, actor, and North Miami resident Bill Spring, “I Elect: Power Every Four Years” was inspired by the 2018 Parkland high school shooting and the students who became activists for societal change. The play took on a new relevance when adapted into a film during the pandemic.

Set in Miami in September 2020, the voting rights film follows a woman confronting disillusionment and despair amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Miami theater veteran Carey Brianna Hart portrays an isolated and hopeless Bella who records a farewell message in her apartment while contemplating suicide after losing her husband and her job due to the pandemic. Yet, as she reflects on the courage shown by the survivors of the Parkland shooting, Bella discovers that her vote could make a difference, ultimately finding a renewed sense of purpose and empowerment.

For Hart, Bella’s story resonated on a deeply personal level. She grew up hearing about her mother’s involvement in the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Her mother’s activism and the legacy it left in Hart’s life heavily influenced her performance in “I Elect.”

“My mother always championed voting in our household. We attended rallies, marches, and other political activities as a family,” says Hart. “I often heard, outside of my household, about how people had fought and died for the right to vote. My mother felt the saliva of the vicious German Shepherds (that) policemen allowed to charge at her while walking picket lines, ready to tear into her flesh and maul her. Firefighters hosed her and her college schoolmates during peaceful demonstrations. Her actions have always filled me with personal pride.”

Hart shares that portraying Bella’s frustration with the political system did not require extensive emotional preparation since her feelings were aligned with the character’s.

“It was not difficult to prepare to display Bella’s frustration. The frustration was real and heightened,” she said. “Working on this project gave me hope and reminded me that even during such a polarized time when we were distancing ourselves from each other, we still have to come together. As Americans, we depend upon each other.”

Filming took place in the fall of 2020, at the height of a particularly polarizing election year.

“I Elect: Power Every Four Years ” will be shown on Sunday, Nov. 10, as part of the 39th Annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (FLIFF) at the Gateway Cinema in Fort Lauderdale. FLIFF first screened the film in 2021.

“Although the film was shot in 2020, the issues the film addresses have become exacerbated today. In a way, the film feels even more relevant today . . . because the themes about voting are so critical now,” says Spring, acknowledging that the showing will be after this year’s historical election is over.

“What’s critical to acknowledge is that many of the issues we are presently grappling with as a country will not go away after the conclusion of the 2024 election. History does repeat itself. We, as Americans, must choose; that is, vote, who and what we wish to be as a country. Each individual has the power to make those decisions for themselves. Our power to vote is enormous,” adds Spring.

The theme of civic engagement is central to the film, and Hart noted how the message of “I Elect” could be transformative for younger generations who might view voting as inconsequential.

“So many younger Americans have been told that their vote doesn’t count and chose not to get involved or learn about political processes,” says Hart. “They need to know that their apathy trickles down to leaving them with fewer choices within their own communities. Grassroots political action can make big changes possible.”

Spring also emphasized that the power of voting represented a personal empowerment for Bella, comparing it to “ruby slippers” that could not be taken away. “Voting is really the power we have,” he says. “Don’t let anybody take away your ruby slippers. If we want a say in what goes on in our lives, we need to get off our tails and vote.”

Hart echoes these sentiments, stressing that the film draws on real-world issues that impact all Americans. She believes the story holds a message about resilience and determination that is relevant for audiences across generations.

“I feel that the film drawing inspiration from real-life events such as the Parkland incident makes it very real and relevant to individuals who may think that this is not important or doesn’t affect them,” says the actress. “The socio-political climate affects all Americans. We may think we are isolated from disaster, but incidents like Parkland show the country being off the rails. It’s a wake-up call.”

As the only character in the film, the solo nature of Hart’s performance brought unique challenges and rewards. Playing Bella required her to engage with challenging emotional material in a highly intimate setting, pushing her to fully immerse herself in the character’s journey, she says.

“It takes a great deal of vulnerability to remain truthful to the emotions and the content and meld them together as one. It also takes a great deal of letting go of the tension and emotion to get back to my personal stasis.”

“I Elect” has won awards at film festivals in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. Director Ricky J. Martinez, cinematographer Dennise Perez, and producer Jose Lima collaborated closely with Spring to bring the story to life amid the logistical challenges of the pandemic. Rehearsals were conducted over Zoom and the film was completed within three weeks in time for the 2020 election season.

(Watch the trailer for “I Elect: Power Every Four Years”)

Reflecting on his hopes for the film’s impact, Spring shared that he wants audiences to recognize their power and the importance of active participation in democracy.

“I hope people will realize that they do have personal power,” he says. “Like the film’s character Bella, to never be intimidated by anything or anyone. I would like the audience that watches this film to look at what they think is important in their lives. Is it all self-centered or does the collective whole also come into play? Democracy is fragile, and this is the time to give a hard look at, evaluate, where one really stands in regard to the importance of democracy.”

WHAT:  “I Elect: Power Every Four Years”

WHERE:  FLIFF: Gateway Cinema, 503 SE 6th Street, Fort Lauderdale

WHEN:  4:45 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 10

COST:  $13 general admission; $10, seniors, students, military

INFORMATION: 954-525-3456 or fliff.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com. 

Review: Zoetic Stage’s ‘The Pillowman’ Shockingly Good

Ryan Didato as Katurian and Seth Trucks as his mentally challenged brother, Michal, in Zoetic State’s “The Pillowman” by Martin McDonagh at the Carnival Studio Theater in the Adrienne Arsht Center, Miami, through Sunday, Nov. 10.

Remember sitting around a campfire listening to ghost stories? For me, it was the pitch black of the forest of the Pocono mountains, each storyteller trying to top the one before them with a yarn even more horrific. Zoetic Stage’s season opener provokes a similar feeling with its in-the-round production of British playwright Martin McDonagh’s “The Pillowman” running through Sunday, Nov. 10 at the Carnival Studio in the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami.

Director Stuart Meltzer leads a first-rate South Florida cast of four main players in the dark horror comedy that follows in the genre’s footsteps of previous Zoetic offerings, “Frankenstein” in 2021 and “Dracula” in 2018. “The Pillowman” is a harder pill to swallow but once the medicine goes down, the play and the production is so shockingly good it’s worth every spine-tingling, devil-may-care unbridled moment. It may not be to everyone’s taste but for those willing to get out of their theater comfort zone, it’s worth the ride.

The playwright, whose “The Pillowman” was nominated for a Tony Award when it was produced on Broadway in 2005 and winner of Best New Play in London’s 2004 Olivier Awards, takes gleeful pleasure in goading his audience with ghastly stories. There’s the tale of “The Little Jesus,” for instance, which describes the torment of a child forced by sadistic foster parents because of her love for Jesus to wear a crown of thorns and carry a heavy cross until her legs break. There’s the yarn of “The Pillowman,” about a mythical pillowy creature who visits children a la the Tooth Fairy but there’s no comparison to the pixie. The pillowman convinces children to kill themselves, to get life over with early instead of ending up with the same fate later after they’ll be forced to lead dreadful unhappy adult lives.

In the play, the stories are mostly told by the person who has concocted them  — a writer named Katurian K. Katurian (“My parents were funny,” he says, referring to his repeated name; we find out later his parents were also cruel), many of them unpublished except for one in a newspaper called The Libertad, despised by officials of the totalitarian state. The writer, played sincerely and deftly by Ryan Didato, has been brought in for questioning by police about the recent maiming and murder of children, many committed in an eerily similar style to Katurian’s twisted tales.

Is he under arrest because he’s offended the government or are they tying him to the crimes? “It isn’t a crime to write a story,” he tells the police.

Setting the dark action on a stark white circular stage with set design by B.J. Duncan and Rebecca Montero’s mood-inducing lighting, Meltzer captures the same juxtaposition that McDonagh achieves – a brilliant balance of disturbing stories with wry humor. In fact, Zoetic’s director instructs the audience before the play starts that there will be dialogue that will compel laughter and laugh you should – and will.

Two comically cruel cops, lead detective Tupolski (played by Michael McKeever) and his No. 2 Ariel (played by Gabriell Salgado, whose first professional role was as the creature in Zoetic’s “Frankenstein”) have brought the writer in for questioning.

There’s also Katurian’s mentally challenged brother Michal (a captivating performance by Seth Trucks), who is being held in another room. Michal loves his brother’s stories, growing up listening to them and, as an adult, still can’t get enough of them. We learn through the plot that dastardly deeds by the boys’ parents are what have caused Michel’s handicap and inspired Katurian’s stories.

At the core of the drama, as well, is how far will you go to protect your art. Katurian, at one point, confesses to murders and tells the police he will endure execution as long as his stories are preserved. The stories are his children, his babies, and he doesn’t want them to suffer the same cruel fate that the Pillowman” has instilled in others.

“It’s not about being dead,” he says, “it’s about what you leave behind.”

McDonagh, who may be more known to mainstream audiences for his 2022 film “The Banshees of Inisherin” starring Colin Farrell, evokes shades of Tom Stoppard with his brilliance in tragicomedy both in complex dialogue and wit and humor.

Both Meltzer and his cast adeptly handle the task, the actors playing off each other and Meltzer using his in-the-round staging to add tension.

Scenes between Katurian (Didato) and his brother, Michal (Trucks) are some of the most rewarding – the two actors convincingly revealing what has bound them to each other. Trucks brings originality to the role, where someone of lesser skill could have reverted to a send up of “Rain Man.”

Didato as the tortured writer brings a honest naivete to a demanding role – he’s given long monologues and, in another memorable scene, Meltzer has Katurian relaying one of his stories as he moves from one to the other of three circular landings effectively engaging the audience seated on four sides.

McKeever and Salgado play cat and mouse effectively as good cop and bad cop, although both are equally sinister. McKeever the older wiser sage to Salgado’s impulsive and sadistic younger apprentice – they excel at showing the struggle of the power play.

The playwright in his script offers a blank slate for the production – no instructions on what the setting should entail. This is where creativity soars yet again, as is many times the case at Zoetic. With projections on large canvas-like backdrops, the audience enters to see words, lines culled from stories, written as if by chalk on all four sides. The projections then are used throughout the show to accompany the tales – splendid illustratations by McKeever, who has a background as an art director. The illustrations are meant to look like a child’s drawings made with chalk on a blackboard. These also serve to add to the dichotomy of the horrific made humorous. Matt Corey’s sound design, especially some haunting screams, provides more atmosphere.

While in these strange times in which we live, there’s another eerie message that comes through in this play that takes place in a totalitarian state – how words can have serious implications and how the past can shape our views.

WHAT: “The Pillowman” by Martin McDonagh

WHERE: Zoetic Stage in the Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, through Sunday, Nov. 10. Additional performances: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9.

 COST: $56 and $61

INFORMATION: 305-949-6722 or arshtcenter.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

 

Miami Film Festival’s GEMS Features Buzzworthy Movies In Its 11th Edition

“María,” by director Pablo Larraín, is a psychological, biographical drama inspired by the last days in Paris of Maria Callas stars Angelina Jolie as the legendary opera diva. It shows as part of the Miami Film Festival’s GEMS opening on Wednesday, Oct. 30 and continuing through Sunday, Nov. 3. (Photo courtesy of MDC-Miami Film Festival)

Every year, lovers of the seventh art eagerly await the GEMS Festival, Miami Film Festival’s fall midseason event, organized by the Film Society of Miami and Miami Dade College.

“GEMS is the prelude to the Miami Film Festival’s awards season, presenting more than 25 of the season’s top contenders and prestige films,” says James Woolley, executive director of the Festival. “These films are some of the biggest titles traveling the world right now, not to mention the most acclaimed. Many of the films in the GEMS program will receive an Oscar nomination in March of next year. It is a fantastic opportunity for the public to see these films before the awards rush.”

This year’s GEMS will take place in several venues in Miami beginning Wednesday, Oct. 30 through Sunday, Nov. 3, featuring 30 films from more than fifteen countries.

GEMS opens at the Koubek Center on Wednesday, Oct. 30 with “The Room Next Door,” which is already sold out, is  Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language full-length feature and stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton. The film recently received the prestigious Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice Film Festival. Written and directed by Almodóvar and based on the novel “What Are You Going Through,”  is about tells two professionals who were great friends in their youth, separated by life circumstances, who, after years without contact, meet again in an extreme situation.

Following Almodóvar’s film, GEMS will present a diverse range of screenings, such as “Emilia Pérez” (at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 31 at the Silverspot Cinema Downtown Miami). In Spanish by French director Jacques Audiard, it won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie is described as a French musical crime comedy-drama.

France will also submit it to the next edition of the Oscars. With a cast headed by Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoé Saldaña, Selena Gómez, and Adriana Paz, Audiard’s film tells the story of four extraordinary women in Mexico. It mixes themes of transsexuality and organized crime and has been recognized for its narrative and unique approach.

Another of the featured screenings (at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 1 at the Silverspot Cinema Downtown Miami) is “María,” by director Pablo Larraín, a psychological, biographical drama inspired by the last days in Paris of Maria Callas, the legendary opera diva (born in New York to Greek parents), at the end of a glamorous and tumultuous career. The performance of the no less legendary Angelina Jolie is synonymous with extraordinary triumph and brings the promise of an Oscar.

The film, also distributed by Netflix with a premiere in movie theaters Wednesday, Nov. 27 and streaming on Netflix on Wednesday, Dec. 11, is the third and the last of a trilogy that the Chilean filmmaker has dedicated to iconic women of the 20th century, also made up of “Jackie” (2016) and “Spencer” (2021).

Miami filmmaker Billy Corben, alongside his co-director Jen Gatien, will screen their documentary, “Men of War,” at 7 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 1. The tragicomedy follows American-trained mercenaries attempting to overthrow the Venezuelan government – an incredibly timely story for the local Venezuelan community given recent political events.

Another title worth highlighting is “The Brutalist,” an epic historical drama written and directed by Brady Corbet in an Anglo-American and Hungarian co-production. The film narrates 30 years in the life of László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-born Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor. At the end of World War II, he emigrated to the United States with his wife, Erszebét (Felicity Jones), in search of the “American Dream.”

At first, László faces a time of poverty and misery but soon secures a contract with a mysterious and wealthy client, Harrison Lee Van Buren, who will completely change the course of his life. The film, winner of the Best Director Award at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, will be screened in its original 70mm format at 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. at the Coral Gables Art Cinema.

The 2024 GEMS Festival will close with “A Real Pain” after five days of special screenings and presentations of films by prestigious filmmakers such as Andrea Arnold, Mike Leigh, Walter Salles, and Gabriella A. Moses, among others who make up an extensive list.

“A Real Pain,” written, directed, and starring  Jesse Eisenberg, will be screened at 8 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 3, at 8 pm at Regal Lincoln Road. The comedy about two incompatible cousins who travel through Poland to honor their grandmother in a trip complicated by the resurgence of old family tensions co-stars Kieran Culkin of the HBO hit “Succession.”

Following the closing night, GEMS will host a day-long marathon dedicated to “Disclaimer,” Alfonso Cuarón’s new Apple TV+ series. Following the screenings, there will be a discussion with the filmmaker, and he will be presented with the Precious Gem Award. “Disclaimer” follows the story of acclaimed journalist Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett), who built her reputation by revealing the misdeeds and transgressions of others.

But GEMS goes far beyond screenings, discussions, and the long-awaited presentation of the Precious Gem Award to Cuarón, costume designer Arianne Phillips and Romanian American actor Sebastian Stan.

This year sees the launch of The Louies. This initiative will benefit local filmmakers with funding, a new initiative the film festival is launching in partnership with the Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Family Foundation.

 “It is about supporting local filmmakers by providing $100,000 in funding for six documentary projects. The funding will be split into different categories: one filmmaker will receive $50,000 for a feature-length documentary, three filmmakers will receive $10,000 each for short documentaries, and two will receive $10,000 in completion funds to help them complete a project already in post-production,” says Wooley.

According to Wooley, the new program aligns with the Miami Film Festival mission of supporting local talent and giving filmmakers the resources they need to tell South Florida stories.

“We are very excited that ‘The Louies’ will help bring these stories to life and contribute to the films we can present at our festivals. It’s about creating a true pipeline of local content that reflects the rich and diverse culture of the region.”

WHAT: 11th Annual GEMS 2024 Miami Film Festival

WHERE: Silverspot Cinema Miami, 300 S.E. 3rd St.,  Miami; MDC’s Koubek Center, 275 SW 3rd St., Miami; Coral Gables Art Cinema, 260 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables; Regal Cinemas South Beach, 1120 Lincoln Road, and MDC’s Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami.

WHEN: Various times beginning Wednesday, Oct. 30 through Sunday, Nov. 3.

COST: Prices vary from $15.50 to $50 ($50 ticket is for opening night screening and party, prices vary for films and events). 

INFORMATION: Download a digital program guide here. More information at (305) 237-3456 miamifilmfestival.com 

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Live Arts Miami Kicks Off Season with Original Musical That Ponders a Post-Human World

“Morning/Mourning” creator Gelsey Bell brings her modern opera that premiered at New York’s Prototype Festival to Live Arts Miami for a three-day run Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 17 to 19, at The Art Lab on Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus. In back is cast member Paul Pinto.  (Photo courtesy of Maria Baranova)

It’s the first time “Morning/Mourning” is playing outside New York after it first premiered at the Prototype Festival in January 2023 on Sixth Avenue.

Miami Dade College’s Live Arts Miami kicks off its 35th season with the production of the opera musical that takes place in the future. The three-day run is from Thursday through Saturday, Oct. 17 to 19, at The Art Lab on Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus.

Live Arts Miami Executive Director Kathryn Garcia was in the audience during that initial run. She left the theater completely in awe of the production. Instantly she knew she wanted to bring the show to Miami and began conversations with playwright, musician, and lead actor Gelsey Bell to make it happen.

“It really is one of those things that you have to see to truly understand,” says Garcia. “I had no idea what I was walking into or what to expect when I got my ticket for the show. I only heard great things. I went in with an open mind and from the minute it started I knew I was in for something amazing.”

Bell says she was first inspired to write the musical after reading the book “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman. “It first started out as a thought experiment,” she says.

Bell asked herself the simple question: What would happen on Earth after humans disappear?

“How long would certain aspects of our technology stick around? How long would it take for cities to become forests again? How long would certain buildings last? All of that kind of stuff (inspired the work),” says the New York-based artist.

A self-proclaimed sci-fi fan, Bell then began to dabble in the genre and ended up with a 90-minute operatic musical that takes audiences on a ride 1.6 billion years into the future.

“Morning/Mourning” is performed in a traditional storytelling format where five actors on stage are telling the audience a story rather than performing it. The cast consists of three original members with two new actors joining the Miami production; all are New York-based performers.

The stage is simple and bare; instruments are spread about. The actors roam around the small space plucking at their instruments and singing as they take the audience on a journey that spans hundreds of years.

As with many sci-fi, dystopian future-type tales, some of the onus is placed on the audience to visualize the setting as the story unfolds. The format of the musical was done purposefully as Bell says she wanted to leave plenty of space for individual interpretation. Each viewer can pull from their own unique life experiences, which will influence how they see the show and what they take away from it.

“Often, when we have art about nature or the climate it’s put in these kind of message oriented tones,” says Bell. “And it doesn’t really leave space for us to actually explore the depth of our emotions about these issues. So, I really tried to create something that leaves space for people to sit with.”

The show begins at a moment in time when all the humans disappear. Poof, gone.

“We don’t linger on the question of why humans left or what that means,” says Bell, explaining the storyline. “Every audience member makes their own assumptions.”

The first third of the show talks about the first 100 years after humans disappear. There are references to nuclear power plants, exploding cockroaches, and extreme weather. “And then we start to move on larger time scales. And so, time moves exponentially into the future,” says Bell.

While the show deals with the themes of climate change and how humans treat Mother Earth, the takeaway runs much deeper.

“My hope is that while people are taking in the story that the performers are telling, they’re also imagining things. The design of the show, the lighting of the show, it’s all meant to invoke emotions but not to paint a clear picture,” explains the playwright.

Garcia gushes about how “Morning/Mourning” drew her in from the beginning and kept her attention throughout the duration. “I wasn’t distracted for one single second,” she says about seeing it at the annual Prototype Festival, which is known for showcasing visionary opera-theater and music-theater works. The next Prototype Festival in New York is upcoming in January.

Akin to a good book you can’t put down, Garcia describes Bell’s work as a page-turner.

“The show just ignites the audience’s imagination with all of these crazy descriptions and ideas about what might happen in the future that you’re stuck in a fantasy land for about 90 minutes, and it’s a beautiful thing,” says Garcia.

Whereas a story about humans disappearing and the planet being left desolate might cause some theater-goers anxiety, Garcia says the musical put her nerves at ease. “It leaves you with this amazing wonder about the planet and about nature. It actually kind of soothed my anxiety (about climate change) and I left feeling like it’s all going to be okay.”

“Morning/Mourning” will embark on a national four-city tour after the performances at The Art Lab.

“My experience of touring other works is that wherever you take a piece there’s something that we learn from that space,” says Bell. “I’m really excited to see what we learn from Miami.”

WHAT: “Morning/Mourning”

 WHERE: The Art Lab, Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami

 WHEN: 7 p.m., Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Oct. 17, 18 and 19

 COST: $35

 INFORMATION: (305) 237 3010 or www.liveartsmiami.org.

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com

Review: Apocalyptic ‘Ragweeds’ at LakehouseRanch Is Oddly Intriguing

Jessica Calle as Ivy and Sara Jarrell as Hazel in Riley Elton McCarthy’s “Ragweeds”getting its premiere by LakehouseRanchDotPNG at Main Street Playhouse in Miami Lakes through Sunday, Oct. 13. (Photo by Juan Gamero)

A golden stag shirtless in gold boxer shorts. A female Mothman pauses at one point because she needs to pick her kids up for soccer practice. A doctoral student from Yale in search of the folklorish Mothman in the mountains of West Virginia, and a woman who has never left the bunker she shared with her father before his death. Looming just outside her door is a creeper vine, where human contact with it leads to certain death.

This is the world of “Ragweeds,” Riley Elton McCarthy’s doomsday dramedy making its world premiere at LakehouseRanchDotPNG at Main Street Playhouse through Sunday, Oct. 12.

The New York-based McCarthy is one of four resident playwrights at LakehouseRanch. Last season, their play “rabbit” made its premiere at LakehouseRanchDotPNG, which shared some of the same themes of “Ragweeds”: People and other things living in an apocalyptic world and questioning their existence.

McCarthy first introduces the audience to the Stag (riotously played with complete abandon by Richard Lewis). He instructs everyone to “buck on up and settle down, because we’re in the Appalachians, part’ners.” The Stag is on the verge of discoveries since it reveals it is a newborn. Pondering the meaning of it all, the Stag questions gender – it may want to be a stag today but tomorrow it may feel like it wants to be a doe. Maybe the stag was reincarnated, he thinks aloud. “Have I experienced love? Loss? Life?

The questions set the tone for what’s to come, a variety of ponderous notions from each character in “Ragweeds.”

Enter Ivy (Jessica Calle) filled with naivete and a single purpose: To find Mothman to show her parents that she is somehow worthy of praise. Cryptozoology, you see, is proving that entities that have existed as legends really do exist. She’ll be the first Ph.D. cryptozoologist ever. Mothman, by the way, is a real folklore legend. So much so that there is a statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, of the creature that was supposedly spotted by multiple residents, described as 7 feet tall with a human body and a 10-foot-wide wingspan. The character Ivy tells the story of the gravediggers who first saw Mothman, so the audience is filled in on the real lore. “It was 1966. . . All of a sudden, they see something on the hill, looming next to a tall gravestone with beady red eyes. . . “

Hazel (Sara Jarrell) whose lived on the mountain her entire life, says she’s never heard of Mothman, but she does have her own deity that she’s created a shrine for in a corner of the bunker home. Everyone in the story is trying to believe in something.

Then there’s Mothman (played by Mairi Chanel) who takes a shine to the Stag.

While it all sounds confusing, it makes for an entertaining and certainly original 90 minutes.

First-time director Emalie Belokon helps everyone make sense of it all and with the Stag’s many interjecting monologues McCarthy has assigned to the character and the revealing of the other two main characters’ wishes and desires, the absurdist play does come together realistically.

Hazel says she likes rules and structure; Ivy likes “a little rebellion.”

Jarrell as the jaded and angry Hazel plays a wonderful counter to Calle’s chirpy and inquisitive Ivy. The two take advantage of McCarthy’s dialogue that allows the audience to get to know them as they introduce themselves to one another; with their realizations of how they’ve arrived where they are now, both in the physical space and in this time in their lives.

Hazel preserves everything in the space just as her father left it. Books on shelves with dried ragweed in between the pages aren’t to be touched.

Jarrell, who just came off directing Main Street Players “Ms. Homes and Ms. Watson Apt 2B,” brings out the loneliness and hurt in the character. “Why is every song about love? Or drinking?,” the character asks. Hazel has lost everyone she loves, she says, and now she’s waiting for the end of the world her father predicted – a sunset – a big burning ball of brilliance and the creepers who will take over.

As for Calle, the recent grad of Barry University’s theater program could have fallen into a trap of playing Ivy as a Pollyanna – the positive yin to Jarrell’s negative yang, but the actress finds depth as the play unravels when she talks about the loneliness she felt growing up with parents who, while they provided for her physically, were emotionally absent.

The script calls for the two women to become attracted to each other sexually and while they have symbiosis as friends, the budding love seems less believable. There wasn’t much of a buildup and the moment of realization happened quickly. With more exploration by the actors and their director into why the two find themselves drawn to each other, it would make for more poignancy when it matters at the play’s end.

Belokon in her direction is able, to her credit, to keep two different stories afloat – the giddy stag with his wants and wishes and the elusive Mothman that appears and disappears. Chanel has little to say as the Mothman but her body language speaks volumes.

At times, it is hard to decipher when the girls have ventured out as there isn’t a clear demarcation from the inside of the bunker and into the woods. It is a small stage, so perhaps this is a difficulty with space and the set design. Artistic Director Brandon Urrutia created the set, which captures the essence of an Appalachian cabin – knickknacks on shelves, a worn couch, a portrait covered in a sheet, which is unveiled toward the end of the play.

The Stag stands on a patch of green turf downstage. With such a wild personality, it would have been better if the director gave him more movement rather than delivering speeches mostly planted in one spot.

The Stag, with his moments of self-deprecating humor and Lewis reveling in them is comic gold. “Hi, it’s me, the golden stag, I don’t really feel like monologuing. . I know you were looking forward to a monologue from me, so this comes as big bummer.” He describes symptoms of COVID-19, while never really saying that’s what he’s suffering from.

Costumes by Erin Proctor are perfectly executed and have plenty of range from the Mothman’s tight black dominatrix leotard and the Stag’s glittery face and shorts to mountain wear that suits the girls’ personalities – Ivy in a jean vest at one point with flowers; Hazel always in earthy colors.

Charisma Jolly’s lighting design goes from bright for the newborn stag to brown hues for the bunker and the forest, a golden glow for the stag and then the realistic tones for the mountain indoors and out.

The author of “Ragweed” knew what they were going for with this play and LakeHouseRanchDotPNG gets it. McCarthy says in their author’s note at the beginning of the script: “there is something weirdly comforting at the end of it all.”

That’s how it feels at the end of the production.

One side note, however. As soon as the lights go out, it’s lights up, and the actors are already taking bows. How about some time to digest everything that we’ve just consumed? Lights down for a beat or two or three – let the audience digest it all; stew for a minute.

Yes, this would be the polished finish to the rest of McCarthy’s author’s note: “beautiful things grow out of loss here” — that we could just ponder the existentialist meanings of the play for a moment had we been left in the dark just a little bit longer.

WHAT:  Riley Elton McCarthy’s “Ragweeds”

WHERE:  Main Street Playhouse, 6812 Main St., Miami Lakes

WHEN:  8 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday through Sunday, Oct. 13.

COST:  $20.

INFORMATION: 786-427-4721 and lakehouseranchdotpng.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

 

The Path That Got ‘A’ Train’ Play To Brownsville’s Davis African Heritage Arts Center

Ricky J. Martinez as Valdez and Enrique Galán as Angel Cruz in “Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train” opening Thursday, Oct. 3 through Sunday, Oct. 20 at Marshall L. Davis, Sr. African Heritage Cultural Arts Center’s Wendell A. Narcisse Performing Arts Theater. (Photo courtesy of Mark Anthony James)

When Theodore “Teddy” Harrell Jr. was pitching the play “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train” as the October stage production season opener at the Marshall L. Davis, Sr. African Heritage Cultural Arts Center (DAHCAC), it wasn’t the center’s usual fare.

And not so much the theme of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ dark comedy about two inmates in New York City’s largest jail, but more so the two main characters, one a New York Puerto Rican (Nuyorican) and the other African American.

“We try to do plays that are basically based in the African heritage diaspora,” says Harrell, who also serves as the DAHCAC’s assistant center director. But, he says, that the demographic of the Brownsville community, where the center is smack dab in the middle, is changing.

“We are finding that a lot of Hispanic families are moving into the community. I live three blocks away and I can tell you that on my street ten years ago, it was fully African American. And now, we are almost a half capacity, where it’s Latino and Black families,” says Harrell.

He says that was his “selling point” to the center. “I told them, I said, ‘there are a lot of people who are living in our community who will see this as something that they can relate to because of the influence of Latino characters in the play.”

The play, which opens at the DAHCAC at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 3 and runs through Sunday, Oct. 20, premiered off-Broadway by the LAByrinth Theater Co. in November 2000 and was directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Set in 2000, Angel Cruz, a 30-year-old bike messenger in New York City has lost his best friend to a religious cult. In fact, he says, his friend was stolen by the cult. Cruz (played by Enrique Galán last seen in DAHCAC’s “The Opponent”) shoots cult leader Reverend Kim in the backside and, after the man dies during surgery, he ends up facing murder charges.

Lucius Jenkins (played by Jean Hyppolite) is a serial killer turned born-again Christian, who is awaiting extradition to Florida to face execution. And there are other players in the mix including Angel’s lawyer Mary Jane Hanrahan (played by Linda Mendivel), a sadistic corrections officer named Valdez (played by Ricky J. Martinez) and the kindly prison guard Charlie D’Amato (played Demitri Narace).

Harrell was first introduced to the play when he saw it at Barry University in a production directed by John Manzelli in 2011.

“It first comes off like, ‘Oh, my gosh, look at all the profanity words and all of this,’ but when you really look at the soul of what the playwright is writing and how he’s writing it and (with) these characters pouring their lives and emotions out,” says Harrell. “You have such a heart for these characters and that’s what I love about it. I especially love doing something like this in Liberty City, in Brownsville, and for us to do a play like this when we’re known for just Black work, well, for me it creates such a nice dimension to what we can produce,” says the director.

Hyppolite, who plays Lucius, couldn’t agree with Harrell more about what he calls the “climate of change” happening amidst the DAHCAC. “There is gentrification going on and especially where it’s within walking distance to the center,” he says. He relates the two characters that meet at the jail and acquaints them like the new neighbors living next to each other in Liberty City. “Like we are two people from two different worlds, Angel and Lucius, but now they are neighbors and there they are sharing their stories.”

Playing a serial killer who is waiting to be extradited to Florida and executed may not be the most sympathetic of characters. But Lucius has found God, and he wants to confer the blessing on everyone he meets, including Angel, a young man new to life behind bars. “Lucius has been reborn, and he has repented, and he has complete and total faith that God has 100 percent forgiven him,” says Hyppolite.

For the actor from Little Haiti, he says one thing he’s always brought to his characters is that “I was taught to never judge your character while you’re in the process.” There are some things he also bring to Lucius to life on the stage. “I have a lot of friends and family members, brothers, cousins, that are incarcerated, that are doing time for things that they have done wrong and time for things maybe they didn’t do anything for. You’ll see in this story, maybe like Angel who may feel that he didn’t have the right prosecutor, the right lawyer to help him out.”

Hyppolite contends that Lucius is a product of the environment in which he grew up. “(It’s) his upbringing and how he feels, a lot of which was very, very tough.”

There’s so much depth in Guirgis’ play says Galán, including issues of race. “For instance, I tell my lawyer how I would have been given better treatment if I were white. I’d have Perry Mason representing me. And there’s a lot in this play to be said about how backwards the current penal system really is.”

Angel, he says, tried to get his “stolen” friend back from Reverend Kim in a number of civilized attempts. “He had tried to kidnap Joey and planned it with kidnappers and a deprogrammer to debrief and unbrainwash his friend. But that failed and he resorted to a quick, emotional decision and shot that leader in the rear-end,” describes Galán.

He believes the play’s dark humor will resonate with audiences. “Just like in life, there are moments where the mood isn’t monotone, there are opportunities for comedy.”

When he’s not acting, Galán has an interesting day job. “I hunt python” for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But would he like to be employed full-time as an actor? “Heck, ya,” he says.

The Cuban-American who grew up in Miami-Dade County’s Westchester neighborhood  says, “I’ve met Angel Cruz, the character. I’ve met him before, you know, the Miami version. My next-door neighbors growing up were Puerto Rican and I have a very close tie to the Puerto Rican diaspora. There’s just something about this character that I understand, so I’m very happy but also proud to represent this misunderstood cat,” he says.

WHAT:  “Jesus Hopped The ‘A’ Train” by Stephen Adly Guirgis

WHERE: Marshall A. Davis, Sr. African Heritage Cultural Arts Center Wendell A. Narcisse Performing Arts Theater, 6161 NW 22nd Ave., Miami

WHEN:  Opens 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3. Regular showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, through Oct. 20.

COST:  $45 plus a $4.87 fee.

INFORMATION:  305-638-6771 or ahcacmiami.org. Tickets at Eventbrite.

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Review: Everything’s Alright With Loxen’s ‘Play That Goes Wrong’

Ryan Crout as Thomas, Noah Stephanny Noria as Annie, Kalen Edean as Chris Bean-Inspector Carter, and Giorgio Volpe as Perkins in Loxen Entertainment’s “The Play That Goes Wrong” at the Colony Theatre on Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road through Sunday. Sept 22. (Photo courtesy of Loxen Entertainment)

With the dour seriousness that hovers over the current world in which we exist, Loxen Entertainment’s “The Play That Goes Wrong” at the Colony Theatre is a much-needed respite.

This is Miami-based Loxen’s opening show in its three-production performance schedule at the Colony Theatre on Lincoln Road and the setting couldn’t be better for the hapless comedy. The premise of the gone-wrong play is that it is opening night for the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society’s “The Murder at Haversham Manor,” one of those typical whodunnit Agatha Christie “Mousetrap” yarns.

Upon entering the theater, we were greeted by Mr. Chris Bean (Kalen Edean) in a white tuxedo. He’s Cornley’s director, box office manager, press secretary, and stars in the play as The Inspector. He’s just part of the action before the show begins as Trevor (Corey Vega), Cornley’s lighting and sound operator, and Annie (“Noah” Stephanny Noria), Cornley’s stage manager, are trying to get some last-minute fixes in place. Annie nabs a person from the audience to help her get a mantlepiece that won’t stay put and Trevor asks that we all keep our eyes open for a dog named Watson who has gone missing as well as his prized Celia Cruz CD that someone has swiped.

As the curtain is set to rise on Cornley’s show, Bean welcomes his audience to the drama society’s offering. As the audience is clearly regulars to the society’s shows, we’re asked to remember earlier productions by the company that were amended because of limited budgets – Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” became “Two Sisters,” and “Cats” retitled as “Cat.” There’s also the apology for the box-office mix up that led ticket buyers to believe they were seeing the blockbuster musical “Hamilton” rather than Bean’s little show.

It’s the beginning of much wordplay and absurdity that puts “The Play That Goes Wrong” on course.

The real director of Loxen’s production is Gonzalo Rodriguez who has his hands full with this one. The moment that “Murder at Haversham Manor” begins, it is destined to fail – the foreshadowing of Annie unable to get the mantlepiece in place cues impending disasters. But how to make it all believable? For one, he has his ensemble cast invested as ever in ensuring the laughs come naturally.

Pedro Balmaseda and Jorge Noa, the team of NOBARTE, have created the set, which is, indeed, the star of the show. Set pieces fall, a tall grandfather clock becomes a hideout, a bookcase wall spins to reveal another area, a beam that holds up the second level becomes displaced leaving two actors (Ryan Crout and Edean) trying to keep the furniture and themselves afloat and safe from a perilous fall. Props are misplaced or disappear – allowing the audience at one point to help locate a ledger. The placement of the lighting and sound designer’s work area at stage left gives the audience a bird’s eye view of Trevor’s workspace including the Cecila Cruz wallpaper on his computer screen. Nice touch.

It’s not just the set that’s falling apart around the cast – these amateur thespians have their own bungling that adds to the mayhem. The ensemble and the director of Loxen’s production hold true to the authors’ production notes ensuring the play’s parody and farce doesn’t turn exceedingly silly: “The actors of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society are not bad actors, but the victims of unfortunate circumstances . . . Everything must of course be played for truth and not for laughs or parody.”

Charles Haversham (Samuel Krogh) is late for his engagement party only to be found dead in his study. But Cornley’s deceased character is terrible at playing a corpse – it doesn’t help that the other actors are stepping on his hands and hitting him in his privates. And that the stretcher they are to take him out on breaks, leaving the corpse-actor to figure out how to leave the set himself.

There’s the bumbling butler, Perkins (Giorgio Volpe is a standout) – obviously unable to remember his lines, he’s written notes on his arms leading to frequent mispronunciations. Charles’ flapper-esque fiancée, Florence, (Hannah Hayley) gets knocked out cold accidentally and must be replaced by the stage manager who clumsily reads her part from the script. So taken by the spotlight, she refuses to give up the role when the fiancée-actress comes to, which leads to an all-out hair-pulling (or wig-pulling) brawl.

Charles’ duplicitous brother, Cecil, is played by Benjamin Leon IV, the real-life founder of Loxen. His character constantly flashes a cheeky smile or a wink at the audience breaking character and the fourth wall, but Leon does it with panache so that it is in keeping with the play and never a distraction.

Crout, as the dedicated best friend Thomas Collymore and brother to Florence, has much of the stage business to wrestle with – especially in a scene where he’s to take a phone call but is in the midst of holding set pieces in place. He’s also one of those called on the most for hefty doses of physical comedy (but the writers have tasked everyone with plenty of physical business), which Crout aces (see the aforementioned failing second level).

Ernesto Pinto’s lighting design successfully toggles between the 1920s murder mystery and the real world of the drama society’s announcements and pre-show antics.

Costumes by Vega, Florence’s colorful flapper sparkles, Thomas’ rugged marksman, and Cecil’s “Sloane Ranger” style – the British Preppy Look, all work exceptionally well.

The show that became “The Play That Goes Wrong” was first performed in 2012 at the Old Red Lion Theater, a classic London pub theater, later moved to London’s West End, then to Broadway and, in 2019, began its run off-Broadway. Written by Britain’s Mischief Theatre (specifically by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Layer, and Henry Shields), the writers were weaned on improvisational theater, which can so handily be seen in their farcical play.

Now Loxen has found its production a home at the Colony Theatre – a perfect fit where the 1935 Art Deco venue adds another layer to the play within a play.

By the looks of audience count, Loxen at the Colony hasn’t yet caught on. But this production should surely cement the company’s place on Lincoln Road. Its next run there is “Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” opening Dec. 13 and then another farce, “The Drowsy Chaperone” opening on Feb. 28.

But catch “The Play That Goes Wrong” before it goes away. Disappear from despair for two hours (not including an intermission), and enjoy a spectacular production that gets it all right.

WHAT: Loxen Entertainment’s “The Play That Goes Wrong”

WHEN: 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Through Sept. 22.

WHERE: The Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.

COST: $81.50 includes $6.50 service charge; $69.50 includes $6.50 service charge and $46.50 includes $6.50.

INFORMATION: 305-674-1040 or loxen.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Urban Film Festival Sets Dreams In Motion

Samuel Lee Fudge stars as Marcus Garvey in “Mosiah.” Directed by Jirard, the first narrative film about Garvey’s life will be screened during the Urban Film Festival. (Photo courtesy of Mosiah Film)

It was easy to dismiss someone like Kionne McGhee.

Once labeled “dyslexic,” “emotionally disturbed” and “borderline mentally retarded” it’s clear  that he’s come a long way.

He was raised in the Naranja Projects in South Miami, where he was one of six siblings who relied on their mother’s love, government assistance and any profits she eked out from the fields harvesting beans.

His father, however, wasn’t in the picture. Though not uncommon, missing male role models in his community proved to be devastating.

“During those times fathers were forced to make decisions, especially in housing projects, because they were not allowed to be shown on the lease in public housing,” says McGhee.

The absence made him feel ill equipped to fend off taunts by cruel peers and he lacked the support needed to navigate hostile attitudes and labels bestowed by torpid school officials.

Filled with frustration, it’s no wonder he answered the call of the streets. There  he battled his demons to escape from the anger and the pain. But even at his lowest points,  there was one person who remained firmly in his corner.

For when his mother wasn’t bending over picking beans she was on her knees in prayer,

She never gave up.

She  knew that he could do better than this.

And she knew that God had different plans.

Turns out she was right.

Today, McGhee is not only  a husband and a father, he is an accomplished attorney and author who currently serves as Miami-Dade County Commissioner for District 9.

In 2012, he was also elected to the Florida House of Representatives and served as the Minority Leader from 2018 to 2020.

His accomplishments and his triumphant rise to success has recently been captured on film and will be screened during the world premiere of “The Reject.”

The true life story directed by Bla G & Yonel Aris will be shown at 8 p.m on  Saturday, Aug. 31 at the.Lyric Theater as part of the 9th annual Urban Film Festival.

The free event, held over Labor Day weekend from Friday, Aug. 30 to Sunday, Sept.1 in Overtown, celebrates the craft of urban filmmaking through education, networking and distribution opportunities.

Marco Molinet, co-founder of  the Florida Film House which hosts the event, says that the festival is something that filmmakers don’t want to miss.

“We’re screening over 150 films,” says Molinet.

“We are doing five master classes, five meet and greets. We’re doing six or seven panels. We also have a media center where we’re doing non-stop interviewing with different media outlets. And then we have the awards ceremony and our Welcome to Miami (at Red Rooster) Party and a celebration of our 1st Take Youth Film Program.”

The celebration is particularly poignant this year given the role of  Kamal Ani-Bello, a former 1st Take Youth Film Program student himself, who stars as McGhee in the film.  The program provides hands-on training, education and leadership skills for those who are interested in cinema.

Molinet is astounded how Ani-Bello’s participation as a student has come full circle.

“(Kamal) was given a trophy by Romeo Miller on stage at the Urban Film Festival about four or five years ago,” recalls Molinet,  “And at that time, he told Romeo, ‘I’m going to work with you one day.’ Romeo said,. ‘Let’s do it.’ And now they’re working side by side, less than five years later.”

Ani-Bello, who is also screening his first short film “Pound Cake,” at the festival. is awestruck at how far he has come. He was 15 and in the ninth grade when he first got involved in the program.

“I think it’s every actor’s dream,” says Ani-Bello.

“I feel blessed. I’m grateful. I’m scared. I’m happy, excited and everything in between,” he laughs. “I think it’s truly a testament that anything is possible”.

Molinet agrees.

One of the reasons he hosts the festival is to urge filmmakers to hold onto what they want to achieve.

He remembers how his own  film festivals submissions were all rejected and how that propelled him to launch his own platform for urban filmmakers.

Good thing he did as it was a rousing success, right from the very beginning.

“We didn’t get into a film festival that comes here in June and then I launched my Film Festival in September that same year and it was sold out.”

And this is why Molinet urges filmmakers to hold strong and keep going even in the face of adversity.

“Imagine if you’re a kid or a young and up and coming filmmaker but your mom is telling you to go to medical school. “Art don’t make no money’ she’ll say. And then you graduate, make a movie, and then you scrape all your money together and spend thousands of dollars to submit it and enter all the film festivals and you don’t get in none. The dream is dead. Your mom was right.”

Or was she?

Molinet demonstrates that with platforms like the Urban Film Festival, you can gently tell your mom that your aspirations are from over.

He  says he knows he is right when he hears how much of an impact his festival has made on others.

“I’ve watched these filmmakers get better and better every year, and a lot of the filmmakers, they’ll come and they say, Marco, your film festival is the only film festival I got into, And it has kept me going,’

WHAT:   The Urban Film Festival

WHERE:  Various locations, “The Reject” will be screened at 8 p,m, on Saturday, Aug. 31 at The Black Archives Historic Lyric Theater: 819 NW 2nd Ave, Miami. Virtual screening of films are also available at uds.tv

WHEN:  Friday, Aug. 30 through Sunday, Sept. 1

COST:  Free

INFORMATION: For full schedule and programming visit urbanfilmfestivals.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.