From Broadway blockbusters to intimate plays meant to rock an audience's world, the many professional theaters in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties will present almost every genre of theater throughout this challenging season.

Anyone addicted to big-name musicals can get a fix (and then some) from the rich lineup of shows at Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center and West Palm Beach's Kravis Center.

The Tony Award-winning In the Heights at the Broward Center in March should be the top choice for anyone who loves Latin music and inspiring stories. Another Tony winner, Spring Awakening, brings its rock-infused examination of troubled adolescence to the Arsht in May. The Oprah Winfrey-backed The Color Purple plays the Arsht in the fall and the Broward Center in the spring, and kid-friendly Mary Poppins lands at the Broward next June.

A pair of ongoing favorites -- Wicked at the Arsht in March and The Phantom of the Opera at the Broward Center starting Dec. 23 -- returns to pack 'em in yet again, as does the ABBA musical Mamma Mia! starting March 30 at the Arsht. Earlier that month, the Kravis brings the smash Four Seasons musical Jersey Boys back to South Florida.

Original Broadway/movie stars Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp headline a week-long run of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent at the Fillmore Miami Beach starting Dec. 8. And on a more intimate, yet still star-powered scale, Billy Crystal brings his warmly funny one-man show 700 Sundays to the Kravis and then the Arsht in December.

Several South Florida-based theaters also will tackle Broadway fare. The Madama Butterfly-inspired Miss Saigon by the creators of the megamusical Les Misérables, forms the ambitious centerpiece of a five-musical season at Actors' Playhouse (March 3-April 4). Broward Stage Door Theatre is also doing five musicals, the most glitzy of them 42nd Street, which opens Dec. 11 and runs into January. And to the north, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre will produce four musicals, including Jerry Herman's gender-bending La Cage aux Folles, which opens Jan. 12.

Thanks to New Theatre in Coral Gables and Florida Stage in Manalapan, anyone hungering to be in a play's first audiences has lots of enticing opportunities. And GableStage in Coral Gables, Mosaic Theatre in Plantation and Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach will offer interpretations of some powerful Off-Broadway fare.

At New Theatre, world premieres include ex-Miamian David Caudle's In Development, opening Oct. 8, and 26 Miles (about a Cuban mother who defies a custody ruling) by In the Heights book writer Quiara Alegría Hudes, which plays for a month starting Nov. 19. In May and early June, Actors' Playhouse will stage the world premiere of South Floridian Michael McKeever's Unreasonable Doubt, about a man who seeks vengeance for his daughter's murder. Miami Shores-based Naked Stage will give audiences a first look at Marco Ramirez's Macon City: A Comic Book Play in November plus the new works created in its annual 24-Hour Theatre Project on Oct. 12.

Among four world premieres planned by Florida Stage, the most intriguing is Christopher Demos-Brown's When the Sun Shone Brighter, about a Miami mayor's dangerous lust for power. It opens May 12.

Want a list of don't-miss plays? GableStage's daring season includes Neil LaBute's Tony-nominated hit Reasons To Be Pretty, opening Oct. 24, and Sarah Kane's still-controversial Blasted (Feb. 20-March 21). Miami's Mad Cat Theatre Company will bring a reprise of another Ramirez play, Broadsword, to the Arsht Center in April. It also will perform Shepherd's Pie by artistic director Paul Tei and Ivonne Azurdia in January at the Colony Theatre during the South Beach Comedy Festival.

The gems at North Miami's M Ensemble this season include August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean (Nov. 12-Dec. 20) and a stage version of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, playing for more than three weeks in June. Plantation's Mosaic Theatre has already kicked off its season with Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll (through Oct. 4), to be followed starting Nov. 19 by Christopher Durang's recent hit Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them.

Palm Beach Dramaworks will tackle Michael Frayn's brainiac physics play Copenhagen (Dec. 18-Jan. 31), after beginning its season with an Oct. 16 opening night for a rare South Florida production of the Henrik Ibsen classic, A Doll's House. Other worthy classics include Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter at the Promethean Theatre in Davie starting March 11, Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit at the Naked Stage in June, and David Mamet's re-do of Harley Granville-Barker's Ponzi scheme-themed The Voysey Inheritance at Boca Raton's Caldwell Theatre Company (Nov. 8-Dec. 13).

Two popular festivals celebrate big anniversaries at the Arsht this season. City Theatre's 15th Summer Shorts includes Signature, Undershorts and Shorts 4 kids starting June 3, and the 25th annual International Hispanic Theatre Festival salutes Mexico in July.

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@