THEATER

'Color Purple,' the musical, comes to Arsht

Celie, the central character in Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple, lives a life most folks would consider unendurable.

THEATER REVIEW

`Two Jews Walk Into a War' misses the mark

Seth Rozin's Two Jews Walk Into a War, a new comedy now launching a premiere-filled season at Florida Stage, has been likened by folks at the Manalapan theater to earlier plays by Neil Simon (The Odd Couple or The Sunshine Boys, take your pick) and Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot).

STAGE PICK

`Reasons To Be Pretty' at GableStage

Neil LaBute returns to familiar themes -- the premium society puts on appearance, the ways in which men and women drive each other crazy -- in Reasons To Be Pretty, his Tony Award-nominated Broadway play opening Saturday at GableStage. Erin Joy Schmidt and Ricky Waugh portray at-odds lovers in the show, which runs through Nov. 22.

THEATER

LaBute play goes from Broadway to GableStage

Neil LaBute didn't set out to create a trilogy of plays about our obsession with appearance when he wrote his twist-filled Pygmalion tale, The Shape of Things, in 2001. But then he came up with another play on the subject, 2004's Fat Pig. And in 2008, a third one, Reasons To Be Pretty.

THEATER REVIEW

Fort Lauderdale troupe gives good effort in rarely seen `Flora the Red Menace'

It was the show that introduced Liza Minnelli to the Broadway stage, winning her a Tony Award at 19. It marked the first musical comedy pairing of John Kander and Fred Ebb, the composer-lyricist team that would soon join Broadway's titans. Its initial run was short, just a couple of months in 1965, maybe because a musical poking fun at American Communists didn't seem too amusing barely more than a decade after the infamous McCarthy hearings.

THEATER

Shelter dogs go show biz in 'Dalmatians' musical

There are no divas among the cast of The 101 Dalmatians Musical, but plenty of stars. Take Rascal, the puppy with a broken leg who was rescued from the side of a road.

STAGE PICK

`Two Jews Walk Into a War' at Florida Stage

In Seth Rozin's new play Two Jews Walk Into a War, Gordon McConnell, and Avi Hoffman play characters based on two men who were really characters. Isaac Levin and Zebulon Simentov were discovered by NATO forces living inside a synagogue in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2001; though they were preparing to celebrate Hanukkah together, the men also clearly loathed each other.

THEATER

Review | 24-Hour Project an unpolished wonder

For three decades, the most notable coming together of South Florida's far-flung theater community happened at the annual Carbonell Awards, where polished productions and performances are honored.

THEATER REVIEW

Review | Playwright takes the easy way out when 'In Development' stops making sense

One of the great dramaturgical cheats is explaining away a piece's illogic -- or incoherence -- by revealing that everything an audience has just seen was actually a dream or some other flight of fancy.

THEATER

Florida Stage to present 'Laramie' sequel

In 2000, New York's Tectonic Theater Project presented writer/director Moises Kaufman's The Laramie Project, compiled from interviews with residents of Laramie, Wyo., where gay student Matthew Shepard was murdered in what is believed to be a homophobia-inspired hate crime.

THEATER

Playwrights planning 24 hours of magic at Actors' Playhouse

Andie Arthur, Christopher Demos-Brown, Elena Maria Garcia, Lucas Leyva, Michael McKeever, Andrew Rosendorf, Juan C. Sanchez and Mark Swaner are getting ready to pull an all-nighter.

'Hope Blossoms': About 30 artists will assemble to sing, dance, paint, drum -- and help women and children in need

Art doesn't just happen, but in the right environment, creativity can blossom in many forms -- painting, sculpture, photography, video, light, words, food, sound, dance and other performance.

THEATER

Review | Topol carries on the tradition with aplomb

You don't really want the latest tour of Fiddler on the Roof to crack open that ol' chestnut-of-a-musical and reveal something new.

'In Development' premieres at New Theatre

In Development, a new work by former Miamian David Caudle, kicks off a world premiere-filled season at New Theatre this weekend.

THEATER

Review | Humor tempers tension in 'El Método Grönholm'

What would you do for one of the most high-paying, prestigious jobs in the world? If it sounds like a faux-tanned Donald Trump should be posing this question with his trademark squint from the far end of a conference table, you're not completely mistaken.

THEATER

Topol's a role model

Chaim Topol does, as you see, have a first name. But professionally, the Tel Aviv-born actor is best known simply as Topol. And though his eclectic resumé includes everything from Othello to the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only, his signature role is a character dreamed up by Sholom Aleichem decades before Topol was born: Tevye, the Russian-Jewish dairyman who became the central character in the 1964 Broadway musical smash Fiddler on the Roof.

THE THEATER SCENE

Local actor fiddles around

Un-traditional casting: Miami Springs native Sean Patrick Doyle plays the role of Fruma Sarah -- the butcher's dead wife -- in the national revival of Fiddler on the Roof running Tuesday through Oct. 18 at Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

THEATER

Review | 'Wonderettes' comes close to marvelous

The Marvelous Wonderettes couldn't have found a better home than Actors' Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre on Coral Gables' Miracle Mile.

THEATER

'Monologues' unveils the Muslim-American experience

Growing up in Davie, Sahar Ullah remembers the awkward interactions, confused looks and frequent questions from friends and strangers alike about her hijab, the head cover she chooses to wear, and her religion: Islam.

THEATER

Review | 'Chamaco' resonates

An empty park, a dead body, a pool of blood. Cuban playwright Abel González Melo's Chamaco may sound like a murder mystery, but the play, currently on stage at Teatro Trail in Coral Gables, is more of a moral interrogation than a whodunit.