Broward Center Turns Twenty

That's right, South Florida's first true performing arts center opened twenty years ago, and they're putting up a special show  this Thursday (March 24) to celebrate: Neil Goldberg’s Cirque Dreams Broadway, co-starring singer Linda Eder (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel) and three time Tony Award nominee Marc Kudisch (9 to 5, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), and featuring a large cast of locals.

From The Miami Herald:

The production, which blends music, acrobatics and visual extravagance, aims to recap 20 years of Broadway history with tributes to The Phantom of the Opera, Fiddler on the Roof, Cats, Chicago, La Cage Aux Folles and other productions . By design, all of these hits have played — and helped financially support — the center.

“It seemed logical when I sat down with Broward Center — 20 years of Broadway in a celebratory fashion,” Goldberg, a 30-year South Florida fixture, says. “It’s a fit for them and the direction I was leaning toward even before I knew of the anniversary.”

Cirque Dreams Broadway will also feature local actors Max Greenberg, 11, of Hollywood, and Sammy Schecter, 11, of Coral Gables in the Oliver! segment. The South Plantation High chorus will perform the finale.

All told, 143 people will fill the cast.

Hmm, they forgot about the marching band. I happen to know there is an honest-to-god marching band participating in the show.

And they should have mentioned that Mark Kudisch is from Plantation, and came through FAU's theatre program.

Other highlights in the article:

• In February 1991, Broward Center for the Performing Arts opened its 224,500-square-foot facility with a touring production of The Phantom of the Opera in its 2,700-seat Au-Rene Theater. The venue was completed just a bit over the $56 million budget, and on time.
• by September 2000, the center’s 15-member board paid off the debt 11 years early and saved more than $2.5 million in interest payments.
• In 2004, Pollstar, a concert-industry trade organization, ranked the Broward Center higher in ticket sales than New York’s Radio City Music Hall and ranked it ninth in the world and first in Florida.
• In 2010 Broward Center’s Au-Rene ranked No. 12 in the world in ticket sales on Pollstar’s latest chart and still topped its closest local competitor, Dreyfoos Hall in West Palm Beach, which ranked No. 16. The growing Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami did not make the Top 100 list...

Tickets to Cirque Dreams Broadway can be purchased at BrowardCenter.org.  Also coming up: Video Games LIVE, the return of the national tour of WICKED, Spring Awakening (at the Parker Playhouse), and much, much more.