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Christine Dolen

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THEATER CRITIC

Christine Dolen
Christine Dolen has been The Herald's theater critic since 1979. She has been a fellow at the National Critics' Institute and at Stanford University, and in 1999 was a Senior Fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. She has served as a Pulitzer Prize drama juror and has won first place in arts writing in the Missouri Lifestyles Journalism Awards.
cdolen@herald.com.

Top Story

Raul Esparza performed a concert of Broadway music, pop songs and Spanish classics at the Arsht Center's Knight Concert Hall on Saturday.
Hobermann Studios

Concert Review

Esparza explores Broadway and his Miami roots

In his Arsht Center solo concert, the celebrated star offers a two-in-one musical experience.

  • Ken Clement plays a would-be lothario with a major mid-life crisis in Stage Door Theatre's 'Last of the Red Hot Lovers.'

    Theater Review

    ‘Red Hot Lovers’ sizzles at Stage Door

    Director Michael Leeds and an artful cast deliver a richer take on a Neil Simon classic. Photo Gallery Available

  • Scott Douglas Wilson tries to get his nervous bride-to-be to chill as Annemaria Rajala winds up for another round of criticism in the world premiere of 'Winter' at New Theatre.

    Theater Review

    ‘Winter’ premiere blows into New Theatre

    Robert Caisley’s new play focuses on battling, self-absorbed twins. Photo Gallery Available

  • Barbara Sloan, Annemaria Rajala, Scott Douglas Wilson and Nicole Quintana are featured in the New Theatre world premiere of Robert Caisley's 'Winter.'

    Stage Pick

    Playwright Robert Caisley concocts a witty family feud in ‘Winter,’ which gets its New Theatre world premiere this weekend. Annemaria Rajala and Scott Douglas Wilson (center) play fraternal twins who have grave problems with their late mother’s assistant as they’re trying to arrange the funeral service. Barbara Sloan (left) and Nicole Quintana (right) are also featured in the play, which runs through Feb. 19 at the Roxy Performing Arts Center, 1645 SW 107th Ave., Miami. Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 1 p.m. Sunday (additional 5:30 p.m. shows Feb. 12 and Feb. 19). Tickets are $40 ($35 Thursday and Sunday evenings, $15 student rush tickets). Call 305-443-5909 or visit www.new-theatre.org.

  • Dancer-choreographer Rosie Herrera's 'Dining Alone,' featuring Daniel Bourgouin, will get its Miami debut during the Miami Made Festival 2012 at the Arsht Center.

    Miami Made Festival

    Festival presents experimental theater, dance

    Life after dark links the theater offerings of the free lineup at the Arsht Center. Photo Gallery Available

  • Avi Hoffman (seated at center) plays a famous novelist in Parade Productions' 'Brooklyn Boy,' which also features (from left) Sy Fish, Candace Caplin, Ryan Didato, Blaze Powers, Michael Gioia and Jacqueline Laggy.

    Brooklyn Boy

    In Donald Margulies’ ‘Brooklyn Boy,’ Avi Hoffman (seated at center) plays a suddenly famous novelist whose life is upended. Also featured in the cast of this inaugural show from Parade Productions are (from left) Sy Fish, Candace Caplin, Ryan Didato, Blaze Powers, Michael Gioia and Jacqueline Laggy. The moving comedy opens at 7:30 p.m. Friday at The Studio at Mizner Park, 201 Plaza Real, Second Floor, Boca Raton. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday through Feb. 12. Tickets are $30. For info, call 561-291-9678 or visit www.paradeproductions.org.

  • Matthew Korinko's all-knowing Officer Lockstock (center) sings with the citizens he oppresses in Slow Burn Theatre's 'Urinetown: The Musical.'

    Theater Review

    Slow Burn’s ‘Urinetown’ hits its targets

    The musical satire in west Boca Raton takes on corporate greed, politics and theater itself. Photo Gallery Available

  • Jodie Langel plays a tormented mother, Eddy Rioseco her son in 'Next to Normal' at Actors' Playhouse.

    Theater Review

    ‘Next to Normal’ is deeply moving musical theater

    Actors’ Playhouse crafts a production that belongs among the finest in its long history. Photo Gallery Available

  • Teo Castellanos plays Wynwood, one of the many characters along a well-known Miami street in 'NE 2nd Avenue' at the Arsht Center's Carnival Studio Theater.

    Theater Review

    Castellanos returns to ‘NE 2nd Avenue’

    An award-winning solo show at the Arsht reflects life in multicultural Miami. Photo Gallery Available

  • Jodie Langel as Diana listens to the whispers of Eddy Rioseco as her son in 'Next to Normal' at Actors' Playhouse.

    Stage Pick

    A wife and mother struggles with bipolar disorder in the hotly anticipated Next to Normal, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical opening this weekend at Actors’ Playhouse. Jodie Langel plays the mom, Eddy Rioseco her son in the haunting, thrilling rock musical by Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey. Performances at Actors’ Playhouse, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables, are at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday (additional matinee this Wednesday only), through Feb. 12. Tickets are $48 Friday-Saturday, $40 other shows (10 percent senior discount and $15 student rush tickets except Saturday-Sunday). For information, call 305-444-9293 or visit www.actorsplayhouse.org.

  • Rachel Lomax, Lauren Butler and Monica Lynne Herrera play flight attendants engaged to the same guy in the Promethean Theatre's 'Boeing-Boeing.'

    Theater Review

    ‘Boeing-Boeing’ is a throwback farce

    The Promethean Theatre’s version of a Tony-winning Broadway revival fails to take off. Photo Gallery Available

  • Area Stage's 'Snoopy! The Musical' features Joshua Dobarganes (on the dog house) as Snoopy, Giancarlo Rodaz as Woodstock (front) and, left to right, David Harrison as Charlie Brown, Marilyn Caserta as Peppermint Patty, Brigid Kegel as Sally, Marc Alvarez as Linus and Anamari Mesa as Lucy.

    Theater Review

    Snoopy gets a musical at Area Stage

    The Peanuts gang resurfaces in a production staged by original director Arthur Whitelaw.

  • Kenneth Tigar and Elizabeth Dimon are best actor and best actress Carbonell Award nominations for Palm Beach Dramaworks' 'All My Sons,' nominated for best play.

    Palm Beach theaters dominate Carbonell nods

    Maltz Jupiter Theatre scores 25 nominations for South Florida’s top stage honor. Photo Gallery Available

  • Sonia Manzano, who has played Maria on 'Sesame Street' for four decades, is part of the 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' cast at Parker Playhouse.

    Onstage

    ‘What I Wore’ links clothing and memories

    Celebrity actresses bring the Ephron sisters’ poignant, funny play to life. Photo Gallery Available

  • The 'Jersey Boys' cast brings its entertaining, insightful look at Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons to a thrilling close at the Broward Center.

    Theater Review

    Like Frankie Valli’s voice, ‘Jersey Boys’ soars

    The best of the jukebox musicals brings the Four Seasons’ story back to the Broward Center. Photo Gallery Available

  • Composer Tom Kitt and playwright-lyricist Brian Yorkey won the Pulitzer Prize for 'Next to Normal,' which runs at Actors' Playhouse through Feb. 12.

    theater

    ‘Next to Normal’ at Actors’ Playhouse explores bipolar disorder

    The Pulitzer Prize-winning musical illuminates the highs and lows of manic depression. Photo Gallery Available

  • Donte Bonner plays the title role in 'The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,' a Pulitzer Prize finalist play about wrestling at the Caldwell Theatre Company.

    Theater Review

    ‘Chad Deity’ is a flashy, funny smackdown

    Kristopher Diaz’s play at the Caldwell skewers both wrestling and political stereotyping. Photo Gallery Available

  • Broadway actress and former Miss America Kate Shindle plays Sally Bowles in the Maltz Jupiter Theatre's production of 'Cabaret.'

    Theater Review

    Decadent dazzle and danger power ‘Cabaret’

    Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s revival features a strong cast of quadruple-threat actors. Photo Gallery Available

  • Arturo Fernandez (right) plays a recently sober ex-con, Ethan Henry his counselor in Stephen Adly Guirgis' 'The Motherf**ker With the Hat' at GableStage.

    Theater Review

    ‘Mother’ is a foul, funny gem

    GableStage crafts a hit from Stephen Adly Guirgis’ play with the unprintable title. Photo Gallery Available

  • Laura Turnbull plays the domineering mother to Skye Coyne (center) and Arielle Hoffman in 'The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds' at Palm Beach Dramaworks.

    Theater Review

    ‘Marigolds’ is a portrait of mom as monster

    Laura Turnbull shines in Palm Beach Dramaworks’ revival of a Pulitzer-winning play. Photo Gallery Available

  • It's a fractured fairy-tale world in the Infinite Abyss production of 'Snow White Trash,' featuring Zachary Schwartz, Jim Gibbons, Jordana Forrest, Angel Perez and Danielle Tabino.

    Theater Review

    ‘Snow White’ gets trashed

    Fort Lauderdale’s Infinite Abyss twists a fairy-tale into a raunchy, messy parody. Photo Gallery Available

  • Kenneth Tigar and Beth Dimon played a couple dealing with loss and guilt in the powerful revival of Arthur Miller's 'All My Sons' at Palm Beach Dramaworks' new home in West Palm Beach.

    2011 in review

    Moves, money and magic mark year in theater

    Florida Stage went bankrupt, the Coconut Grove Playhouse is still closed, and several companies moved to new quarters. Photo Gallery Available

  • Michael McKeever plays a Macy's Christmas elf in Zoetic Stage's production of David Sedaris' 'The SantaLand Diaries' at the Arsht Center.

    Theater Review

    ‘SantaLand’ is an irony-filled holiday gift

    Michael McKeever plays a wry-but-merry elf in Zoetic Stage’s gleefully irreverent show. Photo Gallery Available

  • Ken Clement plays Ebenezer Scrooge's former business partner in 'Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol' at Actors' Playhouse.

    Theater Review

    Ken Clement offers a non-Dickensian take on a familiar holiday tale

    Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol takes Charles Dickens’ beloved holiday classic and considers it from another perspective. Like Stephen King’s hefty new novel 11/22/63, Tom Mula’s one-man play takes something familiar (for King, John F. Kennedy’s assassination; for Mula, Dickens’ story of a redeemed Ebenezer Scrooge) and comes at it from fresh directions. So while the work is resonant and easy to grasp, it’s never boring. Photo Gallery Available

  • Ken Clement plays Ebenezer Scrooge's late business partner in 'Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol' at Actors' Playhouse.

    Holiday theater

    Two solo shows offer fresh views of the Christmas spirit Photo Gallery Available

  • Bill Schwartz as Mark Twain listens as Stephen Neal's George Bernard Shaw makes a point in New Theatre's world premiere of 'Twain and Shaw Do Lunch.'

    Theater Review

    Two literary giants get goofy over lunch

    New Theatre launches its new space with a fact-inspired world premiere about Twain and Shaw. Photo Gallery Available

  • Francesca Toledo plays Marie, Jesus Quintero is Woyzeck in an outdoor production of Georg Bruchner's 'Woyzeck' in Miami.

    Theater Review

    ‘Woyzeck’: Miami update of a German war story

    A Colombian actor-director reinterprets a German tragedy, with an assist from the music of Tom Waits. Photo Gallery Available

  • New Theatre artistic director Ricky J. Martinez and managing director Eileen Suarez celebrate the company's new partnership with Roxy Performing Arts Center theater arts director Charles A. Sothers and artistic director Jorgina Fernandez.

    Theater

    New Theatre gets new home near FIU

    The Coral Gables company is moving to Miami, partnering with a thriving kids’ arts organization.

  • Axy Carrion-Bannon plays aspiring cool girl Nancy, with Shira Abergel standing in for her beloved dog, in Thinking Cap Theatre's 'Death for Sydney Black.'

    Theater Review

    ‘Sydney Black’ fails to enlighten

    Thinking Cap Theatre’s world premiere doesn’t take down the genre it explores. Photo Gallery Available

  • Mark Della Ventura plays a security guard in the Alliance Theatre Lab's production of 'Lobby Hero.'

    Stage Pick

    Kenneth Lonergan’s ‘Lobby Hero’ was first staged in South Florida a decade ago, but the play’s stew of pithy comedy and moral dilemmas hasn’t aged one bit. In a crisp new Alliance Theatre lab production, Mark Della Ventura expertly a chatty apartment building security guard stuck on the overnight shift, a guy with constantly shifting life plans and way too much time on his hands. Della Ventura’s costars — David Sirois, Mcley Lafrance and Anne Chamberlain — are just as good. Catch this terrific production through Nov. 27 at the Main Street Playhouse, 6766 Main St., Miami Lakes. Performances are 8 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, 5 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $25 ($15 for seniors, $10 for students). Call 305-259-0418 or visit www.thealliancetheatrelab.com.

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