MORE STORIES

• Critic's Pick | Rupert Holmes' 'Thumbs'

  Comedy and mystery entwine in Thumbs, a play by Rupert Holmes (yes, that Rupert Holmes, the guy who wrote Escape, aka The Piña Colada Song). Barbara Sloan and Angie Radosh team up to catch a serial killer in the play that opens Friday and runs through May 25 at Actors' Playhouse, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables. Performances are 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday (additional matinee May 14). Tickets for the gala opening are $100. Regular prices are...

• CELEBRITIES

  'Theater creature' secure in his role

  Harvey Fierstein, four-time Tony Award-winning actor, playwright and singer, has just turned down a part in an Adam Sandler movie.

• Critic's Pick | Sarah Kane's '4.48 Psychosis'

  A severely depressed woman nearing the end of her life wrote 4.48 Psychosis, a play about a severely depressed woman nearing the end of her life. The script for Sarah Kane's final play has sparked a wildly imaginative production at The Naked Stage, one that is nightmarish and dream-like, deeply emotional and surreal (and for adults only).

• THEATER REVIEW | THREE FITTINGS

  Bumpy patches aside, new play has a future

  As many a bride-to-be would tell you, a woman's wedding day is the stuff of dreams, meticulous planning and, quite likely, one of the costliest days of her life. Among the many steps toward the altar is the trip to a bridal boutique to find that just-right gown.

• THEATER REVIEW

  Holocaust play has powerful lesson, but little drama

  Bernard Weinraub's The Accomplices, a play about the United States' pitiful response to the Holocaust as it was happening, is a history lesson come to life.

• THEATER REVIEW | 4.48 PSYCHOSIS

  An engrossing march toward oblivion

  Something rare -- rare for South Florida theater, anyway -- is happening now at The Naked Stage. Most of the region's companies play it realistic and straight, producing scripts that tell clear stories from beginning to end. That can make for engrossing, satisfying drama, but audiences usually don't have to work too hard to extract the play's themes.

• PLACES

  Orlando gives fine arts a good ride

  Think ''Orlando,'' and what comes to mind? The muscle of the mighty Mouse, a sprawling Disney presence that draws millions each year? The screams of kids on the roller coasters at the Universal Orlando Resort?

• Critic's Pick | 'The Accomplices'

  What the United States did -- and didn't -- do to try to help Jews fleeing the Nazis is the subject of Bernard Weinraub's The Accomplices, opening at 8 p.m. Saturday at GableStage. John Manzelli and Ursula Cataan, along with Howard Elfman, Scott Genn, Joel Kolker, Wayne LeGette, Jessica K. Peterson, Kevin Reilly and Gregg Weiner, tell a story of failure in the face of genocide. The play runs through May 25 at GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables. Weinraub, who...

• They're still angry, and thank goodness

  Good drama is good drama. Period. Plays that last for decades or centuries endure because they so accurately depict timeless feelings, behavior and basic human truths that they resonate with us, even if they were written long before we made our entrance into the world.

• THEATER REVIEW| FROM THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA

  Difficult script masterfully played

  Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland experienced enough drama in her 61 years of life to justify a dozen plays. Born into poverty in Greenwood, Miss., she never knew for sure who her father was. At 11, she was raped by a white man whose granddaughter she was baby-sitting. He gave her $5 and sent her home, her childhood stolen. She became a teen prostitute. Spent time in jail. Had a baby at 16. And then, after a chance encounter with a civil rights worker, she found herself again.

• THEATER REVIEW

  Clever production doesn't miss a beat

  When Richard Alfieri's Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks had its South Florida premiere at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in the spring of 2003, it boasted a pair of stars (Rue McClanahan and Mark Hamill), a crowd-pleasing Florida story and obvious ambitions for a commercial Broadway run. With Hamill and Polly Bergen, the play hit Broadway that fall, where it managed just 54 performances.

• THEATER REVIEWS

  'Morrie' holds lesson for us all

  Inspiring and tender-hearted, Tuesdays With Morrie is a story -- told as a memoir, a made-for-TV movie, a two-character play -- that has touched millions upon millions of people.

• We had a wonderful evening -- this wasn't it

  Remember Groucho Marx? Unless you're of a certain age, or unless you're a fan of the artfully anarchic black-and-white Marx Brothers movies, probably not.

• Critic's Pick | 'Tuesdays With Morrie'

  Mitch Albom was a workaholic sports columnist and television commentator before he reconnected with Morrie Schwartz, the man who had been his sociology professor at Brandeis University. Morrie was dying, but through weekly conversations, he helped teach his former student how to truly live.