Miami Herald Logo

Island City stage scores a hit with ‘Have I Got a Girl for You’ | Miami Herald

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Site Information
    • Contact Us
    • About Us
    • Herald Store
    • RSS Feeds
    • Special Sections
    • Advertise
    • Advertise with Us
    • Media Kit
    • Mobile
    • Mobile Apps & eReaders
    • Newsletters
    • Social
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Google+
    • Instagram
    • YouTube

    • Sections
    • News
    • South Florida
    • Miami-Dade
    • Broward
    • Florida Keys
    • Florida
    • Politics
    • Weird News
    • Weather
    • National & World
    • Colombia
    • National
    • World
    • Americas
    • Cuba
    • Guantánamo
    • Haiti
    • Venezuela
    • Local Issues
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health Care
    • In Depth
    • Issues & Ideas
    • Traffic
    • Sections
    • Sports
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Pro & College
    • Miami Dolphins
    • Miami Heat
    • Miami Marlins
    • Florida Panthers
    • College Sports
    • University of Miami
    • Florida International
    • University of Florida
    • Florida State University
    • More Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Auto Racing
    • Fighting
    • Golf
    • Horse Racing
    • Outdoors
    • Soccer
    • Tennis
    • Youth Sports
    • Other Sports
    • Politics
    • Elections
    • The Florida Influencer Series
    • Sections
    • Business
    • Business Monday
    • Banking
    • International Business
    • National Business
    • Personal Finance
    • Real Estate News
    • Small Business
    • Technology
    • Tourism & Cruises
    • Workplace
    • Business Plan Challenge
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Cindy Krischer Goodman
    • The Starting Gate
    • Work/Life Balancing Act
    • Movers
    • Sections
    • Living
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Pets
    • Recipes
    • Travel
    • Wine
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Dave Barry
    • Ana Veciana-Suarez
    • Flashback Miami
    • More Living
    • LGBTQ South Florida
    • Palette Magazine
    • Indulge Magazine
    • South Florida Album
    • Broward Album
    • Sections
    • Entertainment
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Games & Puzzles
    • Horoscopes
    • Movies
    • Music & Nightlife
    • People
    • Performing Arts
    • Restaurants
    • TV
    • Visual Arts
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Jose Lambiet
    • Lesley Abravanel
    • More Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Miami.com
    • Contests & Promotions
    • Sections
    • All Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Op-Ed
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Jim Morin
    • Letters to the Editor
    • From Our Inbox
    • Speak Up
    • Submit a Letter
    • Meet the Editorial Board
    • Influencers Opinion
    • Blogs & Columnists
    • Blog Directory
    • Columnist Directory
    • Andres Oppenheimer
    • Carl Hiaasen
    • Leonard Pitts Jr.
    • Fabiola Santiago
    • Obituaries
    • Obituaries in the News
    • Place an Obituary

    • Place an ad
    • All Classifieds
    • Announcements
    • Apartments
    • Auctions/Sales
    • Automotive
    • Commercial Real Estate
    • Employment
    • Garage Sales
    • Legals
    • Merchandise
    • Obituaries
    • Pets
    • Public Notices
    • Real Estate
    • Services
  • Public Notices
  • Cars
  • Jobs
  • Moonlighting
  • Real Estate
  • Mobile & Apps

  • el Nuevo Herald
  • Miami.com
  • Indulge

Performing Arts

Island City stage scores a hit with ‘Have I Got a Girl for You’

BY CHRISTINE DOLEN

    ORDER REPRINT →

March 31, 2014 02:12 PM

Island City Stage may be a relative newcomer on the South Florida theater scene, but the artists at a company that isn’t quite two years old know what they’re doing.

Performing at Fort Lauderdale’s Empire Stage, the Island City gang won raves for their production of Dan Clancy’s The Timekeepers last fall. And now the company has crafted another, albeit quite different, show that’s likely to be a big hit with its growing number of fans.

Josh Mesnik’s Have I Got a Girl for You is as riotously funny as The Timekeepers was moving and serious. Star Mike Westrich, director Michael Leeds and sound designer David Hart were involved in both, but their work on each bears no resemblance, except for its high quality.

Based on Mesnik’s real-life experience — an experience that’s a little mind-boggling — Have I Got a Girl for You takes its title from a song in the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical Company. The play’s focal character, not coincidentally named Josh (Westrich), is a musical theater actor fresh out of rehab. Trying to stay away from the restaurant scene, with its easy access to the booze and drugs that got him into trouble in the first place, Josh takes a job answering phones at the high-end Boca Raton escort agency Fille de Nuit.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

The agency’s demanding, self-centered madam Gina (Sharyn Peoples) figures that her new gay employee is a safe hire, and as far as Josh having any sexual interest whatsoever in her hard-working girls, she’s right. But the former actor is a quick study, and before long he and working girl Ellen (Christina Groom) are figuring out how to launch their own agency.

Mesnik’s writing is sharp, funny and loaded with musical theater references that provide an extra layer of laughs for those who know the genre. The sexual conversation gets pretty graphic, as you might expect from a play in which the majority of the characters are prostitutes or their customers, but the comedic tone alleviates what otherwise could be creepy.

Leeds keeps the pace flying through 90 intermission-free minutes, which means quite a workout for Groom (who plays all the working girls) and Larry Buzzeo (he portrays the johns and Gina’s cheated-on hubby). Both actors use Peter A. Lovello’s costumes, different accents and changes in their physicality to create an amusing array of characters.

The tall, curvy Peoples, dressed by Lovello in a kind of trashy-chic style, makes Gina the sort of egocentric comic monster who happily crushes the weak. Westrich’s Josh, however, is anything but weak.

The actor nails the character’s withering wit, take-charge calmness and engaging charm. It’s an irresistibly juicy role, one that Mesnik originated in the play’s only previous production at the New York International Fringe Festival. Under Leeds’ direction, Westrich makes a man with a unique post-rehab story thoroughly appealing.

  Comments  

Videos

Apollo 11 capsule, Mahomes’ ketchup bottle: Creative sculptures made from cans

Parkland students deliver emotional performance at Tony Awards

View More Video

Trending Stories

Patriots owner Robert Kraft is among the hundreds charged in Florida sex traffic sting

February 22, 2019 12:23 PM

Trump threatens to deport Venezuelan military officials’ families that have fled to Miami

February 22, 2019 07:21 PM

It’s about to get easier for legal immigrants in Miami to get their papers. Faster, too.

February 22, 2019 03:14 PM

Government preparing to be sued in 2023, when the Keys stop issuing building permits

February 23, 2019 07:00 AM

Soldiers unleash tear gas amid tension on Venezuela’s border

February 23, 2019 01:03 PM

Read Next

See stars of the future at YoungArts Week Miami

Performing Arts

See stars of the future at YoungArts Week Miami

By Tracy Fields ArtburstMiami.com

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 20, 2019 09:46 AM

South Florida arts lovers can get a first look at stars of the future as 77 promising young artists from the southeast United States converge for YoungArts Week Miami.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to the Miami Herald

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE PERFORMING ARTS

Miami dancers donate talents for UNICEF

Performing Arts

Miami dancers donate talents for UNICEF

February 20, 2019 10:15 AM
Actor Gregg Weiner makes powerful Zoetic Stage debut in ‘Every Brilliant Thing’

Performing Arts

Actor Gregg Weiner makes powerful Zoetic Stage debut in ‘Every Brilliant Thing’

February 18, 2019 09:03 AM
III Points Music Festival is back with local, international stars

Music & Nightlife

III Points Music Festival is back with local, international stars

February 12, 2019 11:54 AM
The passionate humility of Ailey dancer Solomon Dumas

Performing Arts

The passionate humility of Ailey dancer Solomon Dumas

February 12, 2019 10:32 AM
Racism’s tragic cost portrayed in M Ensemble’s ‘Meet Me at the Oak’

Performing Arts

Racism’s tragic cost portrayed in M Ensemble’s ‘Meet Me at the Oak’

February 11, 2019 11:09 AM
Middle-school students’ ‘Revelations’

Performing Arts

Middle-school students’ ‘Revelations’

February 07, 2019 05:06 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Miami Herald App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Public Insight Network
  • Reader Panel
Advertising
  • Place a Classified
  • Media Kit
  • Commercial Printing
  • Public Notices
Copyright
Commenting Policy
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story